Sermon for Michael & All Angels
Angels and Hope
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
One of my favorite quotes from Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, is this – “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.” Hope means believing is spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.
I first heard this quote when I interviewed Wallis while I worked for Odyssey Networks in New York City. We were developing a new smart phone app, “Call on Faith,” and Wallis’ interview was one of the many we videotaped for use on that new app.
Wallis shared with me the story of how he came to believe that hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.
It was during one of the darkest times in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. Wallis was asked to come during Lent to South Africa to support the efforts of people there to end apartheid and also to provide support for his friend Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu. He had to sneak into South Africa because he was on their government’s “security list.”
Somehow Wallis got into South Africa. He went immediately to St George’s Cathedral to meet with Bishop Tutu and Allen Boothe, both leaders in the anti-apartheid movement. Other friends and supporters of the anti-apartheid movement were already at the Cathedral since there was to be an anti-apartheid rally. Even though the rally was scheduled, and the cathedral was already full, the South African government authorities informed Bishop Tutu that the rally could not, should not, be held, and that, if it were held, the police would shut it down.
Well, if you know anything about Bishop Tutu you can guess what happened next. The rally was still held. The small cathedral was packed. And, then, no surprise, once those at the rally were in the cathedral, the police, now numbering twice as many police as there were people in the cathedral, the police surrounded the cathedral.
As the rally began, the police broke open the church doors and entered the cathedral. They were armed. They also had pads and pens and tape recorders in their hands.
“Go ahead with your rally,” the police said, “and once we hear what you are going to say, Bishop Tutu, we will put you in jail,” just as they had several weeks earlier. “We own this place,” the police said. “We own your religion. We own you and your God. There is nothing you can do to stop us.”
As the police said of this, Wallis shared with me that Bishop Tutu paused and appeared to be in prayer.
Tutu looked at all of the police surrounding him and said, “Yes, you are powerful. You are very powerful. But, you are not God and I serve a God who will not be mocked.”
And then, Tutu smiled what is his classic signature smile. Wallis said he was amazed by what Tutu said next.
Bishop Tutu continued, addressing the mass of heavily armed police surrounding him and the others in the cathedral.
Bishop Tutu continued, “But, since you have already lost, we invite you to join us in this rally. We invite you to come over to the winning side!”
As Tutu said this, the entire congregation rose to its feet, people began dancing and then everyone sang and danced and moved the rally out into the streets.
Wallis said what happened next was the miracle – the police had come to arrest people, to have a fight. They did not expect dancing and singing worshippers. They did not know what to do. So, they just moved back and let the rally continue and sing and dance.
When Wallis returned some ten years later for the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first black President, Wallis was not surprised to find Bishop Tutu acting as the master of ceremonies.
After the inauguration, Wallis pulled his friend Bishop Tutu aside and asked him if he remembered that day at St. George’s Cathedral some ten years earlier.
Tutu laughed. Not only had everyone come over to the winning side, the bishop noted, now there was hardly any white person in South Africa who said they had not always been against apartheid!
But, more importantly, Tutu noted that faith always prompts hope and hope creates action that makes change. Faith, hope, action, change.
150,000 people gathered that day to celebrate the end of apartheid and the inauguration of South Africa’s new President, Nelson Mandela. Wallis said he had tears streaming down his face as he witnessed this historic occasion. Along with everyone else there that day.
The birth of a new nation, if you will. And a birth that could be traced back to that rally at St. George’s Cathedral.
When you have faith, nothing is impossible, even the conversion of white apartheid supporters, white supremacists, into people who care for others.
When you have faith, it is possible to see hope, even in the worst of situations, hope even in those dark days of apartheid in South Africa. For hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.
I thought of Wallis’ Bishop Tutu story as I thought about angels this week since we are celebrating Michael and All Angels at worship this weekend. Bishop Tutu certainly is an angel of our day.
However, some angels are much closer to home.
It was a particularly tough time for our new student shelter here at Mt. Olive. Run by UCLA students, our shelter had just opened and all of our ten beds were full. However, some City of Santa Monica staff and officials were unhappy. One of them even lied to us, saying she supported our efforts whle taking photos to show her colleagues. Yeah, that’s what she did, she showed photos to people in the planning department and fire department. Soon we were told we had to close and, before we could reopen, we would have to make some major building changes – adding a shower and sprinkler system, to name the major changes, changes which could cost upwards of $100,000. We closed.
Hearing of our plight, the first angel appeared. One of members called her friend, Robin Arcarian of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, and she told Robin about our shelter/city difficulties.
Robin wrote a column about our problems with the city. Shortly after that column appeared, my telephone rang. The angel Michael was on the phone.
Well, Michael was not an angel like Michael in the Bible, but he sure was an angel to us. A prominent local architect, Michael told me that his three children had all attended Mt. Olive’s preschool and UCLA. He was going to help us work with the city to get our required renovations completed.
Michael’s architecture firm did all of the drawings at no charge. Then, Michael went to one of the biggest construction companies in town and asked them to make the building renovations at no charge. Then, Michael went to the Santa Monica City Council, bypassing the city staff, and got the unanimous endorsement of the major and City Council for our efforts and $10,000 from the City Council to help us.
Most of you know the rest of the story. We will open this fall for our fourth year as the UCLA Bruin Shelter here at Mt. Olive. Later this fall our second local shelter, this one run by USC students, the Trojan Shelter, will open in downtown Los Angeles. Perhaps more importantly, our efforts to shelter homeless college students, the first in the nation, first noted in the media by Robin and the Los Angeles Times, these efforts have attracted media coverage across the USA, caped perhaps by the feature news story on CBS Sunday Morning earlier this year, a story which called our student run shelter, the first shelter for homeless college students in the USA, the most innovative response to student homelessness in the USA.
Because of many angels like Michael and Robin and our student founders Louis and Luke and Lauren, along with Darci and so many, many others, we have been able to bring the issue of student homelessness before the nation. But, without the angel Michael, none of this would have happened.
If we just stop to reflect, I think we all have angels in our lives, those people who help us in ways large and small and help us just at the right time. I hope you will reflect on the angels in your lives this week and thank God for them.
I believe, I know, that such angels exist and that they inspire hope. They inspire us all to believe in spite of any evidence to the contrary and then to watch the evidence change.
Hope – belief in spite of any evidence to the contrary and action to make the evidence change.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Click the link below for the video interview with Jim Wallis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2HBYpWvgUQ
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, September 28 & 29, 2019
