Sermon: You are Witnesses, or, On Not Taking Shame from Anyone

Apollo Defending the Hated Gaius Baltar
on Battlestar Galactica 

Sermon: "You are Witnesses, or, On Not Taking Shame from Anyone"

15 April 2018

South Wedge Mission

Rochester, NY

Easter 3

Text: Psalm 4, Luke 24:36-48

Gospel Text:

 36 While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." 37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence. 44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

~ 

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Unless one's family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them. We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters. They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our words...

There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could. Some people cannot be seen - we send them an honest letter. And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases. But we don't delay if it can be avoided. We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone.

-from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous 

~

The following was written, then adapted post-preaching, based on its extemporaneous performance on 4.15.18.

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from the Triune God.

We are witnesses.  Jesus said so.  In many ways, that’s the perfect place for us to begin our short series exploring our SWM values.  The whole point of having values is to guide and equip us for this primal task, assigned to us by Jesus, to serve as witnesses.  

It’s a hell of a calling. 

I’m reminded of one of my favorite schticks from stand-up comic Jim Gaffigan:

(Click for AUDIO) - “I do want everyone to feel comfortable, that's why I'd like to talk to you about Jesus... It doesn't matter if you're religious or not, does anything make you more uncomfortable than some stranger going, 'I'd like to talk to you about Jesus.’”

It’s funny because it’s true.  And while I do agree with GK Chesterton that “the test of a good religion is whether you can joke about it,” the truth behind the humor can also be pretty heart-breaking.  

Because our spirituality and faith practice are a part of us.  I assume that you keep coming back here each week, keep on pursuing it, because its not just a hobby.  It’s an aspect of your heart and your truest self.

And in any relationship worth having, we want to be known deeply for who we are.  Which means that we’ll want to share our truest selves.  Which means, we’ll eventually come to a place where we need - maybe even want - to share the part of us that is a disciple of Jesus.  

Which is where the heart-break can often begin.  Because we can’t really talk about Jesus without talking about Jesus’ followers.  And trying to do so can feel like being called as a witness by the public defender of a mass murderer.  We know deep down that everyone deserves a fair chance.  But it’s hard to muster up the effort, let alone passion, when the accused is someone as troubled and as traumatizing as the church.

Jesus calls us to be apologists; but more often, it feels like we’re forced to be apologizers.  We can start to feel shame for who we are, and who we follow.

How many of you have ever felt that courtroom tension when topics of faith and religion arise?  Like in the court of opinion the church has already been tried, judged and convicted of all manner of bigotry, hatred, close-mindedness, greed, violence, hypocrisy, electing Donald Trump, causing global warming, secretly financing Justin Bieber, and bashing small kittens over the head with rocks?

It can suck to talk to people about Jesus.  Because it can cost us a lot.  It can challenge relationships, risk our acceptance, and place us under judgement.  There’s a reason that the word for “martyr” derives from the Greek word for “witness.”  

We are witnesses.  And it can feel like a kangaroo court, a show trial, where our only hope is to try to put as much distance between us and our fellow Christians.

And if I’m honest: I’m not immune either.  I am a missionary, a called and ordained minister of the Gospel and a priest in God’s service, a church planter and a community organizer passionate about social justice and the arts.  And yet, I struggle.  I fear to wear my collar into places, partly because I don’t want to harm people. but if I’m honest, also because I don’t want people to harm me.  

As I was unearthing my office from the winter’s clutter this past week, I realized how much I’d internalized the shame I feel about my ordained office.  It is indisputable that I will never win an organization award.  But I also think that the literal mess was a subconscious acceptance of the shame I often feel about being a priest in a world that hates a failing church.  Like Gaffigan’s pope: I keep work at work.  

It can be very easy to talk about Mission Hall, Refuge Recovery, Midweek Mindfulness, the Free Store, and all the awesome stuff we do.  And then comes that moment; will I tell them we are a church?  That we have worship on Sunday evening?  That I’d love for them to come and join us?

If you’re like me, maybe you too start to internalize both the trauma and the hatred others experience around the Church.  Start to believe the lies that the Church has lived and the world has believed, that somehow the church’s failures invalidate the Gospel.  That somehow others’ abandonment of their baptismal identity is permission, even a mandate, for us to do the same. Start to believe that others don’t need to know their identity as beloved children of God, and that maybe, just maybe, we don’t need to know it either.

