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Sermon for World AIDS Day 2008 - Uncommon Hope: First Sunday in Advent
Written by admin on November 24th, 2008
by Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson
Moderator, Metropolitan Community Churches
Reading
Mark 13: 24-37
“But in those days, after that time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers in heaven will be shaken. Then they will see the Promised One coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then the angels will be sent to gather the people of God from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
“Take the fig tree as parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that the Promised one is near, right at the door. The truth is, before this generation has passed away, all these things will have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“But as for that day or hour, nobody knows it – neither the angels of Heaven, nor the Only Begotten – no one but Abba God. Be constantly on the watch! Stay awake! You do not know when the appointed time will come.
“It is like people travelling abroad. They leave their home and put the employees in charge, each with a certain task, and those who watch at the front gate are ordered to stay on the alert. So stay alert! You do not know when cock crows or at early dawn. Do not let the owner come suddenly and catch you asleep. What I say to you, I say to all: stay alert!
Message
The 2008 hurricane season in Florida and the Gulf Coast was challenging and intense.
In some ways, a hurricane is not unlike a virus – it is opportunistic, arbitrary. How much damage it does depends on a lot of other factors: How strong are the levees; How prepared is the community (can they evacuate safely, on time); How strong is the construction; How many resources have been employed in preparation and prevention of storm damage; How much degradation of the environment has occurred, etc… Poverty exacerbates the damage; and co-factors really matter in hurricanes as well as with viruses.
For better or worse, in the worship and liturgical life of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), World AIDS Day is married to the first Sunday in Advent, now, perpetually. Advent begins in darkness every year. In the Northern Hemisphere, the post-hurricane days themselves grow darker until just before Christmas, while our Advent wreath grows brighter with hope, peace, joy and love.
But we begin, in the darkness, with hope. The Christian calendar begins, in the lectionary readings, ominously, but also with hints of hope, of a brighter future where Christ returns and rescues a world gone mad.
The writer of that first gospel, called Mark, in the midst of the first persecutions and sufferings, calls that first community of radical Christians to an uncommon hope: to be alert, awake, and watchful as God prepares to act. In some ways, watching, keeping alert and vigilant can seem too passive for some. But it implies a lot of things that are more active as well.
This year, many of us in North America watched and waited with residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as they anticipated storm after storm, with deadly Katrina still fresh on their minds. We prepared, waited, acted and responded. . .
Preparing: In some ways, by now, people know the drill for hurricanes. They know to board up, or buy water and supplies, or begin sorting through what they can take in their car, or on a bus. This year, thoroughly chastened by Katrina, the US government and non-profit agencies seemed more prepared.
We, too, know the drill about HIV and AIDS. We know so much more now than we did 27 years ago about prevention. We know the co-factors – apathy, lack of self-esteem, homophobia, drug abuse, poverty, lack of access to health care, unsafe drinking water, lack of information and education, especially for women. We also are storm-weary, still, and get overwhelmed by new statistics about alarming rates of infection among young people, especially those who are homeless, women, people of color, young gay men. Our weariness has affected our vigilance at times. We see the storm clouds coming, but pray it will just pass us by. Sometimes we collude in the denial that envelopes our communities, our churches. We interpret the silence to mean that there is no storm on the way.
People in Louisiana worry that if they are overly prepared for a storm that does not come this time, they will be less likely to heed warnings the next time; such is human nature. We have to constantly move against the complacency, the inertia, the passivity.
I guess Jesus knew this. He shared our nature, and knew how easy it is for us to revert to denial. He warns us to keep alert, to be prepared, spiritually, in every way. HIV and AIDS prevention is still a moral imperative for us. We must challenge every nation about its policies, as a matter of justice. We must challenge ourselves to vigilance around the message: we value your life, and the life of our community – prevention is possible! And for those already infected, life and longer life is possible! We are people of uncommon hope, sometimes even irrational hope.
Watching/Waiting: Mark’s Gospel insists that we stay vigilant and alert: that we stay tuned to the weather channel and CNN, as grueling as that can be; that we hear the calls for evacuation and heed them. I can hear Mayor Ray Nagin saying, “GET YOUR BUTTS OUT OF NEW ORLEANS!”
After weeks of storm warnings and flipping constantly to the weather channel, I got complacent. I was shocked when we had sudden, violent thunderstorms on my way from work one way, the outer bands of hurricane “Ike,” just barely touching us. I just knew it wasn’t coming our way – I was surprised by how far out it reached. The flooding on my way to the office the next morning was alarming, and the rains so heavy I nearly pulled over.
MCC, we must keep alert, keep awake, about HIV and AIDS. Another generation of young gay men is endangered, just as we have become so deeply aware of the generations we lost to AIDS years ago. The impact of that loss is still being felt in so many ways. New challenges and losses are upon us, and sometimes we are asleep, we are not paying attention to the wider community that our church may not touch, who do not touch us, not yet.
