The following sermon was preached in chapel on Tuesday, August 25th by Courtney Wilder
Good morning!
Our text today, from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, is a stirring and dramatic section of his letter, full of advice to followers of Jesus about how to stand firm against evil. The whole armor of God: that is a magnificent image of protection and unity. He reassures his congregation, and then asks for their prayers as he goes about his work, boldly proclaiming the gospel.
I want to put this part of Paul’s letter in conversation with another of his letters, this one written to the Galatians. He writes in Chapter 3:26-28, “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” I love this passage, and I think I quote it in about half of my sermons.
Earlier this month I attended a conference of Lutheran teaching theologians. We spent three days talking and thinking about Paul, and it was so useful and illuminating for me to get a chance to listen to and ask questions of the many New Testament scholars who were present. One of the nuances about Paul that I hadn’t fully appreciated until then is how hard he worked to eliminate divisions between people in the early Christian community. He argued that you don’t have to be born into Judaism to follow Christ. You don’t have to be a Gentile. You don’t have to keep kosher, or follow the ritual practices of Judaism. You don’t have to be circumcised. You don’t have to be rich, or educated, or free. We’re not all the same, but each of us is beloved by Christ.
If you’ve had very many classes with me, or if you’ve paid attention to the work of the recent ELCA churchwide assembly, you might see where I’m headed here. If not, stick with me for a minute.
If you were raised in the ELCA, and you’re deeply interested in church governance, or if you or your parents or pastor feel strongly about whether openly gay and lesbian people with partners ought to be ordained, you probably listened carefully and eagerly for news of the latest ELCA gathering. I know I did. If you weren’t raised in the ELCA, or don’t pay a whole lot of attention to this issue, or if you have been busy starting college this last week, you might not be up to date on this conversation.
It has been a controversial issue for years now, and has recently come to a head. Some folks feel strongly that if an ELCA pastor is gay or lesbian, he or she must agree to be celibate, just as unmarried straight pastors are required to be celibate. Some folks feel as though this denies gay and lesbian clergy the opportunity to have families, and refuses to recognize committed, monogamous relationships between people who typically aren’t allowed to marry. At the heart of this discussion, of course, is the larger question of how the ELCA sees gay and lesbian people – as less than their heterosexual brothers and sisters, as unrepentant sinners, as disobedient to God, or as full and equal members of the body of Christ.
This week, the ELCA has voted, as a church body, to ordain gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships. What does this mean for us, as a church? Let’s look back to our text for today for a moment. Paul tells the Ephesians, and through them he tells us, “Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.” He tells us to be strong in our struggle, to arm ourselves with the truth and to know that God will protect us.
This might not be a popular decision in some parts of the church. I am confident there will be schisms. I don’t take any joy in the anger or disappointment of those who opposed this change, and I am praying daily for peace and wholeness in our denomination. I am so glad that there are provisions in this recent decision for each person’s conscience to be respected and honored.
The refrain I have heard, and expect to hear in weeks to come, is this: But the Bible says it’s wrong to be gay! I appreciate people’s strong desire to read and follow the word of God; I don’t take that task lightly.
My response to this concern is twofold: one, whatever else the Bible says about homosexuality, and I’m not at all convinced we can always tell, the Bible does not say that faithful and committed lifelong relationships between people of the same sex are sinful. The Bible does not address this situation at all. It’s possible this wasn’t a social reality when the Bible was written; what we do see in the text are somewhat vague references to specific sexual acts, including abuses of other people, and not condemnations of relationships, or of what we as 21st Century folks call gay and lesbian people.
Two, and I mean this seriously even though it sounds flip: the Bible says a lot of things. In his letter to Philemon, the Apostle Paul argues in favor of slavery, which Christians in this country used for generations as justification for owning other human beings. Now we are rightly horrified by the idea of slavery, and by Christians who defended it with the Bible.
The letter of I Timothy, written by a follower of Paul, reads in Chapter 2: “… women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, 10but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. 11Let a woman* learn in silence with full submission. 12I permit no woman* to teach or to have authority over a man;* she is to keep silent.” Although some denominations interpret this passage very strictly, most mainline Christian churches, even those that do not ordain women, do not think that women should be prohibited from speaking in church or from teaching. I presume that most of us in this room at this moment agree.
What does this mean for us? It means that the Holy Spirit is still working. Revelation is still happening. Our understanding of God’s will for us as Christian people is still growing and changing. We are asking new questions, about new situations, and God’s word is still relevant for us today. Today, we’re asking: what does marriage mean? What does love mean? How does God want us to treat other human beings, other Christians, other members of our church, our community, our school?
I am so proud to be part of a church that says, gay and lesbian people are full members of the church of Christ. They are not less than. Their partnerships are gifts from God, just as the partnerships of straight people are. You don’t have to be straight to be called by God to ordained ministry. This is a church that has spoken up for justice, that has proclaimed boldly, after the example set by the Apostle Paul, that all are welcome, all are equal, all are beloved by God. As my pastor said from her pulpit last Sunday, “Halleluiah.” This is the belt of truth that we are fastening about our waists; this is the church that we will proclaim boldly.
Paul’s words from the end of our text for today give us our next instructions. He writes, “Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. 19Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,* 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.”
Amen.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A look back at my week in Minnesota at the ELCA Churchwide Convention
Jon Fredricks, Director of Annual Giving at Midland Lutheran College, offers the following reflection on the recent ELCA Churchwide Assembly and his participation in it.
