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Preached by Hannah Ratliff on Sunday, August 1, 2021 at Shandon Presbyterian Church.
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Preached by Hannah Ratliff at Shandon Presbyterian Church on Sunday, September 5, 2021.
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Preached by Hannah Ratliff on Sunday, February 14, 2021 at Shandon Presbyterian Church. -
August 5, 2018
Ormewood Church
Hannah Ratliff
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Will you pray with me?
God, join us here, in this ordinary time and place. Use our hearts and minds, our ears and our imaginations, to bring Your holy presence into our lives. Amen.
This is from the book of Esther, chapter four, verses twelve to seventeen. Listen for God’s word for you.
When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I think that, culturally, we are really bad at saying “I need help.” We’re afraid it sounds weak. That the person we’re asking, or perhaps just those who know we asked for help at all, will think we’re incapable, or stupid. We’re afraid that people will see us as less powerful, less in control. In a world that is constantly measuring your value by what you have (whether that’s monetary wealth, cultural control, physical power or a million other manifestations), it is hard to acknowledge our own limitations. This world does not make it easy to take the risk of being vulnerable. Of saying “I need help.”
A lot of you may be familiar with the author, professor, and researcher Brené Brown, whose TED Talk[1] a few years ago became very popular online. Brown spent sixteen years researching human connectivity, and found that the people who were what she called “wholehearted,” – that is, they had meaningful and healthy relationships with those around them – they were all comfortable with the hard truth that connection requires vulnerability. Actually, she said it requires excruciating vulnerability. The kind of earnest and honest vulnerability that is scary. The kind that’s a risk. It’s pretty countercultural, but I think that same kind of vulnerability is necessary of our leaders, too. Esther shows us this perhaps better than any other Biblical story.
Esther is a weird book of the Bible by almost any standard. It’s one of only two books of the Bible, by my count, that are named for women (the other being Ruth). It is not set in Israel, and has little mention of Jewish culture, tradition, or faith practices. In fact, there is no mention of God by name anywhere in the book’s ten chapters. Unlike poetic books like Proverbs or Psalms, or sweeping grand books that tell stories of generations of people, like Genesis or Exodus, Esther is concise, tight, and plot-driven. Some scholars even call it a novella because of it’s reliance on narrative, the sort of stereotypical characters, and the clean resolution of the story.[2]
A lot happens in this book, so really quickly, let me give you a refresher of the book of Esther: Esther is this young Jewish woman in Persia, being looked after by her relative, Mordecai, who is also Jewish. After the foolish Persian king drunkenly exiles his queen for disobeying him, he decides to choose a new queen from all the eligible young women in his kingdom, and, through a strange series of events, chooses Esther, who then becomes Queen of Persia. A little while later, Esther is Queen, and her relative Mordecai, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, publicly embarrasses the king’s villainous advisor, Haman, by refusing to bow to him. So naturally, Haman then decides because Mordecai, a Jewish person, slighted him, that all Jews should be slaughtered, and he gets the foolish king to sign off on the order. Oh, also, the King has no idea that Esther is Jewish, and he’s effectively just signed her death warrant. Are y’all with me so far?
So the passage we read comes as Mordecai hears about Haman’s plot to destroy the Jewish people of Persia, so Mordecai begs Esther to use her position of privilege with the king to try and convince him to reverse this order. You have to understand that social convention in this specific place and time mandated that anyone who approached the King without being specifically asked for would be killed. Knowing all this, Esther agrees to approach the King without an invitation anyway, in an attempt to save her people. Basically, this is a crazy, very high-stakes soap opera. Think General Hospital, but in this case, there’s also the possibility of genocide.
