2 Samuel 23: 1-5; Revelation 1: 8

The web that sustains us

It has been an emotional week in France especially, but also in this country as a result.  A reporter tells of a young Frenchman walking up to a bench in Paris near the site of the one of the massacres and sitting down with a beer can,  sitting down, sipping his beer and then sobbing uncontrollably.  Then he walked to the makeshift memorial and placed the can in between the flowers and candles and walked away.   Was he remembering relatives or friends?  Was he remembering other people?   You can imagine the image: a cold night, sycamore strewn leaves on the ground, cafes.  And then a huge vacuum in the heart of one person.   The world that has sustained him: of family, friends, the comfort and familiarity of the city is no longer whole.  The web that supports him no longer feels firm or reliable. 

            There have been so many expressions of solidarity like people on Facebook merging their profile picture with the French flag.  The reaction of fear is expected.  The reaction of fear in this country too is expected, as ISIS seems to be Al Qaeda on steroids.  They fan a mass psychosis, preying on young, ignorant confused men and a few women.  Fear can easily morph into something else, like paranoia and racism and religionism (a new word perhaps).  You mix that with the fuel of political season where candidates are trying to get an advantage over the rest of the pack and you have something very combustible and before you know, traumatized women and children from a war torn country become the object of our fear.  And we are not even talking about a big group.  It reminded many of you of another time and that is why the Florin JACL chapter and Andy Noguchi deserve praise for speaking out on television about this. 

            Friends, there is a web that sustains us in our lives or at least it is supposed to.  There are people we can go to if we have a stomach ache or a broken bone or a sore tooth. We have first responders. We have relatives and friends. We have places where we can find food of varying price and, yes, calorie count.   We have people who grow our food and bring it to market, we have places to put our money to buy that food. There are insurance policies.   There are forces to protect us. None of those people or services are perfect.  So we complain about them all the time and we try to fix them.  That is why politicians exist: to fix those things rather than to please their campaign donors.  Syrian refugees have one of these.  The web of their life is one big whole blasted open by evil.

            I heard on the radio that Sacramento News and Review had a letter to the future project.  They asked writers and other well known people to write a letter to people in the future. The result was not very optimistic.  There were a lot of apologies, like for the fact that no one can eat meat anymore or that all there were in the sea were jelly fish who may taste okay with onion.  There wasn’t much can do attitude about what to do with our planet.  They saw an eroding and disappearing of the web of life that sustains us.

            In II Samuel, in his last words, David who had a way with words, writes a love letter to the world that sustains him and the God Who has been true in God’s covenant.  That is the web David knows. He has been mightily blessed, reigning over Israel at the height of its powers and size.  David survives while he was responsible for the destruction of so many people around him.  The web kept him afloat despite his passion and flaws. In Revelation chapter one God is the beginning and end of all things.

            God is is the Alpha and the Omega, friends, the A and the Z.  It starts and ends with God and God is there in between. I was talking to a woman who helped paint the Kansha house yesterday and I was stunned at the hard life she had had. And I asked her:”So what did it do to your faith?”  “It didn’t change that much,” she said. You learn that God is present in the pits and at the top of your glory.” It was wisdom that can only come out of deep reflection on suffering.  To her God was woven into the web of life or rather the thread that holds it all together.  She continued:”The people in the pits can only look up.”  She spoke of experience.  David’s was an entirely different story. His suffering, though was largely self-made, coming out of greed and selfishness. Hers was an entirely different story.

            So, friends, there is a  web that sustains us. It is emotional, it is social. It is practical. It is physical and it is spiritual.  We only seem to notice it when it isn’t working.  There is a Frank and Ernest cartoon where Frank and Ernest are leaving the church and Frank (or Ernest) says:”According to the pastor, we’re all here an earth to do good to others.”  Says Ernest (or Frank) :”What are others here for? “ Well, they’re here to be our web. Friends, when the web that sustains the others collapses around them, will we be there for them?” Friends, what is your web. What are you grateful for. What is it you take for granted. Thanks be to God.