To become ashamed.  

While I do not wish to equate the struggles of GLBTQ+ persons in coming out with our faith struggle, I do think we can learn much from these fellow pilgrims on the journey.  A part of us that should be celebrated, engaged, accepted, can just as easily get locked in the closet and kept secret from those we love, let alone those who hate us.

Now, I should note, some of us have struggled to be witnesses for a different reason.  Those of you who grew up evangelical in the 90s undoubtedly remember a DC Talk song entitled “What If I Stumble?” (click for video):

What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue if my walk becomes a crawl?

What if I stumble?  What if I fall?

The song begins with a quote: 

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today

Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips

Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.

That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

Say what you will about commercial Christian music (or the ‘90s), but there’s definitely some prophetic foresight in this song.  It led some of us, back in the day, to actually be nervous about witnessing about Jesus, not because we were ashamed of Jesus, but because we were worried our walks didn’t measure up.  That our lives were not good enough.  That we’d let Jesus down.

That we, or God, are somehow measured by what we accomplish, by our successes, or by our failures.   That God’s love, grace and peace somehow wax and wane with our ability to embody them.  Certainly, the sad history of the Church does little to assuage such fears.  

And.  

Knowing this full well.  Knowing how much we’d screw this up.  Knowing that pain is as inevitable as the scars on his hands and the hole in his side, Jesus appears in our midst, shares a meal of cooked fish with us, and calls us to the stand to be his witnesses.  

Jesus has burst out of the tomb, and Jesus urges us to come out of the closet or our shame and our guilt and our fear and our pain around being Christians, and to proudly be who we most truly are.  Sinners saved by grace.  Broken people healed by hope.  Beloved children of an infinitely loving God who would not abandon us even when we betrayed and murdered Him. 

We may feel ashamed of the church’s failures.  Jesus is not ashamed of us.  God is not ashamed of us. 

Can you hear that spoken, not just from me, but through me by God’s spirit?  God is not ashamed of you.  Christ is not ashamed of you.  I am not ashamed of you.  

Grace means that it’s precisely us failures and closet-dwellers and betrayers and abandoners that God is proud to call to the witness stand to tell the story of grace.  

Because here’s the thing: with or without the church and its failures, the world is going to be violent and messed up and oppressive and destructive.  Without at all excusing the sordid history of the Church, humans of every belief system and lack thereof are equally accountable for the sadness of our existence.   It’s why we talk about the fallenness of the world.  It’s not a theory, but the most observable fact of our existence.  

That Christians have been participants along side the others is not excusable, and ought to humble us.  That Christians continue to allow it to happen, using the failures of our fellows and of ourselves as excuses to disengage, ought to challenge us.

That in God’s grace and love, and seeking God’s peace, God is pleased to call sinners to proclaim the Gospel should amaze us.  Empower us.  Heal us.

We were supposed to begin a discussion of our nine SWM Values today, and I had mentioned that today’s homily would introduce the reason for, the “why” of holding such things.  

This is the reason.  We are called to be witnesses in a beautiful, broken world.  And witnessing, in word and in deed, is one of the most difficult things we can be asked to do in the age we live in.  Not just because the church has failed.  But because it has already died.  It’s a relic whose corpse people spit on as they pass.

And we are called to be part of the resurrection of the Gospel.  Our values are sign posts, seeds, chemical elements, out of which I hope we can start to create medicine for the healing of the world, for the practice of resurrection.  

Because the scarred, hungry Jesus still walks in our midst.  The pain of the world has not gone away.  The beauty of the world has not faded.  God is not dead.  The Gospel is not scarred by those who have failed to understand it or practice it.  

And even if it has been, that’s not our problem.  Our problem, as a community of people whose lives have been touched, transformed and restored by our encounter with Jesus, is how we’re going to tell the story.  Our story.  Jesus’ story.  

We are not responsible for the failures or the faithfulness of other Christians.   You are not responsible of the failures or the faithfulness of other Christians.  We are not responsible.  

That is really good news.  Yes, we are connected to them.  Yes, we share communion with them.  Yes, their and our failures should teach us humility and make us careful and compassionate in our witness.

But hear that again: we are not responsible for them.  And we are not responsible for owning others’ pain for what has been done to them.  We are responsible, we are called to heal, and to listen, and to care.  But not to feel shame.  