Esther is in an unbelievably vulnerable position. For starters, she’s a woman in ancient Persia. Not a great start right off the bat. She’s also at the will of a king who we have every reason to believe to be irrational, brash, and pretty foolish. She has a little bit of power because of her role as the queen, which means that she’s more protected than a peasant woman of this time would be – essentially, she’s guaranteed food, shelter, and a degree of protection. But she also exists within a system of royalty that she’s only married into, and its a system that can be overturned by a violent coup at the drop of a hat, so her relative comfort now is not guaranteed by any means. She is also Jewish. Though it seems that not everyone in her life knows it, she is a part of a minority population greatly at risk in a foreign nation. Esther is vulnerable merely by existing. Those of us who belong to a population which regularly faces discrimination in our own time and place may know this feeling too acutely. So when Mordecai asks Esther to make herself even more vulnerable, she would have every right to say no. Every logical part of her should be screaming at what a ridiculous idea it is, to take her already-precarious position and seemingly hurdle it off a cliff. Approaching the king without invitation means death, and even if she made it that far, revealing her identity as a Jew could be her undoing. Esther has every reason to conceal her identity, keep quiet, and hope for the best. But Esther is a leader. She is wholehearted. She understands that the risk of vulnerability is a necessity.
This past week, our senior pastor, Jenelle, and I went to go see the documentary about TV host Fred Rogers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.” It was a touching, nostalgic, and heartening portrait of a man who devoted his life to educating, comforting, and ministering to young people everywhere, and I highly recommend you take the time to see it. But the thing that really struck me as I watched was the way that Mr. Rogers chose to be vulnerable with everyone he interacted with. When on the show or when visiting with children face to face, Mr. Rogers would often rely on characters from the show to talk to kids. One of the best loved characters, his family said in the movie, was Daniel Tiger, a little fuzzy hand puppet and mainstay of the show since it’s beginning. Daniel Tiger would often say the kind of candid, earnest things that only children do. In an interview while he was still alive, Mr. Rogers reflected on how he was able to say things as Daniel Tiger that he couldn’t otherwise, even if he wanted to. “I’m scared. I could really use a hug,” he said. “That’s a lot easier for me to say as Daniel, than for me to look you in the eye and say, as myself, ‘I could really use a hug.’” The world doesn’t make it easy for us to be vulnerable. But we find a way.
Though the book of Esther never makes explicit mention of prayer or God, Esther asks Mordecai, just before she approaches the king, to fast on her behalf, and tells him she will be doing the same. Fasting is a practice I don’t understand particularly well, but my limited understanding is that it allows you to refocus your attention away from yourself and onto something else. It seems a little counterintuitive to me that in this time of great need, when Esther is preparing to take one of the biggest risks of her life, when she needs strength the most, that she decides to abstain from food. But I wonder if that’s what vulnerability is in the first place. It’s a little counterintuitive, isn’t it? That the thing we need most is to open ourselves to the possibility of heartbreak, of rejection, of condemnation, of disconnection. The thing we need most is to look at each other and say “I’m scared.” “I love you.” “I’m sorry.”
Vulnerability means relying on something outside of ourselves to get us through something really big. Esther fasts for strength in preparation for this dangerous move she’s about to make. She doesn’t fortify herself with heavy food. She focuses on something beyond herself to help her get through the really big thing she’s about to do. She acknowledges her own limitations, she says she’s scared. She is, as a leader, about as vulnerable as you can be. And, if you aren’t familiar with the story, she prevails. Her people are saved, and a great celebration is held in her honor. She takes the risk of relying on God’s love when it is not possible for her to do this really big thing on her own. She says “I need help.”
Brené Brown said in her TED Talk that the people she studied who were connected, who were wholehearted, had three things: courage, compassion, and connection. She said that the connection was the result of true authenticity, and that it was made possible because that person understood and really believed that they themselves, flaws and history and mistakes and all, were enough. They believed that they were enough. Remember, friends, this day and every day, when the love is plenty and when it seems to have run dry, that you are enough. Because you are a beautiful, beloved, and incredible child of God, the God who holds us fast even when we say: “I need help.”
Amen.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability
[2] White, Sidnie C. Esther. Women’s Bible Commentary (p. 132).
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Hannah Ratliff
Columbia Theological Seminary
Preached April 12, 2018
*Note: This sermon was edited further after it was preached, thanks to the feedback of faithful and thoughtful classmates with new perspectives.*
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Will you pray with me?
