Faith hard truths together
Matthew 16: 21-28
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
August 30, 2020
Last week as I was hiking in White Clay Creek State Park (and this is how you know how much of a Jesus nerd I am—when I think about this stuff on vacation), I was thinking about humanity’s capacity for love and about how we are living through a time that could potentially expand that capacity or we could allow it to shrink and diminish. And then I remembered that our capacity for love is directly linked to our capacity to withstand pain. If we open ourselves to love, we make ourselves vulnerable to pain. And so no wonder we’re in no hurry somedays to love more, especially if living is already painful enough. In response to a threat or trauma or powerlessness, our fight or flight response doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for nuance or interpretation, hence, it’s not only those who won’t wear a mask—we’re all more irrational these days.
“Get six feet behind me, Satan, and wear a mask!”
As a seminary friend of mine recently said to his physician, “Other than a massive pandemic and the rise of fascism, I’m fine.” When Jesus said we had to take up our cross and follow him, I would bet a pandemic and the rise of fascism, amongst so many other evils, were not on our bingo card. And yet we follow Jesus not only because we care about the world but because we thought that by following Jesus we could actually change it.
Author Madeleine L’Engle wrote in her book The Arm of the Starfish, “...the real point is that I care about having a decent world, and if you care about having a decent world you have to take sides.... So, like the fool that I am, I chose the difficult side, the unsafe side, the side that guarantees me not one thing besides danger and hard work.”
Following Jesus has never been a guarantee for anything safe or easy unless one is part of the establishment, the ones making the rules, instituting culture and tradition—or reforming it—and deciding what is good and holy and true for everyone else and for all time. Following Jesus began as a revolution, and a dangerously painful one at that, but it didn’t take long for those with power to co-opt the movement into something that could be controlled and become a base of power. And just to be clear, I’m describing White Christianity, American Christianity’s roots, not one particular sect or another. This is on all of us, especially the Christianity that was brought to the shores of North America.
And so now here we have another revolution before us, and most of us, we are part of the establishment. Most of us have privilege of one sort or another, whether it’s skin color or sexuality or gender or class or ethnicity or education or age or religion or because we’re temporarily abled. Becoming an Open and Affirming church was, we thought, a faithful way to share that privilege and thus power, and transform the Church and bring us closer to the kin-dom. And yet we are still slow to give up any significant power. Just as one example, the UCC has yet to elect someone other than a straight cisgender male as general minister and president.
Revolution comes not only when power seeks to control but when those with some privilege realize that their lives are because others suffer. Jesus is telling us that not only must he suffer but that he is suffering. He’s been shot in the back seven times and handcuffed to his hospital bed. He’s been shot sleeping in his own bed. He’s been suffocated with a knee on his neck. He’s disappeared from Native American reservations by the thousands. He’s been killed for being a Black transgender sex worker. He’s still in a cage separated from his parents. He’s an enemy of the state because the state has declared war on his skin, his parents, his people, and deemed them less than human.
Can we imagine then this Jesus, this Jesus who was put to death by the state, saying anything less than abolish those who were armed and put in power by the state to control black and brown skin? We say “Abolish the police” and “Defund the police” are too abrasive, too controversial and yet what is behind our discomfort at such a concept if not some kind of pain?
Make no mistake. The kin-dom will not come without pain. It will cost us. We cannot work for liberation and still keep what we have. Pastor Carlos Rodriguez wrote, “When we pray ‘Let your kingdom come’, we are likewise praying, ‘Let my kingdom go’.” We are either actively dismantling systemic racism or we are giving only the appearance of it. We are either actively making safe space for the most vulnerable or we are still dominating that space and making it unsafe. We are either helping to build a new table never before imagined or we are still seated at our own table wondering why those we invite never show up.
We talk about being a prophetic voice but do we truly realize that it’s the most unpopular voice of all? To Peter, Jesus sounds like he’s standing on a street corner with a sandwich board that reads ‘The end is near’ and yet that’s precisely what Jesus is saying. The end of systemic racism is the end of every structure that destroys Black, brown, and Indigenous lives and not only keeps White lives safe but enshrines White power. This end comes with our resistance, our denial or our active cooperation. It will require radical thinking and wholehearted courage. It will be a path we have yet to ever travel before.
Think of the estimated worth of mainline Protestant churches in the United States, the real estate alone, most likely registering in the hundreds of billions of dollars. So here’s a radical idea to break the ice. What if mainline Protestant churches used their real estate for something else instead of worship? What if our buildings became actual safe space for the vulnerable? What if they were sold for a nominal price to Black, brown and Indigenous congregations and mainline Protestants became the renters? For too long mainline churches have been the establishment, and now we are on the decline. If the poor are to be filled with good things and the rich sent away empty, how can we move into that dream, that kin-dom faithfully and with purpose?
I don’t have an answer that will satisfy. I’m pretty sure the disciples were feeling the same way. All I know is that we cannot escape the verses that read “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” The White American Church has foisted these words on individuals and celebrated and marginalized them as heroes, yet collectively ducked or ignored or denied these words for too long and now the bill is coming due.
The good news is, and it is good news, we don’t have to do any of this alone. Fear’s greatest weapon is division, isolation, individualism in the hopes that we will give up, run away, protect ourselves. And we all have our days when we can’t handle any more pain. We’re human. We need boundaries and self-care to keep us safe. But it’s not a place to stay. There are some in this world who never get a break from it and they need us beside them. I know we’ve been protesting this stuff our whole lives and yet Jesus and his disciples were here long before us, and the prophets before them. This is the human journey, to keep bending that arc of the moral universe toward justice, not just for some but for all, to repair what has been broken.