I’ve hesitated to use this line of thought for a long time because I don’t want to seem arrogant.  I realize now that I didn’t want to put myself on the stand.  While we will fail in our own ways, and disappoint each other, and commit our own regrettable acts of faithlessness, we are here because we have decided we want to be a different kind of Christian.  We’re not going to let the lies define our pursuit of the truth.  

We dare to hope that love makes all things new.  

And I for one, this day, want to hear Jesus’ words addressed to us: you are witnesses.  Not apologizers for the evils of Chrisitanity.  But apologists, and proclaimers, and agents, of healing and restoration and practitioners of resurrection.

And our values tell a different story.  They help us remember the truths of the story of Jesus.  

These don’t exhaust the entirety of Christianity.  But I believe they help us to unfold the Gospel that Jesus Christ reveals a God madly in love with sinners, who wants to give life and see God’s children fully alive, and that God has not given up on this good good world.  That the church can be a space where questions are deeply lived, faith can be more than blind emotion or stale intellect, but a way of life practiced and experimented with together, and that our of this, we ourselves can nurture and cultivate life in the world around us.  That in radically proclaiming God’s all-inclusive love and praciticng it in our welcome, we discover new members and resources for the priesthood of all, and go out to minister, celebrate, mourn, agitate, accompany, and advocate for others.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, when Jesus is taking to his disciples about going forth to preach, he exhorts them “don’t worry about what you’re going to say, for the Holy Spirit will give you words.”  The Spirit.  The Advocate.  The Defense Attorney.

Not, “your perfect theology will sway them,” or “your progressive church’s pursuit of justice will win them,” or “your personal purity will woo them.”  No.  Our dependence on the Spirit.  The help of the Creator.  The grace of the Savior.

See, I think so often, we are led to shame because we’re not answering the right questions.  The Spirit is the Advocate, the Public Defender.  The Accuser, the Satan, is the Prosecutor.  And we must remember whose side we are really on.

Perhaps our witness is so confused because we’re letting the Accuser set the terms of the conversation.  The Prosecutor, who asks, “how have you failed?” “What do you lack?”  “Does God really love you?”  Against these ropes, we face a certain death of soul and self.

The Accuser’s questions are lies designed to bring about a guilty verdict.  But the Advocate is there to defend us, to allow us to speak our truth, to believe in our original innocence, and to make sure that life is allowed to win.

The Advocate asks, “what dreams has God placed in your heart?” “How has God’s grace transformed your life?” “Where is God calling us to share our gifts in order to make the world new?”

Our values are one way we try to answer the Advocate’s challenge.  They’re like jazz riffs and chord changes, musical scales or martial arts katas, that we can practice so that, when the moment to witness arises, they will speak through us, not only in words, but in lives that are fully lived.

Because in the end, that’s how Jesus witnesses.  Not only with words, but by sharing his vulnerable, scar-pocked hands.  By healing touch and ministering presence.  By coming into the midst of friends-turned-enemies, and sharing a physical meal of fish in fellowship and forgiveness.  With his flesh and blood, as well as his spirit and truth.

I am proud of the witness of this church.  Too often, people accuse me of the Church’s many sins.  They like to point to Donald Trump or Mike Pence or Jerry Falwell or Westboro Baptist or the priest who hurt them as a kid and act like they speak for all Christians.  And while I try to listen with patience and compassion to the very real pain in an individual’s life, I also believe that the church right in front of them tells a different story.

I’d wager to say that anyone from the South Wedge who thinks the church, and by extension, the Gospel, is invalid because of “bad Christians” is simply ignoring the amazing body of evidence God has amassed right here between South Clinton and Mt Hope.

There is Artisan Church, which has defied it’s denominational restrictions by proclaiming and living LGBTQ equality.  There’s Baber AME, who prophetically and radically refuses to accept the heresy of racism and white supremacy, and lives fully with the dignity and delight of children of God.  There is St Joseph’s House of Hospitality, whose workers spend many sleepless nights sheltering the homeless and praying in the rain to make visible a tent village that the city and corporations would rather see disappear.  And even the Pillar, with whom we have many disagreements, reaches out across borders and divisions to care for the needy and create a community whose diversity reflects the kingdom.

