Rev. Richard Burden of All Saints' Parish in Brookline MA delivered this beautiful message at the annual Brookline Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, November 24, 2024.
"Come with me in the WABAC Machine…back to May of 1980. That’s when the volcano in
Washington State, the one the native tribes called “the Smoker” (because it was often venting
steam) finally exploded sending a column of smoke and ash 80,000 feet into the air. The heat was so intense that glaciers which had been on the mountain for centuries melted in an instant and became massive mudslides that flattened everything within 230 square miles. Thousands of large mammals, millions of fish and aquatic life were wiped out. Remarkably only 57 humans died, but homes, highways, railways…everything within hundreds of miles…was gone…reduced to an absolute wasteland.. If you remember the eruption of Mount Saint Helens, or if you’ve seen pictures of the devastation, you would be sure that the area would lie in ruins and be utterly uninhabitable for decades. But that’s not what happened. Less than three months after the explosion, freshly disturbed earth started turning up in the blast
zone, and emerging from the ash were tiny northern pocket gophers. Who had been protected
because they live underground. The next year, prairie lupines flowers appeared…less than four miles from the crater and these plants were not struggling…they were flourishing… The year after that, scientists moved a group of gophers from the south side of the volcano to
devastated northern zone for a single day. Six years later, in the small patch of earth the gophers worked for 24 hours, there were 40,000 new plants. Forty-four years later, that devastated area is alive with plants…and animals abound, and trout
have repopulated the lakes and streams. What happened? Well, we now know that underneath the devastation of ash and mud were all of these small pockets of life…a bed of moss…a few hearty trout…some fungus…gophers that turned over the soil and brought in nutrients from outside… these little pockets of life kept doing what they do, and as a result the whole area bloomed andreturn to life. In scientific terms, these…”little sheltered pockets that survive…that preserve life… that become seeds of restoration and growth” [Debra Rienstra] are known as refugia. (Think refuge). This, to me…is a profound description of what Indigenous Nations, and BIPO communities… and LGBTQ+ found families…and the communities who exist on the margins of Empire have been doing for generations…in the face of centuries of devastation…through resistance and resilience… these communities endure…and in their enduring they bring life and light to others around them…and bend that long arc of the universe towards greater and greater justice. I also believe that this is what our individual faith communities can be…and in many ways are doing…we are refugia. I would argue that being refugia…being these pockets of life and sustenance…of faith and hope…is what we, as people of faith, are called to do…and what we are actually good at. We’re not really very good at wielding secular power…and we know what happens when the faithful (of any tradition) get too enamored with…too cozy with…too enthralled by…the secular powers of this world…and how devastating that always is for life in so many forms. We have thousands of years of tragic history that bears that out…The temptation is always there…to confuse earthly power with Divine authority…to confuse our wants with God’s will…but we’re called to resist those temptations, and to remember, in the words of poet Mark Nepo, that we are not gods who carve out rivers, but small living things that awaken in the stream of God’s grace…when we return and recommit to being about the work of reconciliation and repair…when we become refugia…that’s when things start to blossom. We need to be refugia for our own communities to be sure: Jewish, Muslim, Baha’i, Unitarian, Christian…but more than that…as an interfaith community we are uniquely positioned to plant and nourish seeds of life and health and growth in the devastation of the multiple crises that are continually erupting these days. I am deeply thankful, and have been profoundly blessed, to be a part of this Brookline Interfaith group for the past decade. We come together a six or seven times a year to do some of the most important refugia work any of us can do…we meet for the sole purpose of building relationships… and nurturing friendships…across differences and for common purpose. It’s not always easy…the past year or so has been especially difficult for our Jewish and Muslim siblings. But we commit to listen…to share…and above all to show up for each other when we are needed. We have differences…to be sure. We have to honor and respect and continue to be curious about our differences…We live by different calendars…We organize our lives around different feasts and fasts…We read different Scriptures…and even within our own traditions we have very different interpretations of those Scriptures…We have different histories…those difference are real, and profound…and sometimes painful. I know as white Christians we bear a good deal of responsibility for the anti-Jewish, and anti-Muslim thought and behavior that continues to plague us. But only together can we hear the pain, honor the lament, and continue working toward repair. And even as we acknowledge and lament and honor our differences, I also firmly believe that as people of faith living in the midst of a secularized, disenchanted, dehumanizing, and isolating form of late-capitalism…we actually have much more in common with each other, than we do with the rest of the secular world. Because (again) we order our lives differently…We live by different calendars, where time and seasons are sanctified by feasts and fasts and daily prayer…We base our values and our behavior on our scriptures and our traditions as well as our God-given reason…We sing our songs… even in the midst of this very strange land where we find ourselves. The gravitational center of our lives is not the mighty and powerful of this world…but the Mighty and Merciful One…the Creator of the whole the cosmos…Who establishes balance…Who blesses the poor and meek…Who empowers the peacemakers…and establishes the Most Great Peace. So what am I most thankful for? Right here. Right now. I am most thankful for you. For your
presence…your witness…for your showing up…and being refugia…For creating spaces for life… and health…and hope to flourish and thrive. May this ground we have turned over tonight with our songs, and prayers, become a rich soil for a robust life lived in harmony with one another and with all of God’s creation. Amen. - Rev. Richard Burden, Thanksgiving, 2024
May all be blessed with a happy, peaceful and bountiful Thanksgiving.
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