About a year and a half ago, I was elected to serve as a voting member for the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. From our 65 ELCA Synods in the United States, 1045 people were called to do the same. As one of the 26 from our Nebraska Synod, I was both honored and humbled by this opportunity and the immense responsibility it carried.
The discussion and debate on the social statement on sexuality, and the ministry policies was obviously the most challenging of the week. As you probably know, the discussions and recommendations have been going for many many years, and became more specific when the task force for human sexuality was called together by the Bishop seven years ago.
My congregation in Omaha, St. Michael Lutheran Church, will take pause to reflect and discuss on how the changes impact the ELCA. I do not think for a moment that we will leave the ELCA, and those who feel strongly in their convictions against these new policies I hope and pray will do the same. Dividing our church, or leaving our church at this time, no matter how strongly one feels these decisions to be taking our church the wrong way--or how convinced we may be that these policies uphold sin as we know it to be, I feel is not the right choice.
Here's how I see it, after being engaged fully and faithfully leading up to the Churchwide Assembly, and after hearing the stories and convictions of all who were a part of our discussions last week:
There are so many and varied people in God's world. We are called love everyone, as God loves us. Scripture is the word of God, as interpreted by man. And scripture can guide us in making our decisions. But if you read scripture only in making these types of decisions, women would not be allowed to preach, and slavery would also still be allowed. We all need to be cautious when quoting scripture.
I cannot determine what is sin or sinful. I have my own ideas on this, but only God can be the true and final judge. I'll leave that up to God. I can continue to love my neighbor, and serve my church. You may have heard the term "bound conscience" tossed around a lot and used in helping to define how we can "agree to disagree" within our church on these matters before us. What this means is that we are all bound by our conscience to what we believe is right and true in the eyes of God. We can still be the church, together, even though we may disagree on some matters.
The changes made, I feel, offer positive change for those individuals and congregations who need and desire leadership and have a calling to serve gay/lesbian individuals who struggle with the societal taboo of homosexuality. It also offers little or no change for congregations or individuals who do not feel the changes are in their best interest. My guess is that it will have little or no effect on the congregation I grew up in, Immanuel Lutheran in Glenvil, a small congregation in south-central Nebraska. No church will be forced to call a pastor who they feel does not fit in line with their own congregations, or even include a pastor in their call process for review of the calling committee. Other churches and individuals within their congregations will be blessed by the changes to ministry policies regarding the ordination of gay and lesbians who are in committed, monogamous same gender relationships.
Bishop Hansen realizes the pain and challenges these changes will have on many within our church. Here are his words:
"Take time with your decision. Step back and understand the magnitude of the decision if you choose to leave, because we will be diminished by your absence." The Good News of Jesus Christ is "too good to squander with internal conflicts that will drain our energies when our capacity to bring the Good News to the world so that all might know Jesus."
I would offer that you and others among you who feel let down by your church to do the same.
The week included many other wonderful and spirited conversations and policy implementations, including the ecumenical partnership with the United Methodist Church. All in all, I feel affirmed in my faith and in my church after being a part of the Churchwide Assembly.
About a year and a half ago, I was elected to serve as a voting member for the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. From our 65 ELCA Synods in the United States, 1045 people were called to do the same. As one of the 26 from our Nebraska Synod, I was both honored and humbled by this opportunity and the immense responsibility it carried.
The discussion and debate on the social statement on sexuality, and the ministry policies was obviously the most challenging of the week. As you probably know, the discussions and recommendations have been going for many many years, and became more specific when the task force for human sexuality was called together by the Bishop seven years ago.
My congregation in Omaha, St. Michael Lutheran Church, will take pause to reflect and discuss on how the changes impact the ELCA. I do not think for a moment that we will leave the ELCA, and those who feel strongly in their convictions against these new policies I hope and pray will do the same. Dividing our church, or leaving our church at this time, no matter how strongly one feels these decisions to be taking our church the wrong way--or how convinced we may be that these policies uphold sin as we know it to be, I feel is not the right choice.
Here's how I see it, after being engaged fully and faithfully leading up to the Churchwide Assembly, and after hearing the stories and convictions of all who were a part of our discussions last week:
There are so many and varied people in God's world. We are called love everyone, as God loves us. Scripture is the word of God, as interpreted by man. And scripture can guide us in making our decisions. But if you read scripture only in making these types of decisions, women would not be allowed to preach, and slavery would also still be allowed. We all need to be cautious when quoting scripture.
I cannot determine what is sin or sinful. I have my own ideas on this, but only God can be the true and final judge. I'll leave that up to God. I can continue to love my neighbor, and serve my church. You may have heard the term "bound conscience" tossed around a lot and used in helping to define how we can "agree to disagree" within our church on these matters before us. What this means is that we are all bound by our conscience to what we believe is right and true in the eyes of God. We can still be the church, together, even though we may disagree on some matters.
The changes made, I feel, offer positive change for those individuals and congregations who need and desire leadership and have a calling to serve gay/lesbian individuals who struggle with the societal taboo of homosexuality. It also offers little or no change for congregations or individuals who do not feel the changes are in their best interest. My guess is that it will have little or no effect on the congregation I grew up in, Immanuel Lutheran in Glenvil, a small congregation in south-central Nebraska. No church will be forced to call a pastor who they feel does not fit in line with their own congregations, or even include a pastor in their call process for review of the calling committee. Other churches and individuals within their congregations will be blessed by the changes to ministry policies regarding the ordination of gay and lesbians who are in committed, monogamous same gender relationships.