Faithful God, we come to You wondering what Your word means for our lives today. We pray that the Spirit may move through this space and in ourselves. Give us new ears for hearing, new hearts for understanding, and new minds for learning. We pray all this in Your holy name. Amen.
Today’s scripture is from First Samuel, chapter one, verses 12-20. Listen now for the word of the Lord.
“As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.’ But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.’ Then Eli answered, ‘Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made.’ And she said, ‘Let your servant find favor in your sight.’ Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer. They rose early in the morning and worshipped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered her. In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked him of the LORD.’” The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I grew up hearing a lot about the story of Hannah. She wanted a baby so bad that she would pray and cry, and cry and pray. Finally, it seemed, she asked God the exact right number of times for her wish to be granted, and she was given Samuel, the real hero of the story. And that was it. That’s who I was named for.
That story never really added up for me, and in a lot of ways, even the full story doesn’t add up to me today. There is a whole mess of complicated implications about motherhood in this text that I simply don’t have answers for, and can’t get around to in the short time I have here. But something that confused me, even as a child, and that I wanted to make sense of, was why Hannah so desperately wanted to be a mother at all. As a kid, it seemed to me she had a pretty sweet thing going on. She had a great husband who loved her, took care of her, and didn’t seem to care about her fertility challenges. Hannah was being taken care of, and didn’t have to take care of anybody else. Sure, Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah gave her a hard time about not having a baby, but that was no big deal. I couldn’t make sense of what Hannah was so upset about. I couldn’t relate to the character whose name I shared.
When I was a kid, as soon as I could understand what motherhood – at least in my white, suburban, heteronormative context – looked like, I had some trepidations about the whole thing. Sure, I knew being a mom was a noble ambition – they were the ones, I was told, who put together the cells that made another life. They were the ones, in my experience, who taught you how to read, the ones who rocked you to sleep, the ones who held you in their arms in the hospital bed, locked eyes with you for the first time, and loved you, irrevocably, forever. But I was aware, from a young age, that there was another, grosser, side to motherhood, too. I saw, often, that Moms were also the ones that had to wipe the snot off your nose with their bare hands! They were the ones, I heard, that burped you every night after dinner, with the goal in mind being that you would throw up a little spittle down their backs before falling asleep! They were the ones, I was told, that drove you from softball practice, to math tutor, to trombone practice, and then made a hot meal for when you finally arrived home. Most of the time, they were even the ones who grew you inside themselves for the better part of a year, and then endured the visceral bodily horror of pushing you out into the world! It was absolutely wild to me that anyone would voluntarily go into such a vocation.
Needless to say, I have long been wary of the concept of motherhood. I’m still very unsure if it’s a task I, personally, feel called to take on. So, I couldn’t wrap my mind around why Hannah was so torn up about avoiding this thing that I just saw as a big, scary, gross responsibility. It probably won’t come as a shock to you that I now think I was very much missing the point.
One of Hannah’s most powerful lines of dialogue, in my opinion, comes in verse sixteen. “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman,” Hannah says. A worthless woman. Hannah knows that this is how the world sees her. Worthless. Cursed. Barren. According to the world around her, she has forsaken her only duty, to reproduce and continue the line of Elkanah’s household. It seems that, in Ancient Israel, a woman’s role was as a vessel for reproduction. And in such a world, someone like Hannah – well, her life would hang in a tenuous balance.
Not only did Hannah’s lack of children mean the absence of maternal responsibilities, but it also meant a significant lack of status and security. “Sure,” she may have thought, “Elkanah still loves me now… but circumstances change. Perhaps as my youth and beauty fade, he might come to think of me differently. Perhaps another wife will come into the picture and he will forget about me entirely. Perhaps that nasty Peninnah will take the opportunity to gain the upper hand, and cast me out of the picture.” Hannah’s lack of children put her at great practical risk. I imagine that there was a constant, nagging worry: would today be the day that her safety, her protection, and the only family she had would be snatched out from underneath her?
