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Bob the Turtle
A sermon preached by the Reverend Dr. Stephanie J. Nagley at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Bethesda, Maryland on November 14, 2004.
Someone said that the gospels are full of bad news before we get to the good news. Jesus looks at his followers and says, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
The bad news is this: The world will unravel. There will be wars and rumors of war. Nation will rise up against nation. There will be famine and disease. And if you think that’s bad, it gets worse. You’re going to stick your necks out for what you believe and that’s going to get you in such hot water. You’ll be brought before religious leaders and before judges for what you believe. You may be imprisoned or worse. And during this time there’s going to be all sorts of folks running around telling you that they’ve got the answer, that they are the answer to all the world’s troubles. We call them false messiahs. They will be attractive people and, because what they offer isn’t entirely bad, many will follow. But don’t you buy what those false saviors are selling.
But here’s the good news. You’re going to be okay. Even your hair is safe. This is just a time to do some spiritual pushups so don’t panic.
Don’t panic? Panic seems like a good option when the world feels as if it’s caving in around us. Panic seems like the natural and reasonable reaction to war and rumors of war, to an uncertain tomorrow, to diseases we can’t stop, and problems we can’t solve, to the possibility of losing one’s job or relationship or not knowing whether or not the ozone layer will shrink until we suffocate. Panic seems the best choice and we’ll cling to just about anything or anyone who appears to be throwing us a life raft.
All of this got me to thinking about a turtle I know. The turtle’s name is Bob. Now, Bob has three reactions to danger in his repertoire. Bob the Turtle has the option of pulling in his head. He can retreat and hide in his hard shell until danger passes. When Bob is scared but feels confident of winning he goes for Option B which is hissing and snapping. This works best when the enemy is smaller and more vulnerable than he. The last option open to Bob is to do nothing, no retreat, no hissing and snapping. Bob just pretends as if nothing is wrong at all.
We’re got something in common with Bob. Our reptilian brain may naturally lead toward Bobness. We can pull in and isolate from the troubles around us until they go away, if they ever do. We can stick our necks out and do a little hissing and snapping. Or we can act as if nothing is wrong at all.
But, unlike Bob, we’ve got a few more neurons to play with. Our hard wiring is a little more intricate, our repertoire of response a little more varied. We can get creative and be creatively hopeful despite the troubles around us.
You may have seen the article in the paper yesterday or the article in one of the recent Time magazines about our genetic proclivity to spirituality. Unlike Bob there may be something in us that gives us a little push toward a more creative way of being in our world. We may feel panic at the threats that confront us, but panic and fear doesn’t have to have the final say about what we do in response.
With a greater consciousness than Bob we have the ability to react in ways that are life-giving. We can see possibility through the doom and gloom.
Friday a friend called me. You may remember that on Friday it rained so hard for so long some of us began to take measurements for an ark. But my friend said that as she drove through Rock Creek in the downpour she saw the most beautiful maple trees on fire —there in that soggy and dreary dampness was something to lift her spirits, to take her breath away, and to invigorate her sense of hope. The flame of the trees let her see another truth beyond the dreary dampness.
Our story, the Jesus story, tells us something important about hope. The Jesus story you and I live out each day isn’t the hope of winning the lottery and having all our troubles fade away. We aren’t told to be hopeful because someone is going to come along and make everything all better for us. We don’t have the hope of Bob the Turtle who lives in a protective shell and can save himself by retreat or by biting back or doing nothing at all.
Our hope, our sense of possibility, is tempered by real living and living through the hard times, the confusing times, through wars and famine, through disease and dreary damp days. Our hope comes in knowing that even in times of great divisiveness peoples and countries have learned to hear one another, have learned to talk to one another, and have found their way to peace.
When Luke wrote the words of Jesus warning people about bad things to come and about a reason to hope, those listening could believe it. They could believe that hope could live through tribulation. They believed it because they had already lived it. They had already experienced the temple come crashing down, they had lived through war and disease and they had lived through something even worse. They had seen their very hope crucified. And then that crucified hope came to life. A community formed around that crucified hope and that new life, a community set on realizing the possibility of the Old Testament vision: that through us the world can and will be the world God intended it to be, a world that is life-giving, a world of one life-giving people.
We are of this world and so there are, indeed, hard times for us to endure. But what our sacred story tells us is that we have a reason to stick our necks out, to look around and to keep moving forward. We will live through hard times but our story tells us that hope isn’t hope until it is crucified; until hope is crucified, it is merely wishful thinking.
To stick our heads out of our shells, to look through the gloom at the beauty of creation isn’t naive or soft-headed thinking. To be the people of God is to see through the terror of our times and catch the vision of possibility. To be the people of God is to see a realistic hope for this world.
We are of this world, but we need not panic. We can live full out in the certainty that if we stick our necks out, keep our eyes peeled and our hearts open there is something better for us. And that something better is not winning the lottery or being wooed by voices that tell us he or she is the answer to all our troubles. There is only one answer and that answer lives in each of us – we’re hard wired that way. Each of us is pre-disposed to a lesser or greater degree to know that we are part of a great dream, we are the workers of wonder, we are the crucified hope of new life of a world beyond war and destruction, of disease and famine.
After the bad news there is good news: even when everything is crumbling we’re going to be okay. We’re going to be more than okay. Even our hair is safe for we have seen and know there is something to reach for — there is that one simple rule of our lives — the rule of love, a love that gives everything so that everyone may live.
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