Bishop Hansen realizes the pain and challenges these changes will have on many within our church. Here are his words:
"Take time with your decision. Step back and understand the magnitude of the decision if you choose to leave, because we will be diminished by your absence." The Good News of Jesus Christ is "too good to squander with internal conflicts that will drain our energies when our capacity to bring the Good News to the world so that all might know Jesus."
I would offer that you and others among you who feel let down by your church to do the same.
The week included many other wonderful and spirited conversations and policy implementations, including the ecumenical partnership with the United Methodist Church. All in all, I feel affirmed in my faith and in my church after being a part of the Churchwide Assembly.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Convocation of ELCA Teaching Theologians
The second week in August, I attended the Convocation of Lutheran Teaching Theologians, held this year at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. I didn’t know until I was there that this meeting is required, and funding for it is required, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) bylaws. The people in attendance were for the most part college, university, and seminary professors, along with some folks who work at ELCA Churchwide Office outside of Chicago.
I knew perhaps a third of the fifty-some attendees – people I’d met at other conferences, or people I knew from graduate school or church. A number were people who had taken time to nurture me as a graduate student, whether academically or as members of my congregation; several turned out to have connections to Midland or to my alma mater, the University of Chicago. It was good to catch up with old friends and to make new friends from schools across the country. A wide range of scholarly interests were represented – people who study Old Testament, New Testament, ancient languages and cultures, systematic theology, ethics, homiletics, and worship. There was also a wide range of perspectives on various issues currently under discussion by the ELCA, including whether the church ought to ordain gay and lesbian pastors in relationships, and what the ELCA’s position on Israel ought to be.
Worship, held in one of St. Olaf’s worship spaces, was joyful and rich with music and liturgy. I have rarely heard a sermon that made me laugh so much (the opening lines of one season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer put into conversation with the institution of the Eucharist: now that’s a sermon!) or seen a whole conference of people head to worship as happily as they go to breakfast or out to socialize.
The conference itself was on the Apostle Paul, not my central area of study, and it was helpful for me to engage with other academics on issues I’d only begun to think through. For instance, Paul’s letters are occasional, meaning that they address specific occasions and specific people; sometimes Paul’s understanding of a particular issue or his theology seems to shift from letter to letter. What might this mean for us as modern Christians? Paul is vigorous in defending the right of every person to be Christian, regardless of gender or class or previous religious background; many participants argued that we ought as theologians and teachers and members of the Christian community to model ourselves after Paul in this respect. All are welcome; the membership of the body of Christ is diverse and varied. Other participants reminded the gathering that Paul also drew strong lines between the church and the Roman Empire and argued that we ought to opposed the immoral use of power, that we should recognize ourselves as citizens of a different kingdom altogether. The environmental applications of Paul’s theology came up often in terms of stewardship for the earth and care for others, especially the poor living in countries currently suffering from drought and political unrest.
Despite the sometimes vigorous opposition among members on various issues, and the awareness of the upcoming ELCA Synod Assembly where any number of difficult and serious topics will be raised, the gathered group maintained good humor and mutual respect. People discussed their victories and difficulties with teaching, acknowledged their own weaknesses, confessed to their own ignorance of the topic at hand when necessary, and shared books and ideas and resources with each other joyfully. It was a good conference, both for its content and for the collegiality. I was struck a number of times by the dedication of the assembled teachers and by the very existences of this gathering: this is a church which specifies in its founding documents that its teaching theologians must gather regularly to work and talk and share ideas and form partnerships. This is a church that cares deeply about its colleges and seminaries, its faculty, and its students. And these teaching theologians and church staff care about each other; participants discussed teaching strategies with each other, joyfully congratulated a new father and a newly married professor, soberly reflected on the financial situation of many of the church’s colleges, and encouraged each other to keep the faith.
These are difficult days for many of us, and as a denomination the ELCA is taking up discussion of important and serious issues. In the midst of financial anxiety and changing social norms, we are a strong church, and we are taking the long view. We love our young people, we support our scholars and our schools, and we pray for the church and for the world.
Courtney Wilder
I knew perhaps a third of the fifty-some attendees – people I’d met at other conferences, or people I knew from graduate school or church. A number were people who had taken time to nurture me as a graduate student, whether academically or as members of my congregation; several turned out to have connections to Midland or to my alma mater, the University of Chicago. It was good to catch up with old friends and to make new friends from schools across the country. A wide range of scholarly interests were represented – people who study Old Testament, New Testament, ancient languages and cultures, systematic theology, ethics, homiletics, and worship. There was also a wide range of perspectives on various issues currently under discussion by the ELCA, including whether the church ought to ordain gay and lesbian pastors in relationships, and what the ELCA’s position on Israel ought to be.
Worship, held in one of St. Olaf’s worship spaces, was joyful and rich with music and liturgy. I have rarely heard a sermon that made me laugh so much (the opening lines of one season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer put into conversation with the institution of the Eucharist: now that’s a sermon!) or seen a whole conference of people head to worship as happily as they go to breakfast or out to socialize.
