What Happens Now?

Rev. Beth Hoffman Copenhaver

November 10, 2024

Scripture: Psalm 146

Like many of you, I have sought out other people’s words this week to help me find my bearings and put voice to my feelings. As we enter into a time of listening and reflection, I invite you to close your eyes and place your hand on your heart. Let us breathe together to steady our heart’s rhythm, to create a sense of peace within our spirit. Following a minute or so of this practice, I will share with you a prayer that I have read every day this week, written by Rev. Audette Fulson in 2015:

Breathe

Prayer for the Morning

By Audette Fulbright Fulson

Did you rise this morning,
broken and hung over
with weariness and pain
and rage tattered from waving too long in a brutal wind?
Get up, child.
Pull your bones upright
gather your skin and muscle into a patch of sun.
Draw breath deep into your lungs;
you will need it
for another day calls to you.
I know you ache.
I know you wish the work were done
and you
with everyone you have ever loved
were on a distant shore
safe, and unafraid.
But remember this,
tired as you are:
you are not alone.
Here
and here
and here also
there are others weeping
and rising
and gathering their courage.
You belong to them
and they to you
and together,
we will break through
and bend the arc of justice
all the way down
into our lives.
~February, 2015

I feel the need to offer a disclaimer—that while my message today will certainly make it clear how I feel about the week’s events—which will hopefully surprise no one listening, it is not intended to exclude those of you sitting here or watching online who are content with the outcome and have known celebration in victory. The words I offer today are rooted in my understanding of God’s divine invitation to us and to collectively consider, indeed, what happens now… so, here we go.

On Wednesday morning I did these five things in fairly rapid succession:

1. I hugged my beloved tightly and for a very long time, no words needed.
2. I texted my daughters to tell them I loved them and would never stop fighting for their rights.
3. I called the most politically savvy person I know—my mom—for debrief and analysis and consolation.
4. I sent messages of love and light to those I knew would be stunned, scared and unbearably sad.
5. I tended my silly, sick, thoroughly loved dog, Nova, who had spent the night coughing in a way I was sure meant she was dying.

What I did was not unique and perhaps many of you had the same rhythm (hopefully minus the ill canine—who, by the way, after a visit to the vet and a plethora of medicines is doing much better!) I also knew within moments of realizing the unhoped for outcome that I was grateful that on that very evening I would gather in this sanctuary for a time of worship and quiet and music and prayer and that there is no where else, at a time such as this, that I would rather be. So many of you also felt called here on Wednesday evening and it was a holy endeavor, a safe space, a place to be present to our plethora of feelings.

On Wednesday and in the days since, I have been ruminating on Psalm 146, the scripture chosen—before the election—as my preaching text. These words are not just for this time but for all times. As one commentator wrote: Psalm 146 lacks any evidence of context, enabling the reader to hear it in her own time and place. I invite you to open your heart and your mind to this reading, to listen as if for the very first time which for some it will be, knowing what you know now while looking ahead to an uncertain future:

Hallelujah!
Praise God, O my soul!
I will praise you all my life;
I will sing praise to my God while I live!

Do not trust in rulers,
in mortals, in whom there is no salvation.
When their spirit departs, they return to the earth,
on that day their plans perish.

Happy are those whose help is in God,
whose hope is in God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
God, you keep faith forever;
you secure justice for the oppressed;
you give food to the hungry.

You set captives free;
You give sight to the blind.
You raise up those who are bowed down;
You love those who do justice;
You protect strangers;
You sustain orphans and the bereaved,
but You thwart the way of the corrupt.

God will reign forever,
through all generations.
Hallelujah!

Friends, this is the word of God, into which I place my trust.

Psalm 146 marks the beginning of the last “Book” in the psalms, five hymns that close the Psalter with a rising chorus of praise. Each one begins and ends with the word Hallelujah, “Praise God!” And while to coin a phrase by composer Leonard Cohen, our Hallelujah this day may be broken, yet “Psalm 146 celebrates the good news that in the face of human frailty and mortality God remains trustworthy. What is more, God’s sovereignty from creation to eternity is dedicated to assisting those in deepest need and direst circumstances. Lifelong praise through bearing witness to God’s kin-dom is the theme.” (Esther Menn, Workingpreacher.org)

Through these scriptural words God is intimately concerned with the well-being of God’s people, particularly those who are the most vulnerable. Those who stand with God commit themselves to reconciliation and restoration of relationships. We are not excused or absolved from addressing the issues of injustice in our world—regardless of which candidate we support or with which party we align. According to the psalm human rulers are not to be trusted and certainly should not be relied upon to save us. The reasoning? Because they are mortals. And they will die, taking all their promises and plans with them.

