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No. No more of this.
Lately I’ve been finding myself in a something like a state of chronic lament. Waking up, as I do, to a news feed filled with very public cases of domestic abuse and #metoo harassment , cruel deportations that divide families… and now yet another massacre of school children. I fear that the frequency and enormity of these tragedies may dull my capacity to feel the outrage that is the healthy human response to wrongdoing. So I’m going to practice saying it out loud right here. NO. No more of this. We have the right to say no to what damages us and the people we love.
Young athletes have the right to say no to health professionals who take advantage of their trust. Parents have a right to say no to medical procedures that make their daughters uncomfortable. Rachael Denhollander, a former competitive gymnast and Larry Nasser victim, had the right to say no to the systemic cover up of his sexual abuse. And also the right to say no to the evangelical church leaders who asked her to forgive and forget without accountability. “When the gospel of Christ is wielded like a weapon against sexual assault victims, that’s wicked,” she said. YES, I say, to her appropriately outraged “NO”.
These are the headline cases that deepen my lament, but they also serve to remind me of the ordinary baptismal truths that we Episcopalians hold dear. We don’t have to say yes to anything that fails to serve Christ in another, or to anything that disrespects human dignity. Including our own dignity. We don’t have to say yes to relationships that damage us, we don’t have to say yes to shame, we don’t have to say yes to manipulation or abuse in our families or workplaces.
We have the right to say no, and we also have the capacity to say no. Jesus himself showed us the way. From Mark’s spare prose we just learned that “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.” But if you’ve read Matthew and Luke’s more dramatic renditions, you’ll recall that Jesus was tempted in these three ways: to make bread out of stones, to jump from a mountaintop, and to worship the devil in exchange for temporal power.
The point of this story is not to suggest that there’s anything inherently wrong with food, political power, or—for example—Andreas Wellinger’s spectacular gold medal winning alpine jump. But unchecked hedonism, egoism, and materialism have the potential to be as damaging to the human soul as any abuse. And God knows—as Jesus demonstrated—that we sometimes have to say no to those risky choices that undermine our ability to say an authentic yes to that which is good.
Today some of our Catechesis students—those who are preparing for Holy Baptism, Confirmation or Reception this year—will be enrolled, so to speak, by signing our book of Catechumens during the offertory. You might think of this as a symbolic YES to God, as it’s one of the ways in which they indicate their intention to live a covenanted Christian life. As they enter into the Lenten portion of their preparation, I invite your prayers for them.
On the eve of Easter and on Trinity Sunday, these same people will stand up in our midst again, and say “I will, with God’s help” to various ways of living a good and holy life. If you’ve been to a Baptism in the Episcopal Church you probably affirmed them yourself: continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship; perseverance in resisting evil and the willingness to repent; proclaiming good news; seeking and serving Christ in all persons; striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being.
But pay attention to the order of the questions. Before they get to those beautiful affirmations that we call the Baptismal covenant, we ask those being baptized so say a series of no’s. They will renounce Satan and the spiritual forces of wickedness, they will renounce the evil powers which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and they will renounce sinful desires that would draw them from the love of God. That’s some pretty strange church language, I’ll admit. But it is intended to echo Jesus’ three wilderness temptations, and to remind us that we too have the capacity to say no to wrongdoing. NO. No more of this.
Covenant is itself a pretty strange churchy word—we don’t use it much in everyday conversation—but you heard it several times in our first and second lessons. God said to Noah and to his sons, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you… that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” There are no conditions on this covenant, it’s not a “be good and I won’t flood you” kind of deal. Essentially, God said “no, no more of this” to God’s own destructive capacity.
If God can say no to the exercise of destructive power, then so can we. We don’t have to say yes to physical or emotional violence against children or woman or ourselves. We have the power to say no, and—like God—we have the responsibility to say no. Sometimes we have to look evil straight in the eye, including the evil we ourselves are capable of, and say a definitive NO. No more of this. We renounce wrongdoing—and even those good thing that might tempt us towards the bad—in order to make room for God’s kingdom of love to flourish. You know what I mean. It’s that kingdom wherein children are safe in school and woman and families are respected and angry young men don’t fall through the cracks. All this is possible, but sometimes it takes a loud and clear no on our part in order to make room for God’s YES.
“Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?” asked Paul in his letter to the perpetually infighting Corinthian church. “As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you… was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises are “Yes.”
What do you say NO to and what is your YES? Those are questions worth exploring during Lent. Maybe you’ve already decided to take something on as a yes, or give something up as a no. It might be chocolate or wine or the temptation to blame others, or self-doubt or shame or political indifference. These are not matters of salvation; God will love you whether you take on a dozen Lenten disciplines or break a dozen Lenten disciplines or do nothing at all. But what I’m really interested in is how are you are called renounce temptation. The temptation, for example, to do wrong to another or yourself; the temptation to indifference or despair, or to accepting evil as the status quo. How will you say no to the temptation to think that you or the systems you live within can’t change? Because that’s not true. You have both the power and the responsibility to say NO. And you know that Easter is coming, with its resounding and irrefutable yes.
In the meantime, here is my prayer for you. May this be your Lent of discontent, wherein you risk paying a deep and fearless attention to all that is wrong. You may find yourself outraged and grieving; Lord knows that I have. And then let this also be your Lent of non-consent, wherein you find the powerful NO that allows you to recognize and embrace anew the authentic YES that is always and inevitably God’s deepest desire for us.