The conference itself was on the Apostle Paul, not my central area of study, and it was helpful for me to engage with other academics on issues I’d only begun to think through. For instance, Paul’s letters are occasional, meaning that they address specific occasions and specific people; sometimes Paul’s understanding of a particular issue or his theology seems to shift from letter to letter. What might this mean for us as modern Christians? Paul is vigorous in defending the right of every person to be Christian, regardless of gender or class or previous religious background; many participants argued that we ought as theologians and teachers and members of the Christian community to model ourselves after Paul in this respect. All are welcome; the membership of the body of Christ is diverse and varied. Other participants reminded the gathering that Paul also drew strong lines between the church and the Roman Empire and argued that we ought to opposed the immoral use of power, that we should recognize ourselves as citizens of a different kingdom altogether. The environmental applications of Paul’s theology came up often in terms of stewardship for the earth and care for others, especially the poor living in countries currently suffering from drought and political unrest.
Despite the sometimes vigorous opposition among members on various issues, and the awareness of the upcoming ELCA Synod Assembly where any number of difficult and serious topics will be raised, the gathered group maintained good humor and mutual respect. People discussed their victories and difficulties with teaching, acknowledged their own weaknesses, confessed to their own ignorance of the topic at hand when necessary, and shared books and ideas and resources with each other joyfully. It was a good conference, both for its content and for the collegiality. I was struck a number of times by the dedication of the assembled teachers and by the very existences of this gathering: this is a church which specifies in its founding documents that its teaching theologians must gather regularly to work and talk and share ideas and form partnerships. This is a church that cares deeply about its colleges and seminaries, its faculty, and its students. And these teaching theologians and church staff care about each other; participants discussed teaching strategies with each other, joyfully congratulated a new father and a newly married professor, soberly reflected on the financial situation of many of the church’s colleges, and encouraged each other to keep the faith.
These are difficult days for many of us, and as a denomination the ELCA is taking up discussion of important and serious issues. In the midst of financial anxiety and changing social norms, we are a strong church, and we are taking the long view. We love our young people, we support our scholars and our schools, and we pray for the church and for the world.
Courtney Wilder
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
The following homily was delivered by Courtney Wilder at a Lenten service at her home congregation, Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska. The homily format for the Lenten season is based on the National Public Radio series "This I Believe," where listeners record personal statements of belief.
This is what I believe: that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I wrote this on a piece of paper and taped it above my desk when I was writing my dissertation, I repeat it to my students as they begin big projects, and I think that it is a useful guide for human activity in general, and Christian activities in particular.
The perfect is tantalizing. The perfect is beautiful, and inspiring, and unattainable, and the very unattainablity of the perfect can sink us into despair. Especially when we think about our actions, and how we might best follow the instructions of Jesus to love our neighbors and care for the poor and let justice roll down like a river – the perfect is tempting, but overwhelming.
I was thinking about this recently when purchasing a few items to go into the midwife kits that Augustana folks assembled for shipment overseas. I don’t have baby clothes to hand down anymore, so I went to Target and picked up some small hats and shirts to be included in the kits. As I was choosing them I stopped to think about the individual babies whose mothers, perhaps pregnant even now, will benefit from these kits. The kits were modest – no ultrasound, no Doppler, none of the fancy prenatal vitamins I remember taking – but infinitely useful. Basic items that any midwife would be glad to have at hand during a delivery – cloth for bandages, clothes to keep the newborn baby warm and comfortable, washcloths for cleanup, other medical supplies.
This is not a perfect enterprise, in the sense that no one kit will solve the problem of women’s health in the developing world, no one kit will bring a family out of poverty or ensure that the midwife has everything she needs to keep critically ill mothers and babies alive. And yet, for the midwife who receives the kits – they will allow her to spend less of her own money on supplies, perhaps to charge less to the families she serves. It will be an affirmation that her work is valuable and supported, that people care about her mothers and her babies. For the babies born into the world with at least one hat and shirt, the kids will provide warmth and comfort. For the mothers, the kits will help to ensure that they survive their deliveries, and that their babies do as well. Standing in the aisle at Target picking out tiny baby hats, I hoped that somewhere mothers will have a sense that people in the world love and care about them and their families.
This is what I believe: that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Those kits were good. They did not solve all the world’s problems in one fell swoop, they did not address the inequalities in global healthcare or the serious problem of FGM and its implications for maternal mortality in childbirth, they did not prevent the transmission of HIV, but they were good. We can aspire to perfection, to an ideal where every mother has a safe and gentle birth, where every baby is born into a family prepared to feed, clothe and educate it, so that that boy or girl can then participate in a society where every adult has full and meaningful employment and the ruling authorities are peaceful, wise and just. But there is a lot of ground to cover between here and there.
The trick is to neither stop all action in despair, because we cannot achieve the perfect, nor to stop once we have accomplished a small, individual good. This is the immeasurable gift of belonging to a congregation, and to a larger church body. I am so grateful to be a member of this congregation. I’ve read a lot about childbirth, I have a lot of opinions about various approaches to delivering babies, I’ve had any number of conversations with friends and family about birth, but I’ve never, until this recent project, sent supplies to midwives in other parts of the world. This is a good project, one that I wouldn’t have come to on my own, one that wouldn’t have occurred to me. It has given me something new to think about, and teach about. There are other actions I can take in support of women in the developing world, and because I participated in this good task I am reminded to seek them out. I am grateful to the people in our congregation and in other congregations who organized this project.
We have very clear instructions in the Bible to care for the poor, to love our neighbors, to let justice roll down like a river. I am so happy that I had the chance to follow Jesus’ instructions and contribute to the midwife kits. It is a good project.
This is what I believe: that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I wrote this on a piece of paper and taped it above my desk when I was writing my dissertation, I repeat it to my students as they begin big projects, and I think that it is a useful guide for human activity in general, and Christian activities in particular.
