Isaiah 1: 10-20; Hebrews 11:1-3

Invisible rather than visible

One thing I have always been impressed with at Parkview is how things get done and how they often get done without fanfare.  I find items or equipment inexplicably fixed or cleaned up or rearranged. Lots of times there is no one we can thank for that, as while their work is visible they themselves are not.  Much of religion over the centuries has been about grand gestures: giant cathedrals that have stood for up to a thousand years and were built over a century’s span; great rituals of fabric and incense and gold; great processions; the blending and blurring of the royal and the religious.  It began with the idea of honoring God or gods or in the least appeasing them.  But as the heavenly and the worldly became merged together, bad things started to happen and greedy people started taking over.  Events such as those gave birth to the Protestant Reformation of which Presbyterianism is apart.  The leaders, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox wanted to go back to the essence of faith, the faith described in our text in Hebrews: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Now the current Pope is sounding like an old Protestant: he is interested in the small kindnesses, like accepting people for who they are and washing the feet of Muslims.  He is unimpressed by the pompous.  At the same time many Protestants in this country are forgetting the kindnesses and giving in to prejudice and hatred. Isaiah decries the outward stuff in chapter 1: God has seen all the bloody sacrifices, all the outward displays of devotion and it has no meaning.  You see, you can make those sacrifices and do all the ritualistic stuff without a heart that is touched, without a heart full of devotion and love. There is nothing wrong with ritual as long as it is real, as long as it is an expression of our true devotion to God, not some smoke screen. If it is less than genuine, then to God it is meaningless. God can do without it. This is what verse 11 tells us. Verse 18 explains what God wants: a relationship with the people, an honest, deep relationship.  Relationships are invisible in themselves of course: you cannot see a relationship for what it is, you can only witness hints or signs of it.

We have talked about some of the great events that influenced world history.  It is those great, visible events that tend to be remembered.  We also remember the names of those who pushed events forward or backwards, depending on how we see it.  But what of all the small acts that when added up lead us to a wave of change that perhaps that leaders of change were merely riding?  These acts could be good acts or bad acts or a mixture of both. What is clear that to 99.9 % of the people those acts were unnoticeable, invisible even.

When we think of small acts that are bad, something that comes to mind is the concept of “micro-aggressions.” Derald Sue, a California psychotherapist who pioneered cross-cultural approaches to counseling speaks of micro-aggressions which are words and acts that somehow tell a member of an ethnic or other group that their group may be looked down upon.  We have seen a lot of macro-aggressions on tv lately. Nothing micro about them.  The whole idea of micro-aggressions seems to be lost even on the great actor and director Clint Eastwood who thinks “we should just get over it.” However, I am sure all of you here whether, no matter what your cultural background, can think of a time when you were subtly or not-so-subtly put down because you were a member of some group; micro-aggressions.  I also think we have all been at one point or another guilty of that.  Now there is a new book out entitled:”micro-aggressions in the Church,” published by our Presbyterian: Westminster John Knox Press.

Friends, communal and congregational life isn’t mainly about the big events that we remember but about the tug between the micro-aggressions and the small kindnesses that go on.  If the aggressions far outweigh the kindnesses you will be looking at an unhealthy community.  If the kindnesses far outweigh the ‘unkindnesses,’ there is a great chance of a healthy one. In other words it is the invisible kindnesses that are of enormous importance.

Friends, this brings us back to faith, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. The old Presbyterian Book of Common prayer speaks of God as “Thou Who Art Invisible.”  Our Christian faith is a faith of invisibility. That which is most real is least visible. That which is outward is often not real.  It has begun with our faith in that which is invisible and becomes real in the many small, mostly invisible kindnesses God’s work on our earth depends on.  And so our task is clear. Thanks be to God.