Let God Arise!

Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36

1 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered;

let those who hate him flee before him.

2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away;

as wax melts before the fire,

let the wicked perish before God.

3 But let the righteous be joyful;

let them exult before God;

let them be jubilant with joy.

4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;

lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds[a]—

his name is the Lord—

be exultant before him.

5 Father of orphans and protector of widows

is God in his holy habitation.

6 God gives the desolate a home to live in;

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

but the rebellious live in a parched land.

7 O God, when you went out before your people,

when you marched through the wilderness,Selah

8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain

at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,

at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

9 Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad;

you restored your heritage when it languished;

10 your flock found a dwelling in it;

in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.

33 O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens;

listen, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.

34 Ascribe power to God,

whose majesty is over Israel;

and whose power is in the skies.

35 Awesome is God in his[j] sanctuary,

the God of Israel;

he gives power and strength to his people.

Blessed be God!

Rev Michael Vanacore | Fort Washington Collegiate Church | 5/24/2020

Some years ago, I travelled to Saint Louis with a colleague of mine on an internship organized by Union Theological Seminary. I was assigned to a grassroots organization to assist in their work organizing congregations to press local police departments to address racial disparities and bias in policing.

My time in St. Louis coincided with the one-year anniversary of the killing of Mike Brown. While I was there, the protests, which a year earlier had captured the attention of the nation, erupted again. Together with my colleagues, we put on our clergy collars and vests and went up to Ferguson. The hope was that our presence would serve to put the police department on notice that the world outside--and God herself--was watching.

I will never forget the line of protestors stretching down West Florissant Avenue, and the line of riot police stretched out in front of them, the rumble of the military grade vehicles that rolled behind them, the angry hum of military drones as they hung low above our heads, the feel of the night that closed in heavy around us, and the smell of tear gas that brought water to our eyes.

I confess that, along with the physical fear that this scenario provoked, I also felt a strong sense of discomfort. As a white-passing man from out of town, I knew that this was not principally my place--this was a struggle of the black community in Ferguson against a police department, and entire society, that had violated their rights for generations. It was palpable to me that no matter my intentions, my physical presence as a white, male body, could never be neutral in the context of that struggle; it would always be read as the body of the oppressor.

Later that summer, on a day when there were no protestors or riot police out in the streets, I went with my colleague Ted to visit the street where Mike Brown had been killed. The street is quiet, just another residential neighborhood, and the site is marked only by a humble plaque set directly into the concrete of the sidewalk. “In memory of Mike Brown,” it reads. I remember like it was yesterday as Ted and I walked up that street in the cool August afternoon, stood silently at the plaque, and walked back to our rental car.

On our way into the neighborhood, I caught sight of a mural painted on the side of a building. I do not remember the exact images that the mural depicted, but I vividly remember reading the words, “And Still We Rise.”

These words come from the poem by Maya Angelou that has already been read in this worship service by our very own Deacon Devora Jones. They were rendered into a beautiful song by one of my favorite singers, Ben Harper. We will hear the song after the sermon has ended. And so it was particularly impactful for me to see those words written at the site of one of the most publicly recognized manifestations of systemic racism in the United States in recent years, as well as one of the most significant resurgences of rebellion against it.

There is something universal about these words, “And still we rise.” They capture something essential, something holy, and something true--not just about humanity, but about God.

Which brings us to the opening lines of our Psalm for today, Psalm 68, which reads:

1 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered;

let those who hate him flee before him.

2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away;

as wax melts before the fire,

let the wicked perish before God.

3 But let the righteous be joyful;

let them exult before God;

let them be jubilant with joy.

According to the opening lines of this Psalm, God defends the righteous and vanquishes the wicked. If this is the case, then God should bring to justice those who take the lives of innocent babies like Mike Brown or Ahmaud Arbery. If this is what it means for God shows up in our world, then Let God Arise!

The Psalmist continues,

5 Father of orphans and protector of widows

is God in his holy habitation.

6 God gives the desolate a home to live in;

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

but the rebellious live in a parched land.

According to these next lines of the Psalm, God is the parent of orphans and protector of widows. If that is the case, then God should shelter and protect all those who have lost mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers to this dreadful disease. If this is what it means for God shows up in our world, then Let God Arise!

According to the Psalm, God leads the prisoners to prosperity. If that is the case, then God should free the thousands who are sick and dying from the Coronavirus in our prisons and jails. If this is what it means for God shows up in our world, then Let God Arise!

And yet, if this is what it means for God to arise, why do we look around and the prisons are still full. The homeless are still on the street. And the killers of the poor are still at large? Are we to conclude that we were wrong about God, or that God is not there?

The scholar J. Clinton McMann offers us a clue as to how we can reconcile this apparent contradiction. McMann says, “Psalm 68 invites the people of God in all times and places to praise God by practicing the same compassion that characterizes God’s activity in the world. Only those who practice divine compassion can rightly claim that “God is on our side.”

He goes on to invoke Oscar Romero, who once said:

“There is a criterion for knowing whether God is close to us or far away: all those who worry about the hungry, the naked, the poor, the disappeared, the tortured, the imprisoned—about any suffering human being—are close to God.”

In other words, we can not just “leave it to God to arise all on God’s own.” We have to be the agents of that resurrection. If there are 100 million living on the street today, it is OUR responsibility to find them homes. If there are people sick and dying in our jails, then it is OUR responsibility--and our leaders with us--to set them free. And if innocent black children are still being killed, it is OUR responsibility to see that their killers are brought to justice, and the orphans and widows comforted.

And yet we have to be careful not to arrogate to ourselves the glory that is God’s alone. For I believe that God does not arise in history primarily through those who would let the oppressed go free, but rather through the oppressed themselves when they bring about their own liberation.

I am reminded of a quote from Maria Cervi, daughter of one of seven partisans brutally massacred in 1943 for their participation in the resistance against fascism in Italy. Cervi famously said,

“Nessuna conquista è per sempre. C’è sempre qualcuno che è interessato a toglierla, per cui resistere non è solo un dovere, è una necessità.”

“No conquest is forever. There is always someone who is interested in overthrowing it, and so resisting is not only a responsibility, it is a necessity.” It is in this refusal to be broken--to surrender even in the face of the most bitter defeat--where we see God truly arise.

And so I will conclude with those famous words from Maya Angelou. I see them again painted in large, bold letters across the wall of that low building around the corner from where Mike Brown was killed. It is almost as if God herself had written them there as a reminder for all to see: “And still we rise.”

“Out from the shacks of history’s shame, up from a past rooted in pain, I’ll rise, I’ll rise, I’ll rise, rise rise.”