The perfect is tantalizing. The perfect is beautiful, and inspiring, and unattainable, and the very unattainablity of the perfect can sink us into despair. Especially when we think about our actions, and how we might best follow the instructions of Jesus to love our neighbors and care for the poor and let justice roll down like a river – the perfect is tempting, but overwhelming.
I was thinking about this recently when purchasing a few items to go into the midwife kits that Augustana folks assembled for shipment overseas. I don’t have baby clothes to hand down anymore, so I went to Target and picked up some small hats and shirts to be included in the kits. As I was choosing them I stopped to think about the individual babies whose mothers, perhaps pregnant even now, will benefit from these kits. The kits were modest – no ultrasound, no Doppler, none of the fancy prenatal vitamins I remember taking – but infinitely useful. Basic items that any midwife would be glad to have at hand during a delivery – cloth for bandages, clothes to keep the newborn baby warm and comfortable, washcloths for cleanup, other medical supplies.
This is not a perfect enterprise, in the sense that no one kit will solve the problem of women’s health in the developing world, no one kit will bring a family out of poverty or ensure that the midwife has everything she needs to keep critically ill mothers and babies alive. And yet, for the midwife who receives the kits – they will allow her to spend less of her own money on supplies, perhaps to charge less to the families she serves. It will be an affirmation that her work is valuable and supported, that people care about her mothers and her babies. For the babies born into the world with at least one hat and shirt, the kids will provide warmth and comfort. For the mothers, the kits will help to ensure that they survive their deliveries, and that their babies do as well. Standing in the aisle at Target picking out tiny baby hats, I hoped that somewhere mothers will have a sense that people in the world love and care about them and their families.
This is what I believe: that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Those kits were good. They did not solve all the world’s problems in one fell swoop, they did not address the inequalities in global healthcare or the serious problem of FGM and its implications for maternal mortality in childbirth, they did not prevent the transmission of HIV, but they were good. We can aspire to perfection, to an ideal where every mother has a safe and gentle birth, where every baby is born into a family prepared to feed, clothe and educate it, so that that boy or girl can then participate in a society where every adult has full and meaningful employment and the ruling authorities are peaceful, wise and just. But there is a lot of ground to cover between here and there.
The trick is to neither stop all action in despair, because we cannot achieve the perfect, nor to stop once we have accomplished a small, individual good. This is the immeasurable gift of belonging to a congregation, and to a larger church body. I am so grateful to be a member of this congregation. I’ve read a lot about childbirth, I have a lot of opinions about various approaches to delivering babies, I’ve had any number of conversations with friends and family about birth, but I’ve never, until this recent project, sent supplies to midwives in other parts of the world. This is a good project, one that I wouldn’t have come to on my own, one that wouldn’t have occurred to me. It has given me something new to think about, and teach about. There are other actions I can take in support of women in the developing world, and because I participated in this good task I am reminded to seek them out. I am grateful to the people in our congregation and in other congregations who organized this project.
We have very clear instructions in the Bible to care for the poor, to love our neighbors, to let justice roll down like a river. I am so happy that I had the chance to follow Jesus’ instructions and contribute to the midwife kits. It is a good project.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Black Theology and Howard Thurman
Howard Thurman, Black History Month, and Jesus
The following is a sermon preached at the Midland Lutheran College chapel service on Tuesday, February 3, 2009. Quotations from the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman are taken from Jesus and the Disinherited (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1949; cited as JD) and Deep Is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951; cited as DIH)
Good morning. I’d like to begin today with a story told by the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman:
I watched him for a long time. He was so busily engaged in his task that he did notice my approach until he heard my voice. Then he raised himself erect with all the slow dignity of a man who had exhausted the cup of haste to the very dregs. He was an old man. . . . Further talk between us revealed that he was planting a small grove of pecan trees. The little treelets were not more than two and a half or three feet in height. My curiosity was unbounded.
“Why did you not select larger trees so as to increase the possibility of your living ot see them bear at least one cup of nuts?”
He hixed his eyes directly on my face. . . . Finally he said, “These small trees are cheaper and I have very little money.”
“So you do not expect to live to see the trees reach sufficient maturity to bear fruit?”
“No, but is that important? All my life I have eaten fruit from trees that I did not plant, why should I not plant trees to bear fruit fro those who may enjoy them long after I am gone. Besides, the man who plants because he will reap the harvest has no faith in life. . . .”
The fact is that much of life is made up of reaping where we have not sown and planting where we shall never reap. (DIH, 48–49)
“Much of life is made up of reaping where we have not sown, and planting where we shall never reap.” I’m going to spend the next few minutes talking a bit about what has been sown before us, gathering up a bit of the harvest for you to consider, helping you think about where to plant.
This month—February—is Black History Month. As you know, the church has played and continues to play a central role in the African American experience and in the interplay between white and black people in the United States. Among the many insightful, courageous figures in the Black Church tradition is Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, from whom we just heard. By examining some of his writings, I believe we can learn something about why African American history is worth attending to and something about the Christian tradition more broadly.
Dr. Thurman was born in 1899 and died in 1981. In the 1930s he traveled to India, where he met with Gandhi, and he brought Gandhi’s methods of nonviolent resistance back to the civil rights movement in the United States. He was later dean of the chapels at both Howard University and Boston University—he was at BU while Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was completing his doctorate there, and he served as a spiritual advisor and mentor for Dr. King. Beginning in 1944 he also pastored in San Francisco a racially integrated, multicultural church. The themes of his most noted book, Jesus and the Disinherited, published in 1949, continue to resonate today. He is a central figure in the history of the civil rights movement and in American religious history.
