Queen Anne 

Someone once wrote that on July 4^th, 1776, the notation in the diary of King George III of Great Britain read ‘nothing much happened today’.  July 4^th of course turned out to be a very important day in history, particularly American history.  It was the birth of our nation.  It’s always interesting to look at events from other perspectives. 

Our scripture today deals with differing perspectives.   Our text is from the book of Ezra.  We don’t hear a lot about Ezra.  Ezra was a priest and a scribe. He lived about seven hundred years before Christ. During his life, Jerusalem has been conquered and the temple had been destroyed, and the people were sent into captivity in Babylon.  Two generations were born during this exile. 

Eventually, during their captivity, the Babylonian King allowed for the rebuilding of the temple. Ezra’s job was to lead the people back to Jerusalem, and to restore the Temple .  When I say people, I am talking about 70K to a 100K folks, so not a small group.

The book of Ezra brings to us a picture of God’s work in the restoration of a people that had fallen into sin.  Ezra gives us two perspectives of the people involved in the restoration of the temple. 

Ezra reports that once the foundation of the new temple had been laid, ‘the people responded with a great shout when they praised the LORD.’  This was a great time.  After living in exile for two generations, they were going to get their temple back.  But then Ezra says that while many people shouted for joy, many of the older folks wept. 

So now I am getting to my point about perspectives.  What Ezra is witnessing is differing perspectives.  There is the perspective of the people who remembered the Temple before the destruction.  Kind of like us remembering the old days.  They remembered the old hymns with the organ, the old prayers.  They probably remembered the old pews and where they used to sit. 

But the younger folks never knew the Temple.  Two generations had been born in exile.   Maybe the young folks tried to connect with the old ways.  Maybe they tried to sing the old songs, but it wasn’t the same.  Maybe the older folks tried to let go of living in the past, but it was the remembrance of the Temple that had sustained them while they were in captivity, so the past was hard to give up.  So how did these groups come together with a common memory?  How do we come together with a common memory? 

Well first, we don’t act like King George III.  We don’t assume that because things are not happening the way that we want or we expect, that things are not happening at all.  Instead, what we can do is really believe that God has and continues to work in our lives.  This does not mean that God’s work looks the way that we might want or expect.

I had to relearn this lesson a couple of weeks ago when I was at annual conference.  We voted on a number of amendments to the United Methodists Constitution.  Many of the amendments dealt with inclusion.  I naively thought that the vote on these amendments would have been a slam dunk.  Who would have known that I would be sitting beside a group that also thought the vote would be a slam dunk, but in the other direction.

Ezra could easily have reported from our Conference that there was weeping in the midst of the shouts for joy; differing perspectives.

The thing is, we are not the same.  We have different life experiences and goals.  We hear God’s call in different ways.  What we share is a belief in God who loves diversity, and the belief that God’s diversity is a blessing for the world.

Ezra’s is not the only testimony in the Bible.  There are many testimonies that speak to God’s activity in our lives. There are many testimonies in this church.  And as a church we continue to learn how to navigate in the midst of diverse voices; how to include people and provide hospitality while also being vigilant to our faith tradition.  Faith is costly; faith can divide and separate. To be at peace with God can mean being in conflict with the world.

But what greater gift can our church offer the world right now than to be a people who know it is our call in life not to fit in, not to fit in, but to be faithful, to keep our eyes firmly fixed on God and the promised life God offers.

We are the people that the world is waiting for.  The ones that take risks, the ones that stand out and point the way to Christ.  No one will write about Queen Anne that nothing much happened here.  We are not called to be the same.  But, even in the midst of our diversity, we are all called to bring Christ’s love to everyone we encounter.

Both diversity and unity are gifts of the Spirit. Both are rooted in the cross, not in our ability to agree with one another.  We can handle both allegiance to the cross of Christ and allegiance to the flag of our country.  And as we finish up our celebration of the birth of our nation, let us pray that we continue to add our voices to the diversity.  That we continue to act on behalf of the poor of the world and stand up for the downtrodden as Jesus has taught us. 

May the joy you have in Christ, and may the tears you weep for the hurt of the world, mingle together and be heard as a daring testimony to the God whom we know by the tears of the cross and the jubilant joy of the resurrection.  May it be so.  Amen.