We must keep alert to new trends and new information. To understand the new co-factors that fuel infection rates in the US, in the North and West, and in the East and Global South. As a global community, MCC, how do we understand the connections between AIDS and Human Rights; between AIDS and emerging LGBT communities in places like Uganda and Pakistan and the Ukraine? Who are our allies and partners? How are we aware of the changing nature of the pandemic and what our spiritual/pastoral/justice responses must be?
Every MCC church must have that expertise, the AIDS alert button, embedded in its ministry. Truthfully, for some of our churches, that expertise died or retired and we did not replace it. Today, who in your church does a person “come out” to about being newly diagnosed? Who can they talk to about their struggles with medication and compliance? Who is responding to “coming out” issues and HIV prevention?
Some of us have to re-connect our congregations to what is really happening today in our communities, something the MCC Global HIV/AIDS Ministry has been doing with excellence the last few years. It is time to turn on the weather channel, learn to read the Doppler ratings. . .
Acting: In hurricanes, this often means evacuating, getting far enough away to stay safe. It means having safe places to evacuate to. With HIV and AIDS, it means facing up to what it takes to keep people safe and alive and filled with hope.
The people of Haiti had nowhere to flee, no shelters, no buses. The “levees” are broken. They have no protection, no barriers. The deforestation there means that mud slides unimpeded down the mountain. Poverty, racism, years of colonial rule followed by government corruption has made the people more vulnerable to hurricanes, and HIV. Even the UN struggled to get in emergency food and shelters while the storm was raging.
Those people who are most vulnerable to HIV infection and the impact of AIDS live in these kinds of conditions. For many of us, that is hard to take in.
This year, in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, unlike during Katrina, there was a lot of attention to evacuation. The elderly and those who were disabled or vulnerable in some way were evacuated first. The last time, they were largely forgotten – those in nursing homes, or with mobility issues. The biggest problem this year was people who did not go to shelters, but evacuated themselves, and then could not afford it, and were clamoring to come back early because they were sleeping in their cars and had no food. Every time we do this, we learn more about the potential impact.
I saw one touching account of how people who could not evacuate acted. There was a children’s hospital that served children who were very ill, too much so to transport. Evacuation would have been very dangerous. They made sure they moved to the upper floors, had generators to last 3 or 4 weeks, and the entire staff, doctors, nurses, technicians, janitors, and parents, moved in to the hospital together, with the children, and hunkered down.
This is solidarity, it is the solidarity of Mother of Peace orphanage in Zimbabwe, the solidarity of MCC with those whose battle with AIDS in those final stages, where we hunker down and hold a vigil and keep faith with those, who, even today in 2008, are dying.
Returning and Restoring: Once the initial emergency subsides, there is the long, slow work of clean-up and repairing, restoring.
This is not the romantic phase of the work in hurricanes. This is the tedious work: removing flood water and debris; assessing damage; tossing out all that was ruined; tearing up and re-building walls and floors; getting the power back on; emptying the refrigerator; scrubbing and painting.
In AIDS work and ministry, it is the nitty-gritty of paying attention to public policies; attending to co-factors: drug use; poverty; access to medications and treatment; talking about things that make people uncomfortable; examining our own attitudes, prejudices; being willing to get better information and sharing it; and working with long term survivors.
Today I remember Paul from MCC Los Angeles, who died last year in a freak accident at the beach. Paul was a long time HIV and AIDS survivor when I met him, but he was barely surviving. He was depressed, without friends or community, empty, aching, given to violent outbursts, and feeling like a ghost who had outlived every friend. MCC Los Angeles gave him a new life. Starting one day a week, he eventually came to volunteer fulltime: answering the phone, painting, playing piano and singing, helping with the young adults group. He got on better meds, found a better place to live. He made friends, found a home and purpose, God and Jesus and love. He rode in the AIDS Ride two years in a row. He made a difference. He died in the midst of a full, second life. He was a happy, restored man. There are so many, like Paul, who need us and we need them.
We must learn about the world of HIV and AIDS in 2008, not remain stuck in 1988. A world that includes young activists in Uganda being arrested for protesting that their government will not fund any prevention for HIV/AIDS in sexual minority communities. In Uganda, silence still equals death, and speaking up means imprisonment. This is true in many places in the world.
It means reaching out to young queer people in North America who may not think they belong in MCC, or in any church. We have to let them know that none of us belonged at first. And we have to let them know that we care about what they care about, and about their spirituality, their need for community, even if it seems different from ours. Even if it is queer, unusual, uncommon. Jesus would welcome them, and get to know them, and be able to touch them with hope and love. This we know.
Wake up, MCC. It is 2008, and HIV and AIDS are still raging, like a hurricane that seems to dissipate, but then gathers strength over a warm Gulf. There may be a day that we do not need a World AIDS Day…a day when our uncommon hope will not be needed in the work of HIV and AIDS. That day is not December 1, 2008. We need it, and those living with HIV and AIDS, or at risk, need us. Today.
© 2008 Metropolitan Community Churches Global HIV/AIDS Ministry
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