It’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Nothing seems to be permanent when it comes to my favorite foods.  First, it was wheat-thin crackers from Kuniko Rice Mills in Louisiana.  Originally, I could find them on the shelves of better markets.  Then they seemed to vanish so I ordered them online from the manufacturer.  Then they were discontinued. 

I had been eating these crackers, topped with sardines and Jarlsberg cheese, since I was a young boy, it was my dad’s favorite snack and soon became mine.

When serving in Alaska I would bring this delight to our monthly clergy meetings.  Along with my son Jonathan in a Snuggly.  When one of my clergy associates in alarm blurted out, “You’re not feeding those sardines to that poor little baby!?  Are you???”  I responded, “He loves them.”  And he did.

I miss those crackers and the memories attached to them.  Now it’s all gone.  Nothing much seems permanent.

That is the message in our gospel lesson as the open-mouthed disciples stare at the splendor of Jerusalem.  Jesus directs their eyes to the magnificent edifices of that city, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

Not one stone left upon another.  This was the prophesied future of my parent’s Republican Party.

I grew up in a pretty standard brand Republican household.  My father, being a dentist from West Virginia, as a small business man considered the Republican party to be his natural pew.  He also trusted their conservative economics and their opposition to the USSR.

My mother was the founding president of the Signal Hill Republican Women’s Club.  She had met Pat Nixon and Nancy Reagan – Nancy was not her favorite, by the way.  But she loved Pat Nixon.

In junior high around election time, I proudly wore my outsized “I Like Ike” button.  Later I was a campaign worker, walking precinct for Richard Nixon when he ran for Governor in California.  I still have a copy of My Six Crises that he autographed when my political club sponsored him at our community college in Norwalk.

It was only when he ran against JFK for the presidency that I jumped ship, realizing that Kennedy was the better choice.

My brother did not abandon the party until Watergate unfolded.

My parents would now be rolling over in their graves if they had any idea of what has happened to their Grand Old Party.  A party that has abandoned science, decency and rational argument.  Not one stone left upon another as their party lurches into QAnon conspiracy theories and an anti-vaxer looks to take control of our nation’s health programs.  And another QAnon true believer – yes, General Michael Flynn and his entire family are in a video taking the QAnon pledge, “Where we go one, we go all.” 

With antivaxxer and conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy now nominated for head of Health and Human Services, what could possibly go wrong?

With his campaign against MMR vaccines in Samoa he got over 80, mostly children, killed by a preventable disease.   

If we have another pandemic and he again pushes hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, leaving in his wake hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, at least the blood on his hands will coordinate with the color of his red MAGA cap.  Same for Trump who has appointed him.  BTW, Where’s the Clorox?

Not one stone left standing upon another of this former Republican Party.

“It’s a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

Reagan welcomed immigrants.  Now these MAGA people want to deport eleven million of them.  Wholesale.  These are the people who provide much of our elder care, who fill many of our construction jobs.

With these folks gone, who’s going to pick the tomatoes and spinach?  Though I hear the plan at the White House is to have a Victory Garden, and Melania will be sent out each morning to do the harvesting.

Dreamers, those who were brought here as children by their parents, stand the risk of being sent back to countries they never knew.  Never mind that they may not speak the language.

And as I tell my Hispanic friends, you guys who voted for the macho candidate, don’t think that you’re exempt.  If you look like, if you sound like, if you have the last name as one of these undocumented deportees, don’t think you’re exempt.

In the last frenzy of deportations, there were numerous cases of bona fide American citizens being rounded up and expelled across our southern border.  In many cases left penniless on the other side, falling victim to drug gangs and the real rapists.  No, don’t think you’re exempt.

Stephen Miller, the father of family separation, is up for a high-ranking position.  The new proposed Border Czar is a hardliner on mass deportation.

“And It’s A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall.”

It may be that our democracy will not be left standing in four years, not one stone left standing upon another.

The edifice of equal access to the vote has already been pretty much dismantled by gerrymandering and the other tools of voter suppression. 

This year we have documented evidence of even greater Russian interference through the use of deep fake videos, concocted AI avatars coming forward to accuse Tim Walz of molestation and worse.  All fake.  And even if they’re later taken down the damage is already done.

And then there were the numerous bomb threats called into polling places only in Blue States, and in Democratic majority precincts.  All sewing doubt and chaos on our electoral processes.  Thank you, Vladimir.  Your investment in Trump looks to pay dividends beyond your wildest imagining.  You may yet get Ukraine and who knows what else through our abject surrender.