And I haven’t even started talking about the Mission yet!  And I could go on and on about everything I love and am proud of in this community.  But honestly, in addition to all our great collaborations with musicians and artists and political groups and activists, our amazing liturgy and beautiful music, our commitment to ecumenism and reconciliation, that’s not what I point to as evidence here.

I tell people about you.  The people.  Not some theoretical Christians elsewhere.  Real flesh and blood.  People who have shared their wounds with others in ministry.  People who are generous with their gifts, and go with their bodies to be with those who suffer and those who celebrate.  People who, without fanfare, serve as a priesthood of all believers in all the places they work, live, love and play.

I tell people about your stories.  When people try to make me feel shame about the failures of the church, I remember that I am not responsible for other churches.  I have to remember that I am also not responsible for this church.  God’s grace is.  God’s Spirit is.

God’s love and grace and peace is here, because God is not ashamed of you.  God does not hold you responsible for the failures or faith of others.  God has called you - each of you, and all of us together - to be living testimonies of the unfailing, world renewing love of God in Jesus Christ.  

That’s something I hope you can proclaim proudly.  Share one another’s burdens.  Tell one another’s stories.

When someone else tries to force a conversation around Jesus that is weighted by the Accuser’s questions, refuse the terms.  Have a conversation about Jesus that is shaped by the Advocate’s desire to see life abound, love increase, and peace reign.

Because God is not ashamed of you.  I am not ashamed of you.  And it is my prayer that, in owning and telling our stories, and the story of the God who loves sinners and is proud to share them with the world God loves, you will come to look forward to your next conversation about Jesus.  And will share the amazing gift that you are to the world without shame.  Without fear.  With hope.  And with joy.

In the name of Jesus, Amen. 

~

OPEN SPACE BLESSING

The following was passed from person to person during our 10 minute time of reflection following the sermon; the one who previously received the blessing became the anointer and thus took their place as part of the priesthood of all believers. 

ANOINTER: ___________, beloved child of God,

God is not ashamed of you.

I am not ashamed of you.

Christ is not ashamed to call you as his witness,

scars and gifts and all.

You are not responsible for the failures of the Church.

You are not responsible for the experiences of others.

You are only responsible

to tell your own story, to share your own experience,

to own your own failures,

and to live as fully as possible,

so that through you,

others might also find freedom from shame,

and fullness of life

in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Sermon: Location Matters, or, Jesus Loves You Where You Are...and Enough Not to Leave You There"

"Location Matters, or, Jesus Loves You Where You Are...and Enough Not to Leave You There"

Preached at St. Paul's Lutheran Church

Pittsford, New York

Fifth Sunday in Pentecost

28 July 2015

Day Text: Mark 5.21-43

~ 

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from the Triune God.  Amen.

Many of you know that I am a missionary, a church-planter, at a community in downtown Rochester called the South Wedge Mission.  Recently, we’ve started embracing a vision of SWM as a “school for life,” a place where we are engaged in three primary life-long learnings: “learning to be with God, learning to be with each other, and learning to be in the world.”

During this season of Ordinary Time, we decided to go deeper into the third learning, “learning to be in the world."  When one of our members, Nathaniel, suggested we spend the summer intentionally engaging a series of trainings and conversations around "learning to be allies" to marginalized people, it felt like a no-brainer.  We are located in one of the most segregated and impoverished urban areas in the country.  The South Wedge neighborhood is one of the city’s most concentrated GLBTQ communities.  It’s not enough for us just to say “we are welcoming and affirming;” we need to take the realities of our context seriously, and put in the hard work of becoming the kind of church we say we want to be.  

So today’s Gospel story could not have come at a more opportune time for us.  Because while a myriad of public events press in on the church like the crowds in the story, from Charleston to the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality to escaped convicts to universal healthcare, this incredible chain of events is, ultimately, not the reason we need to take ally-ship, and white privilege, and racism, and all other -isms of injustice seriously.  

Ultimately, we take these realities and challenges seriously because the Gospel takes them seriously.  Jesus takes them seriously.  Even if none of the upheavals changing the face of our politics in the past week and year had taken place, we would need to take these things seriously because of the simple fact that, if are doing our best to follow Jesus, than Jesus will inevitably lead us to confront them.  

Because while Jesus loves us as we are, Jesus also loves us far too much to leave us there.  Especially if the location he found us is causing harm to others.  And to ourselves as well.