But practical concerns weren’t the only thing at play here. I think it’s easy to reduce our understanding of Ancient Israel as a place where people were simply desperate to survive, and had little time to bother with complicated feelings or crises of identity. This is untrue, and I think it’s a disservice to the text. No, I am certain that beyond securing what could have been a precarious position as Elkanah’s wife, there was something else going on in Hannah’s desperation for a child. Though motherhood in Ancient Israel was the establishment of a solid, embodied familial tie between husband and wife which could not be undone, it was something more – it was the creation, also, of a new connection, between mother and child, a connection that was likely more remarkable and earnest than most young women had ever experienced before. Motherhood was a more secure social status, sure, but it was also a new relationship, with another person who, instantly, loved you in a way unlike any other. It was someone who looked at you with wonder, who looked to you for comfort, who looked at you in gratitude. It was a connection that meant something, and it was one worth fighting for.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Hannah wanted to be accepted by the culture and community that she was a part of. She wanted to be validated by her peers, secured in her position as a wife in her household. She probably wanted to shut Peninnah up. But I think she also wanted something else – she wanted a relationship with a child who would love her, who she would love, in the complicated and fraught, but often beautiful and mysterious bond which mothers share with children. So that makes it all the more poignant, and confusing, that once she gets the child she has been praying and hoping for, she gives Samuel as a gift to God, to be raised in the Temple – apart from her.
Hannah wanted a connection, I think. She did not want to be seen as a worthless woman. She begged God to help, to give her the worth that she thought she lacked and to solidify her connections in this world. And then, as soon as she got this wish, she seemed to hand it away. It makes me wonder if this whole thing was really about the baby at all.
I don’t think that God ever saw in Hannah the woman that the rest of the world did. I don’t think that God ever saw Hannah as worthless, childless, alone. I think that God heard the prayers of a woman who was hurt by the world around her, a world that told her that because she had not given birth, she did not matter. I think that God heard the prayers of a woman who was growing weary of the constant, searing ache of loneliness. I think God heard the prayers of a woman who was begging to be told that she was worth something, and that someone looked at her with wonder, and loved her with a connection beyond comprehension. And I think that God responded with the message God provides to each of us, today and every day: That we are worthy, no matter how many times the world around us may say otherwise, because we are loved beyond measure by the creator of the universe.
Our world is constantly bombarding us with attacks on our self-worth. Look around and you’ll hear and see the sometimes subtle, insidious messages implying inferiority: It takes years, decades — whole lives, even — for many women, like myself, to start to love and appreciate the bodies that they have long been told aren’t attractive enough, lean enough, good enough. From the first day we’re sent to school, we’re raised in academic competition with one another, and if you don’t come out on top every time with a perfect test score, you can start to think maybe you weren’t that smart after all. Instead of collaboration, many American industries reward cutthroat rivalries, with clear winners and losers. Getting a position of power and authority is often prioritized far higher than ethics like collaborative thinking, or — gasp — compassion for the person presented as your competitor. If you’re not the wealthiest, the smartest, the most attractive… then, well, the world has no problem telling you that you’re worthless. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman.
If you’re a person struggling with infertility, you are a beloved child of God. If you come from a home with an absent mother, or were raised in the foster care system, or you are a child of adoption, or your relationship with your mother is strained or broken, you are a beloved child of God. If you got passed over for that promotion, or were let go from your dream job, or can’t seem to get called back for an interview, you are a beloved child of God. If you failed that Hebrew exam, or got a C on an exegesis paper you were really proud of, or just can’t seem to get through Ordination Exams, you are a beloved child of God. If you are a trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary person, you are a beloved child of God. If you are struggling with your weight, battling an eating disorder, or both at once, you are a beloved child of God. If you have had a hysterectomy or mastectomy, or have lost a limb, or are differently-abled, you are a beloved child of God. If you just don’t feel at home in your body, or your mind is a place ravaged by fear, and anxiety, and confusion, you are a beloved child of God. You are a beloved child of God.
What was Hannah asking for when she prayed to God? Was she asking for a baby in her belly? Or maybe something else? I think, like many of us, Hannah was begging God to look at her, and say, as God has so many times:
My sweet child! You are worth more to me than you can fathom! You are worth all the jewels of the ground, and all the stars of the sky. You are beautiful, you are bright, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are made in my image, and I remember you always in love.
