Sermon preached at the KAIROS Prairie Regional Meeting, Alberta, 17 S 2006. 2 Kgs 5:1-15; Jn 13:13:1, 3-5, 12-15

Eckert, Rebekah

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 33Issue 1 In Honour or Dr. Erwin Buck Article 1211-1-2008Social engagement: risk and loveRebekah EckertFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationEckert, Rebekah (2008) "Social engagement: risk and love ," Consensus: Vol. 33 : Iss. 1 , Article 12.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol33/iss1/12Social Engagement: Risk and Love1Rebekah EckertPastor, Evangelical Lutheran Church In CanadaLethbridge, AlbertTexts: 2 Kings 5:1-15; John 13:1, 3-5, 12-15After the end of a long day I sometimes like to relax by readingchildren’s books. They have three advantages over adult fiction:they’re often funny, I can finish one in an evening, and they areusually infused with hope, not despair.So I got to thinking, after I read one recently, how might some ofthese fictional childhood characters react to present crises? Howwould Anne of Green Gables respond to climate change? How wouldthe Paper Bag Princess tackle child poverty? And what would JacobTwo-Two say to Ralph Klein?2I laugh at these questions, but I’m half serious. Our presentmodels of social engagement haven’t taken me far enough. I don’tknow how to solve these problems. As Elizabeth May (former headof the Sierra Club of Canada, practicing Anglican, and now GreenParty of Canada leader) says in her excellent book, How to Save theWorld in Your Spare Time, “Politics has been described as ‘the art ofthe possible.’ It is all about compromise and balancing interests.Never make the mistake of thinking the role of the citizen activist isthe same. Our role is the art of the impossible.”3So what are we to do? One thing these childhood heroes share inabundance is the courage and daring to tackle the impossible. RachelLynde, the fire-breathing dragon, and the Hooded Fang are notexactly pushovers!Nor is Naaman, of whom we heard in our first reading, a pushover.As the major warrior for the king of Aram, he shows decided antipathyto following the prophet Elijah’s advice to wash in the river Jordan. Andyet the person who mustered up the courage to get him even to considerseeking this healing is the little nameless slave girl. She had five countsagainst her: she is a slave, female, young, poor, a foreigner. All reasonsnot to venture a word out of place. Yet in her boldness she speaks thewords that lead to Naaman’s transformation, literally and figuratively.103Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2008I’d like to be as daring in our work. Others have said as much,too. In a recent article in Alberta Views magazine, Stephen Legaultraises ten questions to challenge Alberta’s environmental movement.Bluntly he says,Press releases and media events [alone] won’t cut it. We have to …find … vehicles for telling our story so that the public recognizes itas their own. We can’t communicate from behind our desks. Wehave to go to churches, to chambers of commerce, to communityforums, pool rooms, coffee shops, town halls, cinemas.4In other words, we’ll have to come out of our familiar, safestrategies, and find new, daring ways to communicate. Or, as Torontosocial activist Darren O’Donnell argues, “inspiring strangers to talkto one another will create positive social change, despite and becauseof the resulting anxiety and discomfort this may cause.”5 Notpreaching to the choir; more like converting your adversary.I haven’t seen too much success with this in the last while –perhaps because we’ve been preaching to the choir. I have been partof the social justice scene in Alberta for over twenty years, now –more than half my life – and I have seen us social activists losebattle after battle with the environmental and social bloodsuckers ofthe province. There have been a few successes – on the municipaland international fronts particularly – but the marches, the letters,the organizing have not been enough even to resolve the land disputeof the Lubicon Cree,6 much less stave off climate change.But what the slave girl teaches us, what children’s book heroesteach us, what Legault and O’Donnell and May remind us of, is thatrisk is worth it. If you love deeply, you’ll also risk all. If you refuseto risk, you’re also refusing love. The stakes are high … maybehigher than they’ve ever been before. When we open ourselves,create new ways to communicate, risk it all – alongside that willcome others or our own healing and opened hearts.Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet is another example of thatdaring risk. There are a lot of lovely qualities to Jesus’ act – anexample of servanthood, his great love for his friends, his word“made flesh,” embodied love, John’s Gospel’s version of theEucharist – all wonderful. Yet today I want to underline Jesus’ risk.Knowing this group of his beloved would likely run away at the firstsign of the arresting soldiers, knowing these friends will, in humanterror, flee for their lives and abandon him to his fate, nevertheless he104 Consensushttp://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol33/iss1/12strips off his tunic, pours the water, kneels at their feet. He tenderlycleanses those who will leave him to die alone.Ideally, of course, we too would be like Jesus. In that Alberta Viewsenvironmental article I mentioned earlier, the author even names suchlove as central: “Too often, advocates act out of anger and fear for whatis being lost. Until we are able to act out of compassion for one anotherand love for what remains, we will never gain ground, at best holdground, and much too often lose ground.”7 Yet as Jesus’ disciples knew,you don’t get love and compassion just by wanting to be so. You don’tget it by great inner resolve, toughening your guts into an impenetrableforce, trying to be the best darn social activist there ever was. You get itas Jesus got it: by knowing he had come from God and was going to God.It’s right there in the text: Jesus, knowing he had come from God and wasgoing to God, then proceeds to wash the disciples’ feet. He knew who hewas, and whom he belonged to, and to whom his future belonged.And this is Jesus’ gift to us: because of Jesus, we know who weare. We too have come from God and are going to God. We knowwho we are: the beloved of God, and whom we belong to, and towhom our future belongs.And that news is an opened door into the freedom of life – a lifefreed to love deeply and risk deeply. Jesus flings wide the door andcalls us in – to live life to the full, to risk all for such abundant life.May it be so among us. Amen.Notes1 This sermon was given to the KAIROS Prairie Regional Meeting,Alberta, on 17 September 2006. KAIROS is a Canadian ecumenicaljustice initiative group.2 Mr. Ralph Klein is the past premier of the province of Alberta.3 Key Porter Books, 2006, pp. 34-35.4 Stephen Legault, “Ten Questions for Environmentalists,” AlbertaViews, July/August 2006, Vol. 9, No. 6: 33.5 Review of Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance, andUtopia by Darren OîDonnell (Coach House, 2006) by Zoe Whittall, TheGlobe and Mail, Toronto, Saturday 24 June 2006, p. D7.6 The Lubicon Cree is a First Nation in Alberta which has been engagedin land rights efforts for many years.7 Legault: 35.Social Engagement: Risk and Love 105Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2008

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