Mark 1:9-11
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
August 23, 2020
“Here we are—Energy, Mass, Life, Shaping Life, Mind, Shaping Mind, God, Shaping God. Consider—we are born not with purpose but with potential.”
These are the opening words of The Parable of the Talents, a science fiction dystopian novel written by Octavia Butler, a ground-breaking, award-winning African-American science fiction writer who died in 2006.
The author’s imaginary future world gives powerful expression to some of our deepest fears. Writing in 1997, she envisions “the time of the pox”, which she identifies as happening around 2020. She describes the aftermath, a breakdown of society as grief and economic devastation lead to lawlessness, abuse of power, denial of human rights, walls and guns and a new tribalism. What kept me engaged in this distressing picture was her depiction of the emergence of a new religion, called Earthseed, in the midst of the horror.
The book is narrated by the daughter of the religion’s founder and alternates between poetry from the religion’s sacred text, the mother’s journals, and the daughter’s struggle to make sense of her complicated relationship with her parents.
The heart of Earthseed, this imagined new religion, is a recognition of the centrality of change. “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.” The opening words of the fictional sacred text speak a truth we all know and would sometimes like to pretend we don’t. Then it goes a step further. “The only lasting truth is change.” And even further: “God is change.”
The provocative words kept me reading, and they kept me thinking. I thought about the lessons Bhante Pannasiri teaches in our Tuesday night Buddhist meditation: about impermanence, about how suffering comes when we try to grasp at that which is already gone. I thought about his exhortation to enjoy the present moment without clinging to it. Buddhists would not say, “God is change.” They might say that change is the ultimate reality.
Even as I was taken aback by the imaginary religion-founder’s statement, “God is change,” I found much of her poetry compelling. When we acknowledge the reality of change, when we stop denying or resisting that truth, we can claim our capacity to shape the form change takes. We cannot stop it, we cannot control it, but we can participate in a meaningful way, so that change can be in the service of what we value: healing, compassion and justice.
I read this book on vacation, and I found it influencing the way I experienced the beauty around me. We were staying at a cottage on Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks. Tupper Lake is fed by two rivers: the Bog River and the Racquette River. Even on those days when the lake was still as glass, two rivers’ currents were moving through it. The lake was once much smaller, but was flooded more than a century ago so that lumber could be moved through the water way.
The Racquette River meanders. The part Fran and I canoed was wide and calm. The peacefulness belied the power of the water—but we saw evidence of its force along the banks, as we canoed by trees with deep roots that had fallen over as the banks eroded. Glorious strong trees laid low by the gentle but persistent movement of water. We saw new life emerging from those dead tree trunks: holes where birds could nest, multi-colored fungi, pockets of wildflowers growing from the soil created as insects broke down the wood.
A few days later I took a hike that paralleled the river. I saw places where the river was marsh-like—water almost still, moving just enough to be purified by the grasses. My destination was the Racquette River Falls—class 5 rapids to be navigated only by the most skilled adventurers. The river is constantly changing, constantly shaping and reshaping the life around it, itself shaped and reshaped by plant and animal, including human, influences.
The fictional Earthseed religion speaks profound truth: change is at the center of life. We cannot stop it. We deny it at our own peril. When we are attuned to it, we can participate, shaping change in a way that honors the web of life.
In the end, I will never be an adherent of the Earthseed religion, and not only because it doesn’t really exist. To the assertion that God is change, I answer, No. God is love. God’s love is the only truth that does not change. God’s creation is dynamic—always in motion, always transforming, always with death and decay and new life. God’s love is lived out, made real, in this ever-changing world, and so it is expressed in different ways at different times. God’s love is the one constant, the solid core to which we can hold fast, the source of the courage we need to face and embrace the reality that everything else is always changing.
As I swam, kayaked, canoed and hiked in and around rivers, I found myself thinking of the rivers in the Bible. Psalm 65, which formed the basis for our sentences of praise, uses a glorious river image to celebrate the abundance of God’s creation: “the river of God is full of water.” There are stories of crossing rivers into a new beginning, of washing in rivers for healing. In our gospel reading, Jesus joins the crowd wading into the Jordan River to be baptized.
After my musings on the imaginary religion of Earthseed and my experience of the Racquette River on vacation, I find myself hearing this familiar gospel story in a new way. If the river is an expression of the constancy of change, perhaps wading into it represents a courageous, life-altering choice. It is a choice to let go of our denial of change, a choice to cease clinging to that which does not satisfy. In the context of our faith, it is a choice to trust that God’s constant love is with us to give us strength to wade into the river of change.
It is a risk, a leap of faith perhaps, to trust that God’s love will hold us up as we wade into change. When we take that risk, the gospel teaches us, we will come to experience the truth of that love ever more fully. One way or another, dramatically or quietly, the heavens will open up and we will hear a voice: “You are my beloved.”
We are living in a time of overwhelming change. The river is flowing fast. The rapids are class 5, requiring skills we aren’t sure we have. The current is unpredictable. As individuals, we have experienced our lives and routines turned upside-down by COVID-19; we don’t know how to plan for the future. As a congregation, we have faced disruption in the ways we gather; even more, we have faced tremendous loss. This year, we have lost six strong, faithful women. They make me think of those glorious trees with deep, powerful roots, fallen along the side of the Racquette River—ultimately the source of new life and growth, but for now a profound reminder of loss. As a society we have seen the widening gap between rich and poor, the resurgence of hate groups, and we have awakened to the urgent need to shape change to end the sin of racism.
The amount and pace of change is overwhelming. And, contrary to the imagined Earthsong philosophy, it is not all that there is. Change is not God. Love is God. God is love—and that truth never changes. God is love— we can hold fast to that conviction as we dare to wade into the river of change. God is love—and no pandemic, no loss, no injustice, no uncertainty can shake that truth.
In our baptism story, Jesus walks into the river of change on his own, surrounded by others who are doing the same. The picture invites me to claim that my faith in God’s love can give me courage to wade into today’s rivers of change. Honestly, though, I’m not sure my faith is always strong enough to propel me into the torrent. I can’t do it on my own, even if I see that others are wading in as well. I need something more—the boat we imagined in our children’s time.
Our church is an ever-changing manifestation of the unchanging power of God’s love. We are not perfect. Sometimes we misunderstand what each other needs; sometimes we miss a key opportunity to care for our neighbors or stand up for what it right. We keep trying and we keep learning. Together, we are a boat, strong and resilient, navigating this rapidly-flowing river of change. Each of us brings something essential to the shared journey. Some of us are gifted at steering through the rapids. Some have strong shoulders for rowing. Some know how to use a sail to move with the winds of the Spirit. Some are skilled at reading the biblical maps that can guide us. Some are part of the eco-engineering team that looks at the bigger picture of how the river flows. When we work together, when we use our gifts and trust each other, we can run the rapids, we can move with the Spirit, we can shape change to help create a more just and loving world.
On my own, I cannot always find the courage to wade into this river of change. On this boat, I can trust in the power of God’s love, expressed in the caring of our congregation, to carry me on this journey along the ever-changing river of life. Will you join me? Amen.