That is the greatest act of resistance we can give, this is how we deny ourselves and take up our cross: to stay together anyway, to choose each other anyway, to bear with one another, believe in each other and continue the work of liberation in whatever ways we can. We can faith hard truths together.
Benediction - enfleshed.com
When the way becomes difficult, let us still choose love.
When evil comes to break us down and break us apart,
let us still choose each other.
When power from on high strikes fear in our hearts,
let us still choose what is good and just.
For we know that the love of God will not be overcome.
With the assurance that this abiding love is alive in us, today and always,
let us go with peace and courage. Amen.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
August 30, 2020
“Get six feet behind me, Satan, and wear a mask!”
As a seminary friend of mine recently said to his physician, “Other than a massive pandemic and the rise of fascism, I’m fine.” When Jesus said we had to take up our cross and follow him, I would bet a pandemic and the rise of fascism, amongst so many other evils, were not on our bingo card. And yet we follow Jesus not only because we care about the world but because we thought that by following Jesus we could actually change it.
Author Madeleine L’Engle wrote in her book The Arm of the Starfish, “...the real point is that I care about having a decent world, and if you care about having a decent world you have to take sides.... So, like the fool that I am, I chose the difficult side, the unsafe side, the side that guarantees me not one thing besides danger and hard work.”
Following Jesus has never been a guarantee for anything safe or easy unless one is part of the establishment, the ones making the rules, instituting culture and tradition—or reforming it—and deciding what is good and holy and true for everyone else and for all time. Following Jesus began as a revolution, and a dangerously painful one at that, but it didn’t take long for those with power to co-opt the movement into something that could be controlled and become a base of power. And just to be clear, I’m describing White Christianity, American Christianity’s roots, not one particular sect or another. This is on all of us, especially the Christianity that was brought to the shores of North America.
And so now here we have another revolution before us, and most of us, we are part of the establishment. Most of us have privilege of one sort or another, whether it’s skin color or sexuality or gender or class or ethnicity or education or age or religion or because we’re temporarily abled. Becoming an Open and Affirming church was, we thought, a faithful way to share that privilege and thus power, and transform the Church and bring us closer to the kin-dom. And yet we are still slow to give up any significant power. Just as one example, the UCC has yet to elect someone other than a straight cisgender male as general minister and president.
Revolution comes not only when power seeks to control but when those with some privilege realize that their lives are because others suffer. Jesus is telling us that not only must he suffer but that he is suffering. He’s been shot in the back seven times and handcuffed to his hospital bed. He’s been shot sleeping in his own bed. He’s been suffocated with a knee on his neck. He’s disappeared from Native American reservations by the thousands. He’s been killed for being a Black transgender sex worker. He’s still in a cage separated from his parents. He’s an enemy of the state because the state has declared war on his skin, his parents, his people, and deemed them less than human.
Can we imagine then this Jesus, this Jesus who was put to death by the state, saying anything less than abolish those who were armed and put in power by the state to control black and brown skin? We say “Abolish the police” and “Defund the police” are too abrasive, too controversial and yet what is behind our discomfort at such a concept if not some kind of pain?
Make no mistake. The kin-dom will not come without pain. It will cost us. We cannot work for liberation and still keep what we have. Pastor Carlos Rodriguez wrote, “When we pray ‘Let your kingdom come’, we are likewise praying, ‘Let my kingdom go’.” We are either actively dismantling systemic racism or we are giving only the appearance of it. We are either actively making safe space for the most vulnerable or we are still dominating that space and making it unsafe. We are either helping to build a new table never before imagined or we are still seated at our own table wondering why those we invite never show up.
We talk about being a prophetic voice but do we truly realize that it’s the most unpopular voice of all? To Peter, Jesus sounds like he’s standing on a street corner with a sandwich board that reads ‘The end is near’ and yet that’s precisely what Jesus is saying. The end of systemic racism is the end of every structure that destroys Black, brown, and Indigenous lives and not only keeps White lives safe but enshrines White power. This end comes with our resistance, our denial or our active cooperation. It will require radical thinking and wholehearted courage. It will be a path we have yet to ever travel before.
Think of the estimated worth of mainline Protestant churches in the United States, the real estate alone, most likely registering in the hundreds of billions of dollars. So here’s a radical idea to break the ice. What if mainline Protestant churches used their real estate for something else instead of worship? What if our buildings became actual safe space for the vulnerable? What if they were sold for a nominal price to Black, brown and Indigenous congregations and mainline Protestants became the renters? For too long mainline churches have been the establishment, and now we are on the decline. If the poor are to be filled with good things and the rich sent away empty, how can we move into that dream, that kin-dom faithfully and with purpose?
I don’t have an answer that will satisfy. I’m pretty sure the disciples were feeling the same way. All I know is that we cannot escape the verses that read “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” The White American Church has foisted these words on individuals and celebrated and marginalized them as heroes, yet collectively ducked or ignored or denied these words for too long and now the bill is coming due.
That is the greatest act of resistance we can give, this is how we deny ourselves and take up our cross: to stay together anyway, to choose each other anyway, to bear with one another, believe in each other and continue the work of liberation in whatever ways we can. We can faith hard truths together.
Amen.
Benediction - enfleshed.com
When the way becomes difficult, let us still choose love.
When evil comes to break us down and break us apart,
let us still choose each other.
When power from on high strikes fear in our hearts,
let us still choose what is good and just.
For we know that the love of God will not be overcome.
With the assurance that this abiding love is alive in us, today and always,
let us go with peace and courage. Amen.
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