So this man was important more than fifty years ago. Why ought we listen to a message a half-century old, thought and written by someone from a different cultural group facing very different social, cultural, and political circumstances? I think that’s an important question. It’s the kind of question that faces us every day: when we decide whether to talk to someone we think is very different from us, when we engage in course material that challenges our assumptions, when we think about how to organize our life projects.
Too often we don’t listen, we don’t engage those are different from ourselves, and we content ourselves with the knowledge that we hold the right ideals, that we believe in equality and that belief is enough. And thus we live today in a world in which segregation continues at rates nearly the same as when Thurman was writing. Churches remain among the most segregated institutions in the country. And again, this despite assertions of values to the contrary, despite claims within the church that all are equal and part of the same body of Christ. Thurman has something to teach us both about segregation within the church and our failure to act in response. He explains:
This is one very important reason for the insistence that segregation is a complete ethical and moral evil. Whatever it may do for those who dwell on either side of the wall, one thing is certain: it poisons all normal contacts of those persons involved. The first step toward love is a common sharing of a sense of mutual worth and value. This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships. It has to be in a real situation, natural, free. (JD, 98)
Separation poisons, it destroys connection, it makes normal interaction difficult and strained. And in response to those distorted relationships, Thurman again and again argued for the need to engage, to get to know, to see from another’s perspective.
Many people think that they understand others when they merely maintain a kindly attitude toward them. While it is true that a generous mood toward other people again and again elicits a response of friendliness, this is no substitute for facts, for information and the kind of understanding which comes only from sustained natural exposure to others. This constant exposure is apt to be a sure check and corrective to one’s understanding. . . . This is one of the reasons why conversation and good talk are of such immense value. They provide moments of direct quickening in contact that instructs the emotions and feeds the understanding with revelations of interests, slants and overtones of the other person, without which there can be no deep sure respect for personality. (DIH, 23–24)
Feeling kind toward another is not enough, Thurman explains; what is needed is direct conversation, deep engagement. There needs to be a move from ideas and ideals—for instance, saying that all are equal, saying that human beings are human beings—to action, to enacting those ideals in daily life.
There is a line from an old Hindu poem which says, “Thou hast to churn the milk, O Disciple, if thou desirest the taste of butter.” The line continues by saying, “And it serveth not thy purpose if, sitting in idleness, though sayest, ‘Lo, the butter is in the milk, yea, the butter is in the milk.’”. . . An idea or an ideal can be held only to the extent that it realizes itself. No amount of pretense or formality or parading can substitute for the sheer realization in achievement of the idea, ideal or dream to which one is dedicated. (DIH, 27-28, emphasis added)
Ideals without practice mean nothing. But what were Thurman’s ideals? He was dissatisfied with traditional Christian perspectives that looked only from positions of power, seeking opportunities to help without understanding—the problem of “looking kindly” mentioned earlier, and he sought to develop an understanding of Jesus, a take on Christianity that dealt with “what the teachings and the life of Jesus have to say to those who stand, at a moment in human history, with their backs against the wall” (JD, 11).
He argues convincingly, and in a way consistent with contemporary New Testament scholarship, that Jesus’s life and ministry is tied to his experience as a poor Jewish person in Roman-occupied Palestine. And in that context, his ministry responds to the question facing people of all times who are marginalized: “What must be the attitude toward the rulers, the controllers of political, social, and economic life?” (JD, 23) And here he draws on Jesus’s ministry to call for loving nonviolent resistance—resistance that creates a sense of belonging and imparts the knowledge that those who society had excluded were children of God. Thurman explained: “The religion of Jesus says to the disinherited: ‘Love your enemy. Take the initiative in seeking ways by which you can have the experience of a common sharing of mutual worth and value. It may be hazardous, but you must do it’” (JD, 100). That was the thrust of his message, that Jesus’s loving resistance disarms those in power by connecting people in a relationship of mutuality and equality: “In the presence of an overwhelming sincerity on the part of the disinherited, the dominant themselves are caught with no defense. . . . Instead of relation between the weak and the strong there is merely a relationship between human beings. . . . The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity” (JD, 73).
Yet enacting one’s ideals, whether of nonviolent resistance or otherwise, does not mean that change will be immediate, as the earlier story of the man and the pecan trees reminds us. And perseverance in the face of slow change requires strength. Thurman was both a prophet and a mystic, concerned both about the implications of Jesus’s teachings for society and about how people can encounter God directly. He emphasized the need for a dialectical movement—a movement back and forth—between religious encounter and social activism in order to replenish one’s strength and reengage the struggle. He saw the need both to struggle for justice and to reflect on God’s presence. And so I’d like to end today with a passage on God’s presence from a collection of Thurman’s daily meditations.
Whenever the mind of [humanity] has been uplifted; whenever I have frustrated the temptation to deny the truth within me, or to betray a value which to me is significant; whenever I have found the despair of my own heart and life groundless; . . . whenever I have been able to bring my life under some high and holy purpose that gives to it a greater wholeness and a greater unity; whenever I have stood in the presence of innocence, purity, love and beauty and found my own mind chastened and my whole self somehow challenged and cleansed; . . . whenever these experiences or others like them have been mine, I have seen God, and felt [God’s] presence winging near. (DIH, 145)
May these reflections enable you to see something of another’s perspective, to seek to realize your own ideals, and to see something of God’s presence.
