Yearning for Peace...

Why we go down to the river to pray A reflection on baptism, forgiveness, and what we're really searching for 8 min read A while back, I was at a fundraiser for refugees. An Irish bluegrass band was playing, and one song caught me — I didn't know where I'd heard it before, but I tracked it down. "Down to the River to Pray," written early last century. A spiritual, a gospel number. Turns out it features in the Coen Brothers film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" I haven't seen the movie, but I read up on it. It's a comic satire on Homer's Odyssey. The lead character is Ulysses Everett McGill — Ulysses being the Roman form of Odysseus. There are scenes with sirens, a cyclops, all these loose connections to the ancient epic. But essentially, it's about three criminals who escape a chain gang and go looking for buried treasure before the area floods. The scene I watched was the one with "Down to the River to Pray." The three escapees are hiding in the bush, arguing over food, bickering about things they've done or not done. Then suddenly there's singing. People appear, walking through the scrub in ordinary clothes — shirts, ties, trousers, dresses — many with white gowns over the top. They're all wearing these beatific, angelic smiles, singing as they walk. The three criminals are confused. What's going on? They follow the crowd and stand off to the side. The people converge into two lines and walk straight into the river, fully dressed. Out in the water, waist-deep, stands a preacher. He's baptising them one by one — dunk, blessing, next. Dunk, blessing, next. Ulysses, the main character, offers mocking, cynical commentary. "There's a chump born out of hard times." What are people looking for? What are they searching for? Meanwhile, his two mates, Delmar and Pete, are watching wide-eyed. Suddenly Delmar makes a break for it. He runs down the bank, falls, thrashes his way forward, jumps to the head of the queue. The preacher baptises him. Delmar steps away, walks back toward his mates on the bank, and calls out: "I've been redeemed! I'm saved! My sins are forgiven! One way — the straight and narrow road for me, and heaven is my everlasting reward!" Ulysses keeps throwing out cynical comments. Delmar keeps walking, gets near the edge of the river, and says, "I've been forgiven. God's got nothing against me now. The preacher said so. Hey boys, come on in. The water's just fine." Pete makes a run for it. Goes in. Gets baptised. And Ulysses is left wondering — why are people going down to the river to pray? What are they after? I asked myself the same question. Why is this scene in the movie? The Coen Brothers have a Jewish background, and many of their films explore spirituality, faith, redemption — these themes around salvation, but from eccentric, out-on-the-edge angles. But why this scene? Why are these people in this movie going down to the river to pray? Why did Pete and Delmar seek redemption? What's going on for them in their lives? This week we've got the story from Matthew. We meet John the Baptist again, our annual visitor this time of year. John, dressed like an old-time prophet — camel's hair tunic, leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey. A strange character. He's inviting people down to the Jordan River to be baptised. And I'm wondering — why are the people leaving the towns and villages, leaving Jerusalem with its temple where God is supposed to be, to go down to the Jordan River to this strange, enigmatic, mysterious figure who's baptising them for repentance, for forgiveness of sins? Then religious leaders show up. Maybe curious. Maybe wanting what he offers themselves. But John rages into his hellfire preaching. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to escape the coming wrath? You think just being sons of Abraham will save you? I baptise with water, but one is coming whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with fire and the Spirit. Even now, his winnowing fork is in his hands. He'll separate the wheat from the chaff. The chaff will go into the unquenchable fire." This language of judgment and repentance and sin — language we associate with bad religion. Bad religion that has condemned and excluded and abused and controlled and defined people over the years. Language that is violent, and sometimes the actions that come from it are violent. But that's not what John's on about. The judgment he calls for is judgment on the institutions and the lifestyles of people that are unjust. When we look at our own world, we see billionaires and trillionaires hoarding wealth. Money in the hands of the relative few, or wealthy nations. And yet the world is filled with people who are impoverished. Not enough food to eat or clean water to drink. No healthy sanitation or medicines or education or places to live. There are people who are suffering. People who just don't fit in, who are pushed to the edges and denied life and hope. We live in a world where indigenous people are having their language and culture destroyed. Lost. Cultural genocide. We live in a world where the earth is warming. Sea levels are rising, particularly in our Pacific islands and coastal communities. I heard stories just this week of villages in Tonga where people have been moved from their homes up into the towns and cities because the sea is starting to cover their villages. In Bangladesh, good fertile soils near the coast are being flooded by seawater. They can't grow the food they need. There's erosion as the sea comes up with the waves, and the saltwater goes up into the rivers. This is happening. Creatures around the world — animals, plants — are losing their habitats through climate change or the invasion of humans for land and land clearing. This is the world we live in. It's beautiful, but also harsh. A world that forces us into individualism, to compete with each other, even to tread on people's heads to climb up. The one who gets to the highest, the one who has the most toys at the end, wins the game. And yet we go down to the river to pray. Why do we go to the river to pray? What are we praying for? The river might be metaphorical. Where is it we go to reflect, to think, to pray, to draw strength, to be renewed? What is it we yearn for? What is it in terms of forgiveness, of guilt, of shame, of fear, or whatever wrestles within our being? What are those things in our lives that we wrestle with, that challenge us, that we wish we could do differently? Relationships or whatever it is. This is what John was on about. He was inviting people into the space where they could be forgiven — not by him, but by this God who is gracious and loving. For the people in his time, many of the religious and political leaders denied people this grace. If they didn't seemingly do the right thing or act in the right way or believe the right things, they were excluded and told God didn't love them. Bad religion. It still exists. And they yearned to be loved by this God. When they were weak and needed strength, they wanted to pray to this God and be helped. John gave them that space, that opportunity. He talks about the one who will come. There's a sense of judgment — he's got the winnowing fork in his hand, he'll separate the wheat from the chaff, and the chaff will go in the fire. Often that's read as the bad people are the chaff and they'll burn forever, and the good people are the wheat and they'll go off with God. But I think it's deeper than that. The wheat and the chaff are all in me. The wheat is the good stuff. The loving stuff. The good stuff I do. That's about peace and hope and joy and love. It's about justice and community and relationship. The chaff is the stuff in me that I regret. The stuff that brings shame or guilt or fear or whatever it is. The stuff I wish I couldn't do or didn't do. I can't change it. And it says that stuff will be separated out and destroyed. I will be renewed and forgiven and healed and hoped. That's the promise. In the other reading, from Isaiah, over two and a half thousand years old, to people who are in crisis — national crisis, personal crisis, religious faith crisis — Isaiah comes to them and says there's one who is coming and he will bring peace. He will bring peace and hope in a way you can't comprehend. Instead of violent conflict and warfare and fighting, instead of evil oppressors and dictators destroying communities with missiles and bombs, this one will bring hope and peace. Isaiah gives this vision of God's peaceful kingdom where the lion and the wolf and the lamb and the snake and the baby will sit down together peacefully and live together. That's God's promise. That we can find deep peace within that will enable us to live peacefully with one another. And in this, the world will change. God's grace will bring hope. Life will bring peace. Will bring joy. It's God's love and grace that we need. I think the people who go down to the river in that movie, the people who go down to the river in response to John, the people in our world — in ourselves — who go to the place to pray, to be quiet, to be renewed, are seeking something. We're seeking God's love. God's grace. God's forgiveness. God's peace for our being and for our world. Amen. Based on a sermon by an unknown speaker