Turn

March 10, 2024
Year B; 4th Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20: 1-17
Psalm 19
John 2: 13-22

Homily by Rev. Megan Limburg

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our
hearts be acceptable in your sight,
O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
 
The meditations that our Deacon, Deb, has been offering daily in this season of Lent, are based on the life and words of St. Francis of Assisi. These meditations have been a blessing to me, offering bread for my Lenten journey from a saint I, like many, have loved, but are coming to understand better in these offerings.

As Deb reminds us, we can limit our understanding by seeing Francis only as the monk who loved the animals and preached to the birds. Francis was those beautiful things, but he was also as human and complex as you and me, a man who was born wealthy and indulged, and could have continued on, living a life of empty privilege.

But after being wounded in war and taken prisoner, a situation where he thought he would be a hero, Francis began to listen more, and in the quiet, to connect with God, and he, as Deb wrote:

“…. experienced a metanoia, or a turning toward God, he began to understand that it was the poor that God had put in his path to care for and love.”

I am always glad that, in the midst of this turning point and growth of his faith, Francis remained his creative, funny, and joyful self, the teenager and man he was, before and after his journey to God.

Thus, as I read the news in the past weeks, Francis came to mind as I learned of the death of Russian democratic leader, Alexei Navalny.

In case you are not familiar with this man, he worked in Russia for the past ten years, opposing the authoritarian regime of Vladmir Putin, who has held power in Russia since 1999, serving alternately as the prime minister or president for 25 years.

Following in the long line of dissidents in the Soviet and Russian eras, Navalny brought a different tone and flavor to the dangerous and crucial work of dissention in the sadly again oppressive society of Russia, after the brief hope of the years of  diplomacy of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Navalny used humor and his signature smile, even when on trial yet again, as Putin furiously worked through his secret police to crush the growing popularity of this voice for freedom and democracy in Russia.

Navalny’s lightness and even joy in the face of imprisonment and, in 2020, poisoning, were striking in the gloom and fear of daily life in Russia, and gave people much needed hope.

Navalny was poisoned with Novichok a deadly nerve agent that nearly killed him. He was flown to a hospital in Germany, and in a medically induced coma for weeks. As he recovered, Navalny could have taken permanent refuge in the West, but he refused. Do not be afraid, do not give up, he said often.

And in consultation with his wife, Yulia, returned to Russia in January 2021 and was promptly arrested again by Putin’s agents.

Last summer, Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison and was later sent to a prison camp forty miles north of the Arctic Circle. At this prison camp, Navalny died on February 16 at the age of 47.

His parents worked to have his body returned to them, his mother appealing directly to Putin to be able to bury her son with dignity. Churches were fearful of hosting the funeral.

Finally, a Russian Orthodox church in Moscow, with the beautiful and appropriate name, Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, agreed to hold the funeral and burial of Navalny.
Thousands came for the service and stood in the church yard for the burial. As Navalny’s casket was lowered into the grave, once more his humor and lightness appeared, as the AP reported:

“In keeping with his irreverent sense of humor, music from the “The Terminator 2" was played, a movie his allies said he considered “the best in the world.” (AP article March 1, 2024)

As courageous as this man was and as tragic and criminal as his death is, why do I tell a bit of his story today?

Well, like Francis, like all of us in our life journeys, Navalny grew and changed. After surviving the vicious poisoning in 2020, Navalny, who had long been an atheist, became a Christian.

At his 2021 trial after returning to Russia Navalny said in part in his closing statement:

The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation (a group he helped found), because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself.

But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier.

Remember his words when he decided to return to Russia facing certain imprisonment.

“Do not be afraid, do not give up.”
I think about things less. There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation. It’s not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it’s easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics.”

Navalny went on to quote from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied,” adding he had always thought of that statement as “more or less an instruction to activity.”

That instruction, which he called a commandment, caused him to return to Russia where he was imprisoned and died.
“While certainly not really enjoying the place where I am, I have no regrets about coming back, or about what I’m doing,” he said at the time. “I did as required by the instructions, and did not betray the commandment.” (Winnipeg Free Press March 2, 2024)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

Navalny, like Francis, had experienced a metanoia, or a turning toward God.

Francis came to see that God had put the poor in his path to love. Navalny came to see his long work of speaking out for freedom and democracy in Russia as work put in his path by God, and the people, so often fearful, in his path.

We have so many saints of God to look to, learn from and pray for in this season of Lent. May our eyes be open to see their courage, humor and joy, shining the light into the darkness.

Amen.