Today’s story about two healings of two very different women is consciously constructed to raise questions about our location in society.  If there’s any doubt, just look at how St. Mark very intentionally tells us that the little girl, the daughter of the synagogue leader, is twelve years old, and that the woman has been suffering from her bleeding for…wait for it…twelve years.  This narrative detail is meant to signal to us as listeners that Mark’s trying to tell us something about Jesus by comparing and contrasting the two characters.  

And one thing I’d stake my seminary degree he’s trying to tell us is that their social location, their place in society, matters.  And that much is pretty obvious from the story, right?  We are told that both the synagogue leader Jairus and the sick woman face massive crowds.  Yet, somehow, Jairus walks right up to Jesus and even has space to fall at his feet.  The woman, on the other hand, has to fight tooth and nail through the crowds, probably crawling between the kicking, stomping feet of a hundred other sick people.  

While Jairus’ personal body guards and sterling reputation probably helped opened wide a path straight to Jesus, I imagine the woman using her very last ounce of strength and determination to stretch out her hand, just barely swiping the hem of Jesus’ robe before she’s trampled underfoot.  

Social location matters.  Jairus’ privilege affords him access to Jesus in a way the woman cannot imagine.  And lest we think that, somehow, Jairus earned that access by working harder, Mark seems to anticipate this debate by two millennia when he shares with us that the woman had actually expended tremendous efforts to get healed.  She used up all her money visiting every doctor in the land.  She fights through a suffocating crowd.  Even when she was told there was no hope, she fights on.  For all we know, she used to be Jairus’ next door neighbor.  Now they are worlds apart. 

And that’s the insidious part about white privilege and social location that I think the Gospel is calling us to acknowledge today.  Both Jairus and the woman work really hard.  But their hard work does not yield equal returns.  It’s not recognized as equal by society.  Jairus, the male religious leader, is given a clear pathway to Jesus.  The unnamed woman, diseased, bleeding and unclean, needs to work many times harder just to touch Jesus.

The Gospel recognizes the reality of privilege and the inherent inequalities in society based on status, gender and social location.  And we, as the community called church to whom the Gospels are addressed, are being called by the Word of God to also begin to acknowledge those realities in the midst of our own context and time.

Which isn’t comfortable at all.  Nor should it be.  It’s kind of scary if you let yourself think about it for too long. 

Because if we’re honest with ourselves, if you’re like me, it’s very easy to take the kinds of access I have as a white person fore granted. 

It’s very easy for me to think that because my parents and because I worked really hard, of course I deserve that access, and other people should learn to work as hard as me. 

It’s very easy for me to get on the defensive, declaring, “look, I’m not a racist, I don’t use racist language, and I don’t try to exclude anyone, so why are we even talking about this and dragging it out of the shadows?”

It’s easy for us to get defensive about these realities, I think, because our privilege and our comfort depend on our defensiveness.  Because we think that to acknowledge these disturbing dimensions of the world around us means to condemn ourselves as evil racists, and to disparage the good gifts that we have.  

But I’m here to tell you this: naming, acknowledging and taking ownership of privilege does not have to be a moral condemnation.  I’m not here to tell you that being a Christian means moving out of Pittsford or Fairport and into the slums of the inner city.  I’m not here to tell you that white people are inherently evil or that you should be grateful and enjoy the good things in your life any less than you do.

What I am here to suggest is that we take Martin Luther’s first of his 95 theses seriously: that the whole of the Christian life is repentance.  That part of being Christian means seeking the truth that the Gospel brings into the light.  That our works, our good intentions, our accomplishments, and our successes will not justify us. 

But that the faithfulness of Christ has justified us.  Which means that we don't deserve anything, and can stop living and thinking as if we do.  Which means we can look honestly at the world, and ourselves, without fear, in the hopes of discovering a new freedom and a new happiness.  Which means, that when we can acknowledge we are part of the problem, then Jesus can start to heal us too.  

Because look at the story: Jesus never once judges Jairus for being a synagogue leader.  Jesus seems all to willing to leave everything he was doing and come heal Jairus’ daughter.  In the same way, Jesus seems to have nothing but praise for the unnamed sick woman and her faithful act of desperation.  Jesus heals both women.  Regardless of their social position.  