Mortal rulers perpetuate a spiraling division through their dogma and decrees, separating humanity even more from the universal equity known under God. While racism and misogyny are currently the republic upon which we stand womanist theologian Wil Gafney so rightly states, “Those for whom this text is Scripture must see in it a pattern for their own service, from the prophets to Jesus of Nazareth. These psalm verses are a policy platform for the kin-dom Jesus will inaugurate to which the church bears witness.”

The message is clear—to place our sole allegiance in a political candidate who does not hesitate to gain trust or votes by stoking fear in their followers and asserting that only they can deliver the people from danger goes against God’s rule, God’s inclusion and God’s abiding commitment to the vulnerable. God is because of what God does—executes justice, gives food, sets free, opens eyes, lifts up, loves, watches strangers, upholds widows. Those who are the most defenseless receive God’s greatest attention. And when we commit ourselves to this work that is of God, as justice seekers and peace makers, compassion givers and fierce protectors, then we participate in God’s kin-dom here and now. The goal is not to always see the fruit of our labors, we likely will not in our lifetime. But because God’s reign is everlasting, let us place our trust in the seeds we plant that will come to fruition through God’s permanence with God’s people. “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” (MLK, Jr)

Beloved community, our faith, our purpose, must transcend any ideology, practice or decision made by the administration that resides in the White House, the Senate or Supreme Court Chambers.

The purposes of Plymouth church declare that we believe in a God of radical love, a God of thorough inclusion, a God who implores us to choose the principles of Psalm 146 and feed the hungry, house the homeless, stand with the migrant, protect our trans and queer siblings, raise women into places of leadership while also fighting for reproductive rights; God calls us to dismantle systemic racism and stand in opposition to any fear mongering, exclusionary tactic of government. This is who we are as people of faith, as people of God.

Let us place our faith not in the fear that consumes some of us now but rather in the conviction that brought us to this sanctuary this morning, or compelled us to tune in online, the courage that led us to come together on Wednesday evening to be together as God’s people in community. Let the determination that our practices and mission, our outreach and care, our radical hospitality and tireless work to break down systems that oppress, convince our understanding that this is not a faith held in vain but rather a faith propelled by a God who beckons us to follow the Divine into a life of love and light—to do justice, know kindness and walk humbly. To walk humbly with strength and with hope… always with hope. This kind of faith demands our Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

I know we gather this day with a myriad of emotions. Some of us exhausted by defeat and fear and others wanting to fight and reclaim a country divided. So hear this:

If you need to rest, to be still and quiet… you are invited to do so. Remembering that author Tricia Hersey teaches us that rest is resistance. Hersey writes, “Rest makes us more human. It brings us back to our human-ness. To be connected to who and what we truly are is at the heart of our rest movement.”

If you need to grieve, to acknowledge utter despair and the brokenness you feel, you are invited to do so. Birdie Cunningham, my partner here in our congregational grief work, reminded us at a recent session of Honoring Grief that to grieve is to be courageous, it is to acknowledge that not all is well and that each tentative step to name our angst leads us on an unknown journey towards transformation.

If you need the company of others, to know solidarity, to feel collectively, you are invited to do so. The atmosphere during our Post Election Evensong was charged with a variety of emotion. But the common goal was to be together, to not feel alone. Trust that Plymouth will provide a multitude of ways to come together. Experiences that already exist and new opportunities, too.

If you are restless and wanting to work to protect the values and purposes of inclusion and justice, you are invited to do so. So many of you are already deeply embedded in this work. Please don’t stop. Others of you may now wonder how to get involved, how to stand up to hate, how to change the rhetoric that has polarized us. In your heart you already know what to do. Now may you have the courage to act.

If you are afraid, lean in to us who promise to protect and preserve. Rejoice in who God has created you to be, and trust that this community is dedicated to your safety and your rights.

In 2020 Plymouth’s lead minister Paula Northwood preached a sermon between election day and before the country knew the outcome. It was titled “In God We Trust”. She closed her message by proclaiming:

And when we begin to feel despair and question God for not intervening and doing things the way we would want, let us remember that God does not work that way. God works through us when our hearts are open to change. Let us commit to a humble trust that the future ultimately belongs to a loving God. Let us make a commitment to stay calm and connected and concentrated on what God wants to bring to life. In these troubled times, the world needs people of faith who model the loving way of God.

Let us be people of faith who model the loving, inclusive, way of God. This is what must happen now.

Amen.