Readings:
Sermon:
Many of you will know that I am very fond of butterflies.
The butterfly is one of the ancient Christian symbols of resurrection. Hope, glory, and freedom …. grit, determination and immense strength. Butterflies aren’t just a pretty face, you know. They are feisty, stubborn little creatures!
There’s a book by the author and professor Brene Brown called Rising Strong… where she talks about the path to redemption as reckoning and rumble.
Yes, I know you’re all thinking of John Travolta now, getting ready to rumble, putting on the battle armour of prayer and loving action.
Reckoning, says Brene, is like realising – it’s when we face a challenge – acknowledging the pain of something. When we are truthful about what hurts in our hearts, or in the world around us.
Scientists once watched the butterfly struggle to leave its chrysalis and tried to help, slitting the cocoon carefully open
… big mistake..
….the butterfly releases a chemical as it struggles to leave the chrysalis which would have strengthened its wings for expansion and flight, and without that it was too weak to survive. Left to break its own way from the cocoon it was battle-fit, and could face down anything.
The butterfly tells us ….. never give up…. Love and life will win.
In today’s gospel we have a widow – like the butterfly she could be seen as tiny and insubstantial. Widows are on the list of people who need most protection. They are alone and defenceless in the world without a family to shelter them, few rights, no status.
She represents all people who are treated with injustice by the world, who are overlooked, and downtrodden and have no real platform from which to seek change. Who knock at doors and receive no answer, who call out for justice and are not heard.
Today ends the week of awareness of modern slavery, a week of hurling prayer and opening hearts, a week of naming evil, of speaking out for better legislation, better protection, who call out a reckoning. It recognises ten years this year since the Modern Slavery Act of 2015. Walk Free's 2023 Global Slavery Index estimates that in 2021 there were 50 million victims of modern slavery worldwide, an increase of 10 million people since 2016. Many churches and the Mothers’ Union here in Worcester have been praying and campaigning this week.
Our widow today teaches us how to pray and never to give up. To keep knocking on the doors of injustice and oppression and to not take no for an answer, to call out a reckoning. This widow is ready to rumble, no matter how long it takes.
She is full of God… full of the desire for life and hope, full of the determination that breaks through the chrysalis.
We can see the twinkle in Jesus’ eye … what, he says, did you think the God figure in my story was the Important Judge?
This widow is a feisty woman. The Greek in verse 5 where the judge speaks literally means “this woman is giving me a black eye”. When we pray, and never give up, we give evil a black eye; we channel God’s freedom and grace into the world.
God is always with the small, those who are seeking for justice and healing and life.
God will always answer the door to us, says Jesus, he’s not the big important judge who hasn’t got time for us unless we have a big bank balance… he longs for us to come to him with our prayers, with our pains and hopes and desires.
He is always on the side of justice and healing and hope.
Whether that is the big injustices of the world, or the private griefs, of our own individual stories ….
It is so easy to think we cannot make a difference, but Jesus assures us that in him we are never powerless, however immoveable the world may seem. Just pause a moment and think of the #MeToo campaign, or Malala Yusafa, or Rosa Parkes – women no one would expect to have a voice, changing the world.
Be persistent, says Paul to Timothy in our epistle reading today – in season and out of season, never give up, because God is with you. And in you.
Sisters and brothers, let us on this resurrection day be Rising Strong – ready to Rumble, let us put on the armour of prayer.
Let us claim life, for ourselves and for each other, persistent, and never giving up. Taking strength in the knowledge that in Jesus, the chrysalis of the Tomb of Easter has already broken open, and in that grace all wings can stretch, chains fall off, and flight by flight, heart by heart, freedom will cover the earth in clouds of glory.
Lord Jesus, let it be so. Amen.
Questions:
I wonder about your image of God, I wonder where when you read the story you saw the face of God? I wonder how easy it is to identify God in positions of power… what it would mean if we shifted our sight of him to the voices and the faces of the small and the overlooked?
I wonder in our own lives and stories whether we can think of a time where in determination and persistence in prayer and love and service, where we have felt and sensed Jesus changing our world, changing the world around us?
I wonder when we cast our eyes at the communities around us, how well we see the widows? Those who are poor and overlooked, who go out in the darkness and night, in the evening, metaphorically or literally? Those who are seeking justice