But here’s the rub, and the challenge: when the sick woman was told by every doctor that she was a dead woman walking, she didn’t roll over and quit.  Despite the medical and the social barriers erected against her, still, she sought to press through the noise and the crowds and in faith pressed her way into the presence of Jesus.

Jairus, on the other hand, as soon as he hears his daughter is dead, gives up.  “Why bother the teacher anymore?” ask his servants.  When Jesus promises that the daughter will live, still, Jairus and his posse laugh at Jesus.  

Despite uninhibited social access to Jesus, Jairus simply cannot believe that Jesus’ power can overcome even death.  Despite every argument to the contrary, the sick woman believes that nothing else but Jesus’ power can overcome death.

And see, that’s why we need to let go of self-justification, need to stop trying to cling to our privilege, need to fall on our knees with the sick woman, and start to pray for the gift of desperation.  Because ultimately, it is Jesus who will save us from the divisions we have created.  It is Jesus alone who can show us the truth about our privilege without leading us to despair.  It is Jesus who can bring us back to life.

Jesus loves us just as we are - but also loves us too much to leave us there.  Facing the reality of our privilege is not easy stuff.  It means acknowledging that while the gifts we have are good, they were often obtained at the expense of someone else, via a system that gives access to certain folks based on race, gender, class and other -isms of injustice.  We may be tempted to despair.  Or simply, to laugh when Jesus offers us freedom.

But Jesus wants more for us.  Jesus wants to bring us back to life.  Jesus wants us to be free from the slavery of sin.  Jesus wants us to let go of the phantom limb of the chains of oppression that we often drag around with us, unseen and unacknowledged.  Racism, white supremacy, and all other -isms of injustice are not only sins - they are heresies, lies and false teachings about who God is, who people are, and who God is for Gods’s people.  If we continue to live enslaved by these heresies, we continue to live cut off from the fullness of God’s love.  And from the gifts God is offering the world through God’s children.

This day, I offer you this invitation: spend some time this week praying about your social location.  As God to help you see honestly what in your life is a gift from God, and what has been given to you by a system of privilege, racism and supremacy.  As my therapist often commands me, be gentle with yourself.  This is not about condemning the goods in your life.  But about developing an awareness.

Because awareness is a great place to start.  Imagine if Jairus had been aware of the sick woman.  Even though he was in a rush for his daughter, perhaps he could have pointed her out to Jesus, parting the crowds for her as well, so she could be healed more rapidly, before Jairus’ daughter passed away.  In the Kingdom of God, there is enough time for every daughter of God to be healed if we desire it to be so.  

We would also not have witnessed the amazing miracle of a resurrected little girl; neither would we have glimpsed the fear and the defeatism nestled just below the surface of Jairus’ privilege and power.  Ultimately, in the story, God makes use of injustice to reveal the amazing grace radiating from the faith of the poor.  It’s beautiful stuff - as beautiful as the people of Emanuel AME Church offering forgiveness to the murderer of their pastor.  But imagine a world where the poor and the marginalized didn’t need to bear that burden in the first place.  

Jesus loves us as we are.  This is Gospel in itself.  But it’s also this Gospel that gives us courage to follow Jesus as he loves us too much to leave us in a position where we are not completely free.  The call to acknowledgement of our privilege and to repentance is not a condemnation upon us - it is God’s invitation for us to leave behind our blindness and our burden, and to touch the hem of the garment of Jesus, and, like the sick woman, become free.

So fear not.  We have nothing to lose but our chains.  In the Name of Jesus.   

Amen. 

Sermon: "Learning to Be Racists: Charleston, Confession and the 12-Steps"

"Learning to Be Racists: Charleston, Confession and the 12-Steps"

Based on Notes from an Extemporaneous Sermon preached at

South Wedge Mission

Rochester, NY

21 June 2015

Day Texts: 2 Corinthians 6.1-13

Mark 4.35-41

~

NOTE: Preaching this Sunday was an emotional event for all involved; given that I usually re-construct my manuscript from my notes and memory after I preach, I thought, this week, it might be more helpful to consider what was said in the form of short meditations.  I pray it will help you, as it helped me.

~

1.We often begin our liturgy with the rite of confession, which uses the words of St. John: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just, will forgive our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” Likewise, St. Paul writes: “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; this proves God’s love for us.”  

2.Any response to the martyrdom of nine black brothers and sisters in Christ in Charleston, South Carolina must begin with confession; only a forgiven sinner can proclaim the Gospel.  