God said this to Hannah. I pray that you may hear it as God whispers it to each and every one of you. Amen.
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Hannah Ratliff
Columbia Theological Seminary
March 19, 2018
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Will you pray with me?
Gracious God, we pray that You might join us in this space as we try to decipher Your holy word. Help us to hear this story with new ears and bright imaginations. Burst forth in this space, Lord, and help us to understand You more fully. Amen.
A reading from the book of John, chapter 20, verses 11 to 18. Listen now for the word of the Lord.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord;” and she told them that he had said these things to her.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I recently finished a novel by author Jean Rhys called Wide Sargasso Sea. If you aren’t familiar, the book is a prequel of sorts to the classic Jane Eyre, told largely from the perspective of the character known as Bertha Antoinetta Mason, Mr. Rochester’s secret first wife. As we know from Jane Eyre, Rochester keeps Bertha hidden in the attic to protect her — he seems to think — from her own insanity. I apologize if this is a spoiler to you, though I will say Jane Eyre was published in 1847, so I think you’ve had more than enough time to read it. Anyhow, toward the conclusion of Wide Sargasso Sea, we find the main character (Rochester’s first wife) grieving the fact of her captivity and reflecting on how she arrived in her present condition. And as she reflects, she begins to contemplate the importance of names. She remarks that her “caretaker,” who is more accurately a prison guard, should not be named Grace. “Names matter,” she says. “Like when he wouldn’t call me Antoinette, and I saw Antoinette drifting out of the window with her scents, her pretty clothes, and her looking-glass.”
Antoinette’s reflections, though it becomes clear she is indeed descending into madness, hint at something true. Names matter, and the way we use them – or in Antoinette and Rochester’s case, fail to use them – matters, too. Names are possibly the most succinct and direct indicators of our identity and humanity that we have to offer. They reflect our personal, individual identities, as well as our connections to others. They say something about where we’re from, who our parents are, when we were born, and our religious backgrounds. Research suggests that your name can affect what sort of jobs you’re offered, the grades you receive, even who you marry. In a culture as individualistic as ours, the ownership associated with a name that is uniquely your own is paramount. Tied up in our names is a sense of self, in many ways, an essence of who we are, where we are from, and what we will be.
I think most people have a story about their name, whether it is the one they were given at birth, or the one that they chose for themselves. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to tell you a bit about mine. My first name, Hannah, is from a play that my mother was in as a high schooler, which she recalled years later when she found out she was having her first and only daughter. My first middle name is an homage to my Grandma’s middle name, Esther (which my Grandma requested I not be named, because she always disliked the way it sounded). My second middle name is my mother’s maiden name, the solidly German family name of the grandfather who I never got to meet. My last name, of course, is Ratliff, my father’s name, probably changed from “Redcliff” at Ellis Island years ago. My name is a collection of stories that led up to my coming into the world. It’s a quilt of the hopes and dreams that were pinned to my birth, and the journeys that eventually made possible my arrival.
You’ll understand, then, why things change for Mary once she hears her name called out loud. It isn’t until she hears the sound of her name – the very marker of her identity being seen, acknowledged, and spoken – that she realizes, I imagine with some shock, exactly who it is that’s standing before her. She hears her name and everything that it holds – the beautiful and the horrifying, the joy and the pain, her past and her future – and only then is she able to recognize that the living God, the Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace is back, and he’s standing right there in front of her. Something happens when Mary hears her name. When Mary hears her name spoken aloud, she knows that she is seen by God, that all her past, all her failures, all her aspirations, all her longings, all her heartbreak, her rage, her secrets, her love, her wonder – all of it, all of her, is seen. It’s only then that she is able to believe in the resurrection. Once Mary knows that she has been seen and recognized by God, then her eyes readjust, and she knows who it is she’s talking to.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this, either. Saul regains his sight only after Ananias calls him “Brother Saul” in Acts 9:17. The scales fall from his eyes and then, it seems, he is able to comprehend the magnitude of who Jesus is, and begins to understand what it is that’s being asked of him. It takes hearing his name to know that he is seen by God, in all his brokenness and bigotry, and is still being called to change, to grow, and to love God’s people. Saul adopts a new name, Paul, not long after his eyes are re-opened. He honors this change in his life with a change of his name, not eliminating his past, but instead building the possibility of a new future. When we honor one another’s names the way that Ananias does here, we are doing, in a small way, the work of Jesus. When we speak each other’s names, we tell one another that we see each other, we see the history, the complexity, the culture, the beauty, and the heartache that are tied up in our names. Speaking one another’s names is an act of recognition, compassion, hospitality, and love, and sometimes it can be the thing that opens our eyes to the promise of resurrection. It is a beautiful gift that I urge you to offer one another.
