Sermon for Sunday, June 22, 2008 (Proper 7A)

*

Anthony De Mello tells this story in his book, Taking Flight:

A wealthy farmer burst into his home one day and cried out in an anguished voice, “Rebecca, there is a terrible story in town – the Messiah is here!”

“What’s so terrible in that?” asked his wife. “I think it's
great. What are you so upset about?”

“What am I so upset about?” the man exclaimed. “After all these years of sweat and toil, we have finally found prosperity. We have a thousand head of cattle, our barns are full of grain, and our trees laden with fruit. Now we will have to give it all away and follow him.”

“Calm down,” said his wife consolingly. “The Lord our God is good. He knows how much we Jews have always had to suffer. We had a Pharaoh, a Haman, a Hitler – always somebody. But our dear God found a way to deal with them all, didn't he? Just have faith, my dear husband. He will find a way to deal with the Messiah too.”

I tell you this story, not to disparage Jews in any way, but to commend this farmer and his wife for their wisdom and insight: the coming of the Messiah – the recognition of the Messiah – is a disruptive event. It upsets the status quo. Things can't stay the same.

The first disciples discovered this when they left their nets lying on the beach, or got up from the tax-collecting booth, to follow Jesus, going around with him as he taught and healed and spoke of God’s forgiveness and grace. And now he has them going out, too, teaching and healing and talking about the nearness of God’s kingdom. But he tells them: Not everyone will be pleased with this good news. Not everyone will experience the coming of God’s reign as a good thing.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth,” Jesus says. “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”

Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA preached a sermon at the recent Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis. He said that when he visits congregations, he always asks them to tell him why, if he were new in the area and looking for a church home, he should come to their church. He said the answers were almost always the same. “We're a very friendly church. We all like each other, and we love our pastor.” He goes on to say that getting along should probably not be the primary goal of a church community. Avoiding conflict keeps a community from moving forward in any meaningful way in mission… in naming and addressing the needs of the world around us… in taking a stand for justice, peace, and unconditional love for all people.

Because the status quo, the way things are, may seem really good to some people, but unless we have really achieved heaven on earth, there are issues, things we need to work out – about how to respond to the Messiah, the Christ, who has come and is among us. And if we take Jesus seriously, we will probably disagree on what that looks like and how we can and should move forward.

There's a revival on Broadway now of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. I heard an interview on MPR this week with Kelli O'Hara, who plays Nurse Nellie Forbush in the current production. She talked about the scene where she discovers that the man she’s in love with, Emile DeBeque, has 2 bi-racial children from his previous relationship with a Polynesian woman. In the play, she recoils in disgust. She calls the children “colored,” and feels she must break off the relationship, that she can’t help the way she feels about the children. Then follows the memorable song, “You've Got to be Carefully Taught”:

You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be carefully taught

When the play first opened, in 1949, this song was so controversial that Rogers and Hammerstein, and even James Michner who adapted his own stories into the screenplay, were urged to remove it. Apparently Michner was even accosted on the street by an agitated man, who insisted that the song should be removed or the show would flop. “Your play will fail if you leave that song in about racial prejudice” he said. “It's ugly, it's untimely and it's not what patrons want to hear when they go to a musical.”

Perhaps not. But telling a sweet, non-controversial story would have removed the heart and soul of the show. Telling the truth was more important than maintaining the peace, and the result was a show that still speaks to audiences today, about prejudice that still exists among us.

In the interview I heard, Kelli O'Hara talked about what it was like to feel the audience reaction to her on-stage bigotry. She said she could feel their disgust at her. This was not the reaction in the 1950’s original production. Back then, audiences completely understood why Nurse Nellie felt she had to break off the relationship. According to the blog, “Gratuitous Violins”, when the show toured in Atlanta in the early 1950’s, it was denounced on the floor of the Georgia legislature. “One Georgia state legislator claimed that a song justifying interracial marriage was a threat to the American way of life.”

Sound familiar? As gay couples got married in California this past week, protesters cried out that marriage is threatened, that the American way of life is in jeopardy.

I know we still have racial prejudice to deal with and overcome. But the thing that's causing division in our family – our Anglican communion family – right now is the issues surrounding full inclusion and honoring of people of all sexual orientations. A Hope College classmate of mine, Gene Sutton, was just elected bishop of Maryland. The fact that he is African American is not causing public debate about his suitability to be a bishop in the church – although not so long ago, that would have been an issue. But 5 years ago another Gene, Gene Robinson, was elected bishop of New Hampshire, by people who knew and loved him, and saw his gifts for ministry and leadership in the church. The fact that he is gay is for many in our Anglican family a deal-breaker. All over the world, members of our family are outraged. There’s talk of schism.

At the upcoming Lambeth conference – the every-10-years gathering of Anglican bishops in Canterbury, England – Gene Robinson (and the most vocal critic of his election) have both been pointedly excluded. Other bishops are boycotting the gathering. Division in the family. Just as Jesus had said would happen.

In his new memoir, In the Eye of the Storm, Gene Robinson writes:

[The Holy Spirit] is the part of God that refuses to be contained in the little boxes we create for God to live in, safely confined to the careful boundaries we set for God's Spirit. The problem is – and the miracle is – God just won't stay put. And God won't let you and me stay put, content to believe what we've always believed, what we've always been taught, what we've always assumed. Change isn't just something to be wished on our enemies – but something God requires of us as well.

He goes on:

Think of the things we believe and think today that we couldn't have imagined years ago. There was a time when we weren't outraged that black folk were made to drink from separate water fountains, that women were banned from serving at the altar or the boardroom, that differently-abled folk couldn't get into our sacred spaces. Our change in thinking didn't come as a result of our own work, but the work of God's Spirit, blowing through us like wind, calling us away from our narrow thinking and more nearly into the mind and heart of Christ.

Telling the truth, standing up for what is right, reaching out in love to all people, respecting the dignity of every person – even if it upsets some people – is part of following Jesus. Jesus warned his first disciples that when they went out into the towns and villages with good news of healing and love, there would be some who experienced them and their message as bad news – threatening in some way to their life and livelihood. There would be division in the family.

And so it is, and so it ever shall be, until God’s reign is fully realized on earth as it is in heaven. Our task, our calling, is not to avoid conflict within the family, but to tell the truth… to love even our enemies… to forgive and embrace forgiveness… to reach out in love to all people… to honor Christ in every person… and to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. And don't be afraid, for God is with us.


-- Lydia Huttar Brown

Preached at Saint Anne's on June 22, 2008 (Proper 7A)

*