3.Our community, the South Wedge Mission, has discerned that its next task is “learning to be allies.”  We might likewise say that this will involve us first “learning to be racists.”

4.In the Gospel story, it is tempting for the to see ourselves as standing with Jesus, protecting the disciples by commanding the waves “peace, be still!”  We sincerely want to stand up for our black brothers and sisters in the boat of the Body of Christ against the crashing waves and howling winds of racism and white supremacy.  As people of good will, when we witness a problem, we want to help fix it.

5.An important rule for reading the Gospels: we are never Jesus in the story.  More often, we are those that most need something from Jesus - a healing, a lesson, a confrontation, a deliverance.

6.Jesus’ command, “peace, be still!” is a rebuke and an exorcism of the demon-possessed waters that threaten His church.  We, the White American church, are not Jesus, or the disciples in the boat.   We are the demon-possessed waters.  Our every effort to “speak up on behalf” of our black brothers and sisters only adds to the noise of the winds; our every attempt to “stand up and fix things” for our brothers and sisters adds to the force of the crashing waves.  

7.One name for the demon possessing us is denial.  As participants in the story called “America,” we are taught from an early age to be in active denial of the pervasiveness of racism in our society, and of its role in maintaining our privileges of safety, comfort and prosperity - at the cost of freedom, dignity and opportunity to our black brothers and sisters.

8.We practice denial even when we believe we are doing our best not to be racist.  We do so especially when we try to absolve ourselves by shifting the blame for specific acts of racism onto causes other than ourselves.

9.When we label the murder of Christians in Charleston a “hate crime,” we practice a subtle form of self-absolution, claiming a subtle sense of superiority over the supposedly “isolated individual” who pulled the trigger.  This is the equivalent of claiming not to be an alcoholic simply because of having never killed someone while driving drunk.

10.We practice denial when we emphatically call for the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the statehouse in South Carolina, while living in a city named after Col. Nathaniel Rochester, a life-long slave owner; in a nation whose capital city is named after a life-long slave owner, George Washington; while worshipping in a church that celebrates the legacy of Frederick Douglass while just a few blocks away, a school named for a white man stands on the former grounds of Douglass’ homestead - which was burned down several times by his white fellow residents.  

11.We practice denial when we point to the powerful witness of lament, forgiveness and hope of our black brothers and sisters at Emanuel AME and Baber AME here in Rochester, and somehow believe that this witness somehow mitigates our own responsibility, within the white church, to begin difficult conversations and confessions regarding our continued contribution and participation to the system which necessitated such a witness in the first place. 

12.We practice denial if we think that the lives of nine brothers and sisters in Christ is an acceptable price to pay for our continued enjoyment of comfort and privilege.  We practice denial if we think that even one life of any brother and sister is an acceptable price to pay.

13.The first step in a 12-step program of recovery from addiction is the relinquishment of denial and the confession of helplessness: “Admitted we were (alcoholics) - that our lives had become unmanageable.”

14.Nine brothers and sisters in Christ were murdered by another brother in Christ - our life as an American Church has become unmanageable.  

15.Too often, even with the best of intentions, we who are still possessed by our addiction and dependence on privilege and racism try to jump ahead in the steps of recovery:

-to step 12, trying to help other racists become less racist

-to step 9, trying to make full amends for our own racism

-to step 7, trying to fully surrender the defect of our racism

-to step 4, trying to fully understand and confess the depths of our racism

16.While well-intentioned, such leaps ahead in step work ignore the fact that the disease of our dependence and addiction to racism is ultimately a spiritual problem.  We cannot begin to even understand our racism - let alone recover from it or help others recover from it - before we take the first steps ourselves.  The language of demonic possession is in many ways far more fitting even than “systemic sin” or choice.

17.When Jesus rebukes us with the command, “peace, be still!” we are being called to stop trying to solve the problem of racism with the very paradigm that caused it in the first place - self-will, which always stacks the deck in its own favor, usually through denial or blame or dishonesty.

18.Self-will cannot fix a problem caused by self-will.  Any effort we make to fix the spiritual maladies of racism and privilege from within the system of racism and privilege will ultimately contribute to the system and strengthen it.  