I try to be pretty open about my own personal challenges with mental illness, though that’s a phrase that still frightens a lot of people. As an undergraduate student, after what I realize now were many years of dealing quietly with thoughts and anxieties that I assumed were also happening to others, I was diagnosed with dysthymia, which is defined as “persistent mild depression.” It’s sort of an umbrella term, a catch-all for when people are feeling depressed or anxious but are able to cope with it okay for a long time. I’ve also self-diagnosed with anxiety, particularly social anxiety. Particularly as a high schooler and often during my time in undergrad, I felt very much invisible to the people around me. I tried my best not to be noticed, not to make too much of an impression, disturb the norm or make a fuss. The only things I were involved in as a high school student were choir and the school newspaper. In both, I could achieve a degree of anonymity: the choir I was in was not the prestigious 16-member Chamber choir, but the one open to all, which had over 150 members. Of course, as a writer for the school newspaper, my name was out there, but I was able to keep my thoughts on a page, which I often hid behind. I never felt seen. Aside from the handful of close friends who I clung to, no one at school called my name. I thought I was protecting myself by remaining invisible, but it eventually felt crushing. After a monumental experience of feeling seen, accepted, valued, and known during a summer working with a group of people who started off as strangers, I realized I needed that connection, that recognition, that acknowledgement in my life every day. I needed someone to be calling my name. I think that if we’re honest, we’re all hoping for someone else to see us, know us, and say “Hi Emily,” “Hi Josh,” “Hi Szabina.” I know you. I know your name.
In a book on the intersection of family and religion in the Ancient Near East, scholars Rainer Albertz and Rüdinger Schmitt suggest that new mothers in Ancient Israel spent the seven-day period of ritual impurity after childbirth in isolation with only themselves and their newborns. They go on to say that it was often during this sacred time between mother and child that mothers would select the name of the person they just brought into the world, and then end their time apart from the rest of family with a celebratory feast, at which the child’s name was announced. Names in this time and place, Albertz and Rüdinger say, many times had something to do with how the birth went. In Hebrew, Mary means something like bitter or rebellious. I wonder if maybe her mother gave it to her after a particularly harrowing childbirth. Maybe even it had to be given to her by an aunt or an older sister after her mother bled out during the agonizing struggle of labor. We can’t know exactly what it was, but chances are there was a story behind Mary’s name. Jesus knew that story, knew the pain and the promise that were attached to her name. And he knew that when he spoke it, that when Mary heard that she was truly and fully seen by the Lord her God, that then and only then she would be able to see the miracles in her midst.
May it be so for all of you. Amen.
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Revelation 22:1-7:
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit each, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
And he said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.’
‘See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’”
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Hannah Ratliff
Village Presbyterian Church
The Gathering
August 13, 2017
Just a few lines prior the words that Matthew just read for us, John clarifies that this is his description of the kingdom of heaven, the New Jerusalem, which was revealed to him in a glorious vision. When I close my eyes to try and imagine what John’s describing, I catch glimpses, but there’s so much of it that’s beyond my reach. How can one tree be on two sides of a river? How can a tree’s leaves heal all that ails us? How is a throne also the source of a magnificent river? How can we move and exist in the midst of a city which has a river rushing through its main street? John is trying to do us a favor by using the world we know, the city we’re so familiar with, the trees and rivers we walk by every day, to try and help us grasp the beauty of the kingdom, but my imagination falls short a bit. Here, you try.
