I will probably never forget the night I boarded an Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Bozeman, Montana, on my way to a national UMC Evangelism Conference.  It was a clear night in late October, the stars were shining and the moon was full on a bright expanse of new-fallen snow.  I was sitting in the first row, just beyond the main cabin door, facing the flight attendants in their jump seats.  Everything seemed fine as we took off… but just a few minutes into the flight, I happened to look out the window…at FLAMES!

Flames – FIRE – was coming out of the engine.  As I glanced up at the flight attendant seated opposite me, I saw her face freeze, drain of all color, and her eyes fill with fear.   I remember thinking this can’t be good… and then in the next nano-second I thought I’m getting out of here!  My body (and probably my lizard brain) was prepared to bolt for the door.  Never mind that we were already in  the air; I’d had enough; the door was RIGHT THERE!   I was getting out.

Fast forward about ten years, and I once again had that visceral gut-response, I’ve had enough; I’m getting out of here!  It was about twelve hours into labor with my first child.

Now, I had listened carefully to the Lamaze instructor, had made note of it when they told us a first baby usually meant ten hours of labor.  I knew how to tell time, and I was well aware those ten hours had come and gone, and I was suffering.  The solution seemed simple in my moment of pain, as simple as it had seemed in that moment of airborne fear… let me out of here!

These days, some may be longing for that same simple solution, as we continue to isolate and take extraordinary precautions in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and as we begin, finally, to address our own complicity in systems of white privilege and the oppressive racism it has spawned.  We may find ourselves thinking this is too hard; I don’t like to suffer; I’m done; I’m getting out of here!

But that is just our “lizard brain”, talking –  the amygdala, or the part of the brain responsible for the things a lizard can also do, things like making the choice between  fight or flight, and figuring out what to eat and when.  Feelings like fear which might lead to freezing up.  And yes, things like mating.  Our amygdala is an old part of our brain which we cannot do without even today.  But it is not all there is to us.

So let’s use another part of our brains right now, the part that fuels our imagination.    Imagine for just a moment walking out to get your mail and discovering within it a letter from an unknown solicitor.  Inside, you read the astonishing news that you had a long lost relative – an uncle maybe or an aunt – who has died and left you their entire, and very considerable, estate.

Just imagine, waking up one morning and discovering you had riches beyond your wildest dreams, that all your financial worries now and in the future were wiped out – no longer a consideration.  How would you feel?  What would you do – pay off your debt, maybe, buy something special perhaps?

As Christians, the better question for us is, what would you do differently?  How would the life you lead now be changed, knowing that the life you anticipate in the future is secure?  It seems this is the sort of question the apostle Paul might ask if he were with us today.  In the letter he wrote to the early Xians in Rome, he tells them (and us)…

 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

(Eugene Peterson, The Message)

 What Paul is saying here is that God considers us not only God’s children – but also, God’s heirs, equal inheritors of all God has to give, along with Christ.  Not being one to miss the opportunity to close the loop, Paul goes on to tell us what kind of difference that makes for us…

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.

(Eugene Peterson, The Message)

Rather than operating out of the “lizard” part of your brain – rather than being afraid of the future, or afraid of what people think of you, or afraid of your status, or afraid of losing the status quo, Paul invites up to imagine living a life of courage, knowing you are unconditionally loved, knowing you have immeasurable value in God’s eyes, knowing that no matter what you do or what is done to you, no matter where you go, no matter what…God loves you.

God loves you enough to hear you when you cry, “Come Holy Spirit, Courage!”.  God loves you enough to send the Spirit, to move you out of your lizard brain and into your heart, where you can confess and lament and practice repentance.  God loves you enough to help you turn away from the white supremacy sea in which you have been raised, the sea in which you still swim.  God loves you enough to support you in turning away and steeping down from the landscape of privilege, which Rebecca Solnit describes as a landscape as level as the Andes.

We cry, “Come, Holy Spirit, Courage!”… because we know that courage is what we need this day.  The poet David Whyte speaks about courage this way:

Courage is a word that tempts us to think outwardly, to run bravely against opposing fire, to do something under besieging circumstance, and perhaps, above all, to be

seen to do it in public, to show courage; to be celebrated in story, rewarded with medals, given the accolade…

but a look at its linguistic origins is to look in a more interior direction.  In its original template, the old Norman French, “courage” comes from the root word for “heart”… it is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future.

Christian theology is intimately connected with courage.  To follow Jesus is to practice a heartfelt participation with life, with others, with a community, with a work … even with God’s own Self.  From Paul’s assertion that we are God’s children, to our connection as a Reconciling Congregation, we are called into that heartfelt participation which defines our courage.   Again, in Whyte’s words:

To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on. To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.  Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.

Courage is also what love looks like when tested by the extraordinary necessities of being alive in this moment.  Like the necessity of wearing a mask, protecting the health of the most vulnerable among us, or the necessity of worshiping online instead of in person.  Courage is what love looks like when tested by the necessity of sharing our resources to care for those who are in need; the necessity of LISTENING to the cries of the oppressed, the necessity of confessing and repenting  of our complicity in systems that allow oppression to go unchecked.  Courage is what love looks like when tested by the necessity of  witnessing, protesting, leveraging our privilege to influence public policy, showing up and speaking out against evil, even the evil which resides in our own unconscious souls.

French philosopher Albert Camus famously suggested this kind of courage when he wrote his injunction to “live to the point of tears”, not as some sort of sad sack Eeyore kind of character, but rather as a whole-hearted expression of participation in life.

We live courageously when we live to the point of tears as we face the new and sometimes surprising necessities of life in this moment.  It is the Holy Spirit which helps us – not by offering shortcuts to suffering, or easy exits from fear – but by joining us in the moment of our greatest vulnerability, in the circumstances of our greatest discomfort, in the days of our greatest challenge.

With Paul, this morning, I want to believe  All around us we observe a pregnant creation.  The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs.

And I hope you recognize, along with those who first received the letter to the Romans…It’s not only around us; it’s within us, this time of pain.  Because the Spirit of God is arousing us within.  We are also feeling the birth pangs as we yearn for full deliverance.

We are feeling the birth pangs.  And there is no going back, there is no shortcut through our suffering or easy exit from our fear.  Which is good news – because while we struggle, while we face the discomfort of honest introspection, and the challenge of dismantling systems, we are not alone.  Our cries of Come, Holy Spirit, Courage!   are being heard and answered even now.  Thanks be to God!  Amen,