19.Being a participant in the system does not mean we walk around uttering racist remarks or actively hating black people.  Rather, by virtue of being white Americans, we benefit from, profit by, and hence depend on and participate in the system.  Like the Matrix in the film of that name, privilege and oppression are a 400 year old system that makes possible the good life we take for granted at the expense of the suffering and ongoing exclusion of an entire group of people.    

20.Like the city of Ninevah in the book of Jonah, the White American Church stands under the judgement of the God who raised up the people of Israel from the slaves of Egypt.  We are called to repent with sackcloth and ashes; to ask for help from a power greater than ourselves, a power that promises not only justice, but vengeance, for the oppressed.

21.In order to save us from the wrath of the God who avenges the oppressed and defeats the proud, Jesus speaks the words to us, “peace be still!”  However, such peace is not peace as we know it.  Elsewhere Jesus says he comes to bring, “not peace but a sword.”  Jesus comes with a sword of Truth to cut away the stone from our hearts so that we might have new hearts - hearts of flesh.  In order for us to be freed from our own possession by the demons of privilege and racism, Jesus must rebuke and exorcise us.  In order to be capable of truly good works, we first must be given a new heart, a heart of flesh, that is capable of truth and love.  

22.We as a church are being called to make a kind of “First Step Prayer.”  Such a prayer usually follows the form, “I admit that I am powerless over my addiction.  I admit that my life is unmanageable when I try to control it.  Help me this day to understand the true meaning of powerlessness.  Remove from me all denial of my addiction.”

23.Taking the First Step of confession does not mean we have to know what the next steps will look like.  We may not know the shape the repentance and the amends that God will call us to.  And in many ways it does not matter.  What matters is that we are admitting our powerlessness, and seeking the help of the One who has the power to show us the way.

24.Making the First Step prayer is the equivalent of crying out, with the church in the boat, “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?”  Only a forgiven sinner can proclaim the Gospel.  Only someone who acknowledges their utter need for grace can truly receive it.

25.When we admit our powerlessness, deny our denial, and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, like the waters of the lake, we will be commanded to be silent.  We become calm and still.  We stop trying to fix the problem; we cease trying to “be a prophetic voice” or trying to change or control others.  We seek to clear our surface of our own voice and waves.  So that our surface may become a mirror that reflects only the grace and the calling of Jesus.

26.Just as the waters calmed by Jesus reflect His image once more, and so are suitable for carrying the ship of the church to safety, so too must we be made calm by Jesus, so that we may be of service in helping to bear the burden of the injustices that have been committed against our black brothers and sisters in this country.  

27.Jesus rebukes the white church, not because Jesus hates us, but because “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.”  Jesus heals and sanctifies us, not so we can resume our roles as more benevolent versions of our white privileged selves - but so that we may realize our true humanity as members of the Body of Christ, receiving the gift of the glory of our black brothers and sisters; we are called to become holy, not to be better than others - but to become better for others.  

28.Steps two and three read: “came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” and “turned our lives over to a higher power.”  We surrender our self-will, and our denial.  

29.When we confess, we become calm.  We allow the waters of our soul to reflect and amplify the voices of our black brothers and sisters without seeking credit for doing so; we begin to make their concerns our concerns; we become actively engaged in their struggle, first, by becoming actively engaged in our own work of recovery, and, whenever possible, being of humble service, assuming the posture of learning rather than of teaching.

30.In short, the task with which the white church has been charged is simple: we are called to “learn to be racists.”  Only then can we discover what it means to live as “forgiven racists.”  Only then can we begin to be of service to our fellow racists - and to be allies to those who have been hurt by our racism.

31.Following the sermon, worshippers of SWM were invited to receive the mark of a cross on their forehead using ashes left over from Ash Wednesday.  This was meant as a symbol of our intention to practice the First Step throughout the week ahead - to admit our powerlessness and confess our need for exorcism and healing.  After receiving the cross, their hands were anointed with healing oil as a symbol of our intention to actively engage in the work of recovery and of service.

32.The First Step is not an ending, but a beginning.  These demons have haunted the waters of the White Church for centuries.  And yet, it is out of the chaos of the waters that God first created the world, and called it “good.”  We are called to confess our sin; even more so are we called to confess the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which promises us: “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”  We confess our desire to be free - and so commit ourselves to living into the promises of Jesus Christ, who alone can save us from ourselves, and save us for service to others.  

33.Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.