A New Season, A New Hope
As the natural world is entering a new time of year, we hope that our human family can move forward into a new age of hope, far better than returning to so-called normality.
Hope is very much on our minds lately.
As I consider the title of this week's sermon,
"A New Season, A New Hope,"
the Star Wars movies come to my mind.
You know that I'm a serious fan of science fiction!
The first movie, originally known simply as Star Wars
was renamed, A New Hope when the "prequels"
were made, the films that were made
after the first three,
but that were the story of events
that came before.
The concept of new hope is especially relevant
to our considerations today.
As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to recede,
we feel new hope about returning to our lives.
In keeping with the theme of new hope,
generally speaking, Spring is a hopeful time.
Farmers are planting and cultivating
with the hope of a bountiful harvest.
Gardeners are caring for signs of new life
in the flowers and foliage that bring delight.
In the world of health care, too,
there are signs of hope and new possibilities.
In many ways,
something resembling normal life
is taking shape in many places around the world.
At the same time,
we can hope for something far greater
than a return to some so-called normality
and that is truly a new hope.
In any case,
whatever happens
as more and more openings occur,
the best we can hope for
is a kind of new normal.
When I speak of, "the best we can hope for,"
I mean just that.
A new normal can be
far better than the old normal.
Nostalgia would make the
old normal seem good
in ways that were not so good.
One metaphor helps explain the old normal
and the way it helped produce the pandemic.
Sometimes we say that we are all in the same boat.
The metaphor I'm thinking of tells us
how we are not in fact in the same boat.
We are all in the same storm,
but many of us are in small, leaky boats,
highly subject to winds and waves,
while a few others are in battleships,
well equipped to push through in safety.
It's a good metaphor as far as it goes,
and it paints a clear picture
of many of the problems
the pandemic has revealed
in a much brighter light.
There are front line workers
of nearly every social and income level
whose work is regarded as essential.
Executive level workers and managers
in many companies
have been regarded as essential,
but their work can be done remotely and safely,
and they have often been encouraged
or even required
to work from home.
Those who can stay safe
are the ones in the battleships.
Within health care,
doctors, nurses, specialists in therapies,
and many others
have placed themselves at risk
in order to care for patients.
Those who clean and disinfect
clinic and hospital spaces are no less vital,
but they are often somewhat less appreciated.
Front line workers
in food preparation and distribution
have often been considered essential,
and yet their income and job security
have been no less at risk over the last year
than the times before.
I'm only scratching the surface
with the few types of workers I'm speaking about,
but I'm sure you can see my point.
Most of us have been in boats
that provide varying levels of safety.
Often the people we need and rely upon the most
are the very ones who are most at risk.
As we look forward in hope and anticipation
to the time in which we can begin again
to gather in person for worship,
it's truly important for us
to consider the people among us
who are most vulnerable to contagion.
The vaccines are providing remarkable help
in protecting most of us from the pandemic.
Yet the dangers are not sufficiently overcome
for us to regard them as negligible.
The vaccines are effective at an extremely high level,
but as with most things in life,
they are not 100 percent reliable.
The variants, the mutations,
that may be much more contagious
or even more likely to cause serious illness,
also have to be considered.
My primary point about all this
is that the people in the least safe boats
are the ones we need to think about first.
Some of the members
of our own beloved community
are in that kind of boat.
Underlying conditions are sometimes
what places us at much higher risk.
In fact, there are many ways for some of us
to have landed in a condition of higher risk,
but our inability to protect ourselves
makes it necessary for the rest of us
to make the effort to protect those
who are more vulnerable.
There are signs of exactly this kind of care
for the most vulnerable people around us.
In our beloved NIUU congregation,
there are many signs of the caring we need
especially at this time.
I myself have been the recipient of the kind of care
I have needed at important times,
some of those times quite recently.
I'm confident we will want to continue to give care
to those who need it most
as we make decisions
about gathering again in person.
One important way we will show
our care for each other, I believe,
will be to have a hybrid form of our services.
My hope is that we can provide
continuing Zoom coverage of our services
long after we have begun to meet in person,
with practical precautions, of course.
Hybrid services and precautions will be signs
of our loving care for each other,
especially for those who are especially vulnerable.
We can provide a good example of caring.
Our example will be especially important
in our time and place because
there are also signs in our world
of a retreat from caring
into an era of selfishness
and an attitude of "Me first!"
Every choice we make,
whether to care or to do as we please,
can help move our society and our world
in one direction or the other.
The message and the choice is clear for all to see.
We can move forward into a new time
of loving kindness
toward other people and the rest of creation,
or we can move backward into an old normal
that regards self serving as a positive value.
Spring is a Season of Nature, and it is glorious.
Easter is a Season of the heart,
and it is even greater in its own way.
You see, Easter is a sign of rebirth and renewal
through self giving
rather than self aggrandisement.
For us in the Northern Hemisphere,
the Easter and Spring seasons are moving together
hand in hand as usual.
No matter what, though,
Easter can represent for us a movement
toward a new normal
in which mutual care becomes a cultural norm.
There are signs of this possibility everywhere,
even while there is intense resistance elsewhere.
Without having to go to extremes,
people are finding ways to let go
of old stereotypes and see each other
as people with equal rights under law and love.
We develop expectations
of what other people are or should be like,
but the reality of their needs and feelings is often
far more like our own than we have thought.
As the saying goes
from Sravasti Abbey near Newport, Washington,
"Dropping our expectations
brings so much peace in the mind."
We can learn to see each other as we really are
rather than the way we expect each other to be,
and we can also learn to care for each other
in ways that will bring about a true new normal
for our communities, states, and nations,
and for the planet as a whole.
Our time of new hope can be a time of great renewal
of our humanity
with increased human kindness,
care for each other,
and especially care
for those who are most vulnerable among us.
Our vulnerabilities are not only based on questions
of health versus disease.
We are also vulnerable to a wide variety of social ills,
and our time is seeing a renewal of interest
in finding ways to relieve the suffering
of those who are most subject
to the consequences of the weaknesses
in our current forms of civilization.
If the pandemic of COVID-19 can call our attention
to the weaknesses of our old ways of doing things,
there is truly new hope
that we may be able to create together
a new normal,
providing better opportunities for everyone.
Amen.
So may it be.
Blessed be.
posted by pastorfred at 5:02 PM
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