The following is a sermon preached at the Midland Lutheran College chapel service on Tuesday, February 3, 2009. Quotations from the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman are taken from Jesus and the Disinherited (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1949; cited as JD) and Deep Is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951; cited as DIH)
Good morning. I’d like to begin today with a story told by the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman:
I watched him for a long time. He was so busily engaged in his task that he did notice my approach until he heard my voice. Then he raised himself erect with all the slow dignity of a man who had exhausted the cup of haste to the very dregs. He was an old man. . . . Further talk between us revealed that he was planting a small grove of pecan trees. The little treelets were not more than two and a half or three feet in height. My curiosity was unbounded.
“Why did you not select larger trees so as to increase the possibility of your living ot see them bear at least one cup of nuts?”
He hixed his eyes directly on my face. . . . Finally he said, “These small trees are cheaper and I have very little money.”
“So you do not expect to live to see the trees reach sufficient maturity to bear fruit?”
“No, but is that important? All my life I have eaten fruit from trees that I did not plant, why should I not plant trees to bear fruit fro those who may enjoy them long after I am gone. Besides, the man who plants because he will reap the harvest has no faith in life. . . .”
The fact is that much of life is made up of reaping where we have not sown and planting where we shall never reap. (DIH, 48–49)
“Much of life is made up of reaping where we have not sown, and planting where we shall never reap.” I’m going to spend the next few minutes talking a bit about what has been sown before us, gathering up a bit of the harvest for you to consider, helping you think about where to plant.
This month—February—is Black History Month. As you know, the church has played and continues to play a central role in the African American experience and in the interplay between white and black people in the United States. Among the many insightful, courageous figures in the Black Church tradition is Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, from whom we just heard. By examining some of his writings, I believe we can learn something about why African American history is worth attending to and something about the Christian tradition more broadly.
Dr. Thurman was born in 1899 and died in 1981. In the 1930s he traveled to India, where he met with Gandhi, and he brought Gandhi’s methods of nonviolent resistance back to the civil rights movement in the United States. He was later dean of the chapels at both Howard University and Boston University—he was at BU while Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was completing his doctorate there, and he served as a spiritual advisor and mentor for Dr. King. Beginning in 1944 he also pastored in San Francisco a racially integrated, multicultural church. The themes of his most noted book, Jesus and the Disinherited, published in 1949, continue to resonate today. He is a central figure in the history of the civil rights movement and in American religious history.
So this man was important more than fifty years ago. Why ought we listen to a message a half-century old, thought and written by someone from a different cultural group facing very different social, cultural, and political circumstances? I think that’s an important question. It’s the kind of question that faces us every day: when we decide whether to talk to someone we think is very different from us, when we engage in course material that challenges our assumptions, when we think about how to organize our life projects.
Too often we don’t listen, we don’t engage those are different from ourselves, and we content ourselves with the knowledge that we hold the right ideals, that we believe in equality and that belief is enough. And thus we live today in a world in which segregation continues at rates nearly the same as when Thurman was writing. Churches remain among the most segregated institutions in the country. And again, this despite assertions of values to the contrary, despite claims within the church that all are equal and part of the same body of Christ. Thurman has something to teach us both about segregation within the church and our failure to act in response. He explains:
This is one very important reason for the insistence that segregation is a complete ethical and moral evil. Whatever it may do for those who dwell on either side of the wall, one thing is certain: it poisons all normal contacts of those persons involved. The first step toward love is a common sharing of a sense of mutual worth and value. This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships. It has to be in a real situation, natural, free. (JD, 98)
Separation poisons, it destroys connection, it makes normal interaction difficult and strained. And in response to those distorted relationships, Thurman again and again argued for the need to engage, to get to know, to see from another’s perspective.
Many people think that they understand others when they merely maintain a kindly attitude toward them. While it is true that a generous mood toward other people again and again elicits a response of friendliness, this is no substitute for facts, for information and the kind of understanding which comes only from sustained natural exposure to others. This constant exposure is apt to be a sure check and corrective to one’s understanding. . . . This is one of the reasons why conversation and good talk are of such immense value. They provide moments of direct quickening in contact that instructs the emotions and feeds the understanding with revelations of interests, slants and overtones of the other person, without which there can be no deep sure respect for personality. (DIH, 23–24)
Feeling kind toward another is not enough, Thurman explains; what is needed is direct conversation, deep engagement. There needs to be a move from ideas and ideals—for instance, saying that all are equal, saying that human beings are human beings—to action, to enacting those ideals in daily life.
There is a line from an old Hindu poem which says, “Thou hast to churn the milk, O Disciple, if thou desirest the taste of butter.” The line continues by saying, “And it serveth not thy purpose if, sitting in idleness, though sayest, ‘Lo, the butter is in the milk, yea, the butter is in the milk.’”. . . An idea or an ideal can be held only to the extent that it realizes itself. No amount of pretense or formality or parading can substitute for the sheer realization in achievement of the idea, ideal or dream to which one is dedicated. (DIH, 27-28, emphasis added)
Ideals without practice mean nothing. But what were Thurman’s ideals? He was dissatisfied with traditional Christian perspectives that looked only from positions of power, seeking opportunities to help without understanding—the problem of “looking kindly” mentioned earlier, and he sought to develop an understanding of Jesus, a take on Christianity that dealt with “what the teachings and the life of Jesus have to say to those who stand, at a moment in human history, with their backs against the wall” (JD, 11).