Close your eyes with me, try not to feel too silly. Come on, I can see you! Close your eyes.
Imagine the kingdom… What does it look like? Are the colors more vibrant and beautiful than anything you’ve ever seen? Does the river’s water play in the dazzling light? Can you hear it? The rustling leaves of the tree — our healing leaves… the babbling of water… the happy, contented sigh of God’s people, finally rejoined with God in heaven. Alright, you can open your eyes.
So the problem is, we can only imagine what John sees, but he gets the whole thing, the kingdom in full view, more spectacular and glorious than anything our minds can comprehend. Instead of simply saying “it’s beyond you,” he tries to use earthly concepts to help us understand. “It’s like the most beautiful river you’ve ever seen… but even purer and more crystalline. It’s like the strongest, most fruitful tree, but it’s somehow everywhere all at once, and it grows year-round. It’s like the most amazing city you’ve ever been to… but so much better.” It’s the world we know, the one we love and cherish, but even more spectacular than we could imagine.
As I was trying to start writing this sermon, I asked our senior pastor, Tom Are, for some help digesting this verse. Sitting in his office, he asked me: “Well Hannah, what does hope mean to you?” …You ever have that moment when one of your heroes asks you a profound question about faith and the human condition and your mind just kind of goes blank? Well, I fumbled for a moment, and then I regained consciousness and said something about hope being the “ultimate motivator.” I said, “I think it’s the little voice in the back of our minds that keeps saying ‘What if we get it right this time?’ I think it’s an irresistible voice, and I think it’s one that everybody has, no matter how deep down it is or how quiet it gets.”
Tom told me he didn’t know if that was true. He said, “I know some people who have been hurt too many times, and can’t bring themselves to hope again. I think you’re onto something,” he said. “It’s just that not everyone is as hopeful as you are.” I had to mask my surprise, since most days, I think I’m kind of a cynic.
It’s not hard for me to get disillusioned about the world. We are constantly bombarded by stories of parents mourning their children. Stories of trusting people being taken advantage of, their lives destroyed by the greedy. Stories of the powerful casually and callously threatening war and destruction on a daily basis. Stories, often too close to home, of prejudice and bitter, bitter, hatred being spit out of our mouths. Stories like the ones of our brothers and sisters in Charlottesville, whose lives are on the line because of the racism and white supremacy that we tricked ourselves into thinking we had already conquered. Sometimes my hope feels pretty flimsy. But I don’t think it’s ever disappeared entirely, sometimes to the point where I am frustrated by its persistence.
My parents can attest to the fact that I regularly take over our kitchen to bake sweets. I have been known to make a cake without any need for an occasion, a pie just for the heck of it, or brownies from scratch because I needed something to do. Most of the time, I stick to recipes that are comfortably in my wheelhouse, old standards I know I can make easily and pretty well. But every once in awhile the siren song of a new recipe comes calling. German chocolate cake, berry linzer bars, chocolate and berry pie… I diverge from my old faithful recipes and venture into uncharted territory. Sometimes it works. Many times, it has not. With every failure, my parents and friends assure me that my creation is “still good” even if it “looks a little funny.” There was a time when I tried to pick up a pan of cookie bars from the oven with one hand because I didn’t feel like finding a second oven mitt, but the pan was heavier than I anticipated, and it tilted to one side. The bars, still hot and soft from the oven, slipped right out of the pan and landed in a heap on the open oven door. We scooped them off and ate them in spoonfuls anyway.
When my creations aren’t quite what I expected, my parents and friends, in their politeness, assure me that it’s “still pretty good.” But I can’t shake the frustration of knowing that it’s not quite what it’s supposed to be. It isn’t right, it isn’t how it was intended to turn out. It’s all supposed to be… better.