Change is coming.  My favorite science fiction writer, Octavia Butler, has declared, “God is Change.” 

Biblical, in fact, “Behold, I make all things new.” – Revelation 21:5. In this case, perhaps not one stone left upon another.  All thrown down.

In his book, The Fourth Great Awakening, the Nobel Prize winning economist Robert William Fogel demonstrates that societal disruptions invariably lead to spiritual reconsiderations — which lead to political upheavals.[1] 

The first Great Awakening, growing out of both Methodism and Calvinism was incited by the itinerant preacher George Whitefield.  From 1738 to 1740 he evangelized the American colonies.  As revival caught on, the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards preached conversion in New England.

A hallmark of this religious revolution, growing out of experiential evangelical churches, was the emphasis on the individual believer to be the authority in all matters religious.  This undercut the standing of the established church, and by extension undercut the political authority of the British Crown.  The attacks on both political and ecclesiastical corruption led to political realignment – the American Revolution of 1776.

We have had two subsequent similar political realignments, all growing out of evangelical religion.

Fogel avers that we are presently in a Fourth Great Awakening as the result of technological and economic disruption of daily life for ordinary Americans.  Again, enthusiastic religion is undercutting staid, mainline churches.  The move to a more secular society, the emergence of a non-white plurality, the economic displacement of many in the middle class.  It is all cause for great spiritual angst; leading to our current political realignment.  Which gets us to the MAGA reaction against these societal changes.  Much of it clothed in the hyperbole of racism, misogyny and greed.  Not much separation now between evangelical Christianity and this MAGA Trumpism.

How do we, who hold to a “Generous Orthodoxy” carry on?  How will we who ascribe to a Gospel where All Means All, fight the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves.  And, mind you, it is a fight for the soul of America.

We will do this as we always have as a small remnant of the Jesus Movement.  “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

We will continue to gather in our communities of faith.  We will gather with determination and persistence each week to support one another, to hear the Gospel verities that God is Love, that God is continuing to work God’s purpose out.  Though it may not be presently clear to us.  We will gather around the altar, receiving the Bread and Wine made Holy for sustenance. And following worship we will leave the doors of God’s House ready as God’s Holy Remnant to work for a better day for all of God’s people. 

That’s what we will do.  Trusting that the Spirit will enlighten our imagination and bring courage to our backbones and ways to resist when the least of us are put upon by policies and actions that scapegoat and dehumanize. 

In times of upheaval, we are warned against the false messiahs who will claim our loyalty.  Beware of the cry, “I am the One,” or “I alone can fix this.”  All usurpers!

We will read of those Holy Resisters who have gone on before us:  Vaclav Havel, Vicktor Navalny, Dorothy Day, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass.  Not only read of them but read their legacy in what they wrote.

They will buck up our courage, stiffen our spine and fuel our spiritual resolve.  

Yes, it may be a “Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” but we will be prepared.  It’s Noah’s Ark time.  With God’s Grace, we will be that Ark of Salvation.

We will gather midweek to join the struggle for a more humane, a more just America.  Many movements await our engagement:  MoveOn.org, the ACLU, 350.org, the League of Women Voters, Indivisible, Planned Parenthood, Citizen’s Climate Lobby… they all await our volunteer time.  Complacency is not an option.

At St. Francis we will produce healthy fruit and vegetables for the food bank program we operate with St. John’s.  And volunteers, too, to work the program.  We will continue to support efforts to bring House of Hope – San Bernardino into reality.

John Calvin in his Institutes of Christian Religion[2] said that one of the worst sins is willful desire for power.  

The other like it, is complacency.  Just giving up is as reprehensible a sin as usurping God’s authority in greedy willfulness.

 We will pray, we will donate, we will write, we will read and study.  We will open our date books and activate.

As was oft chanted in the last election, “We’re not going back.  We’re not going back.”  God holds out the splendor of our fellow travelers on this journey, beautiful brothers and sisters, companions on the way.  Holds out the wonders of a star-studded universe inhabited by incredible life forms.

In an Attitude of Gratitude for all that has been, for all that is, and for all that is to be in God’s unfolding purpose, we will give thanks in all things.  Today and tomorrow.  Amen.

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[1] Robert William Fogel, The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

[2] A good understanding of the relevance of the Institutes can be found in Serene Jone’s book, Call it Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World (New York: Viking, 2019), 24 ff.

November 17, 2024
26 Pentecost, Proper 28

Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16;
Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25; Mark 13:1-8

“It’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”