Now, I fully recognize that these are pretty low-stakes situations. If my pie, my beautiful pie that I had such high hopes for, instead of tasting like rich delicious chocolate, flaky crust, and sweet yet tart berries, instead tastes like charred cardboard, well, it’s not the end of the world. Only I and my sous chef will ever know. But it’s still so frustrating to me to know that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. And yet…. I keep trying. Every time that I literally taste defeat, I’m disappointed, and I know I got it wrong. But I still wonder: what if the next time that I try this, what if that’s the time I get it right? What if this time, if I just try once more, it all comes together just as it was intended, each part working together harmoniously, into the amazing creation it was meant to be all along? What if the next time is the time we do things the way they were always supposed to be?
What if the next time you intervened when you saw someone being harassed because of their gender, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, or race, you saved a life? What if the next time that you choose not to be silent, but to speak out for the protection of our brothers and sisters who have been unduly oppressed since our nation’s founding, you inspired another person to do the same? What if we believed, I mean really believed, that through God’s love, we could radically change the world? I wonder if maybe, that’s what living in hope is. Living like it’s possible for the next time to be the time. The time that God is fully revealed to us, the time when it all comes together and all is made right. I wonder if maybe living like that would change the way we look at the world, and look at each other. I think it has for me.
The frustration of hope, and often the cause of our deepest, rawest sorrow, is that we know it always comes with a risk. Hoping is an act of rebellion. It can defy logic, it can defy reason, it can defy reality itself. It rarely makes sense, and for me, it often feels counterintuitive. To hope means that we allow ourselves the possibility of disappointment. To hope means not that we ignore the very real possibilities of danger, rejection, and heartache, but that instead, we listen to the tiny voice that wonders if maybe this is the time when all those things we’re afraid of fail. The voice that wonders if maybe this is the time that love, justice, mercy, and peace, prevail. But in order to hope, we have to confront the reality of the more frightening possibilities. It’s a scary thing to do.
Maybe it is naive of me to think that hope never quite dies for each of us, even in our very darkest hour. I know that in my first 22 years of life, I have experienced far less pain and heartbreak than many others, and likely many of you have faced pain that I cannot comprehend. So I can’t speak from my own experience. But I can speak from the scripture, which tells us stories time and again of God sitting with us through the very darkest times of our lives, and promising us that we will be reunited on that beautiful day when all is made right.
In less than two weeks, I will leave Kansas City for a place I have only visited for a few days. I will start classes in seminary, at a school where I know only a handful of people. I will pour most of my time, energy, and money into a future that is not guaranteed to me. And I’m very aware of the fact that this comes at a risk of failing. Those doubts linger in my mind most of the time: “What if I get there and no one likes me? What if I can’t keep up in my classes? What if I embarrass myself in front of everyone? What if I dedicate three years of my life, not to mention most every penny I have, to getting this degree, only to realize I’m no good at ministry? What if I can’t find a job after I graduate? What if I’m a terrible preacher and everyone’s too polite to tell me so?”
…And then that voice, the one that is often so much quieter than all the others, comes back: …what if it works?
I can’t claim to live like this every day, but I think Jesus wants us to live listening to that voice. That voice is what’s telling me to leave for Atlanta in a matter of days. I think the promise of the kingdom that John tells us about in Revelation is supposed to assure us that one day, it is going to work. One day, God is going to make right all that is wrong. One day the city and the river will, somehow, exist in harmony and peace together, even if we don’t yet understand how that could be. One day the city will be not a dangerous place, a place of suffering and loneliness, but a place where all God’s children will be together in faith and love, even if we have never seen that happen before. One day the water and the fruit will be clean and plentiful for all people, even though we now live in a world where so many are denied access to the food and water they need to survive. One day the brilliant light of God will mean a day with no end, one like we have never seen before. John knows it to be true. He’s seen it for himself. We, on the other hand, have the harder job of taking his word for it. And believing in that kind of hope has a risk. The fact is that we don’t know when God’s promise will be made real for us, and some days, we wonder if it will at all. That feeling of not knowing can be terrifying, and it can be painful. Some of you may know that even more deeply than I do. But hoping for that word to be made real, and living every day like the promise could be redeemed today, that’s what Jesus is calling us to do.
Hannah Ratliff 