He argues convincingly, and in a way consistent with contemporary New Testament scholarship, that Jesus’s life and ministry is tied to his experience as a poor Jewish person in Roman-occupied Palestine. And in that context, his ministry responds to the question facing people of all times who are marginalized: “What must be the attitude toward the rulers, the controllers of political, social, and economic life?” (JD, 23) And here he draws on Jesus’s ministry to call for loving nonviolent resistance—resistance that creates a sense of belonging and imparts the knowledge that those who society had excluded were children of God. Thurman explained: “The religion of Jesus says to the disinherited: ‘Love your enemy. Take the initiative in seeking ways by which you can have the experience of a common sharing of mutual worth and value. It may be hazardous, but you must do it’” (JD, 100). That was the thrust of his message, that Jesus’s loving resistance disarms those in power by connecting people in a relationship of mutuality and equality: “In the presence of an overwhelming sincerity on the part of the disinherited, the dominant themselves are caught with no defense. . . . Instead of relation between the weak and the strong there is merely a relationship between human beings. . . . The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity” (JD, 73).
Yet enacting one’s ideals, whether of nonviolent resistance or otherwise, does not mean that change will be immediate, as the earlier story of the man and the pecan trees reminds us. And perseverance in the face of slow change requires strength. Thurman was both a prophet and a mystic, concerned both about the implications of Jesus’s teachings for society and about how people can encounter God directly. He emphasized the need for a dialectical movement—a movement back and forth—between religious encounter and social activism in order to replenish one’s strength and reengage the struggle. He saw the need both to struggle for justice and to reflect on God’s presence. And so I’d like to end today with a passage on God’s presence from a collection of Thurman’s daily meditations.
Whenever the mind of [humanity] has been uplifted; whenever I have frustrated the temptation to deny the truth within me, or to betray a value which to me is significant; whenever I have found the despair of my own heart and life groundless; . . . whenever I have been able to bring my life under some high and holy purpose that gives to it a greater wholeness and a greater unity; whenever I have stood in the presence of innocence, purity, love and beauty and found my own mind chastened and my whole self somehow challenged and cleansed; . . . whenever these experiences or others like them have been mine, I have seen God, and felt [God’s] presence winging near. (DIH, 145)
May these reflections enable you to see something of another’s perspective, to seek to realize your own ideals, and to see something of God’s presence.
Jeremy Rehwald-Alexander
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Light Revealed
The following reflection by Jeanne Kocher was given at the hymn festival hosted by Midland Lutheran College on January 11, 2009 at the Rock of Christ Chapel. The festival’s theme, “The Light Revealed,” focused on epiphany.
The gospel writer Luke gives an account of Christ’s appearance after the crucifixion that depicts the drama of an epiphany. The death of Christ has left his followers with an overwhelming sense of loss. Further, their understanding of this loss is limited. They have not gotten what Christ has been telling them during his life: that after he has been handed over to authorities and crucified, he will rise again. This last part is so foreign, it is incomprehensible.
When two women find Jesus’s tomb and return after the Sabbath to find the body gone, they are “utterly at a loss.” Of course they are. They have no experience that prepares them to understand the absence of the body. The women at the tomb are even more baffled when two men appear in dazzling garments and say, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (24:5-7) .
Understandably the apostles do not believe the women when they report what they have seen, as they too have had no experience, no mental or emotional equipment to comprehend this foreign concept of the dead not dead, of the dead rising again.
In the second appearance of Christ, two apostles are walking to Emmaus when a stranger appears and begins to visit with them. Unlike everyone else in the Jerusalem area, this stranger is utterly ignorant of Jesus, ignorant of his death after being handed over to authorities by their own chief priests and rulers (24:19-21). The apostles then tell the stranger of the post-crucifixion appearance seen by the women. At this point, the stranger, who is actually Jesus, is fed up with the ignorance of the apostles who have been given multiple opportunities to understand that Jesus lives after death. Having lost his patience, Jesus tells them, “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” (24:25).
In Jesus’s outbursts, he clarifies for us the notion that understanding of this new vision of life after death is not only a matter of intellect—more importantly it is a matter of the will and of the heart. Finally, the apostles recognize Jesus after he breaks bread with the apostles.
In fiction, this moment is referred to as a recognition scene, the moment when a story turns dramatically. Janet Burroway explains in Writing Fiction the dramatic turn occurs when the readers recognize that the character we thought was an FBI agent is actually an informer for the Russians, or the child’s doll we thought was trivial actually holds the clue to the murderer’s location, or the killer we thought was the villain is actually the savior of a kidnapped child (Burroway 38).
According to novelist James Joyce, this moment is an epiphany. “Epiphany as Joyce saw it is a crisis action in the mind, a moment when a person, an event, or a thing is seen in a light so new that it is as if it has never been seen before; at this recognition, the mental landscape of the viewer is permanently changed” (Burroway 38).
And this is what happens to the followers of Jesus who finally recognize him in the act of breaking bread. Christ’s appearance after his death changes their mental landscape so that they understand that life and death are not only physical states but more importantly, they are spiritual states of being.
We understand also that Christ will appear again and again in our lives, epiphany after epiphany. We may be foolish, we may be slow of heart to recognize Christ, but he appears to us daily.
Works Cited
Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. 4th ed. New York:
HarperCollins, 1996.
Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,
1990.
The gospel writer Luke gives an account of Christ’s appearance after the crucifixion that depicts the drama of an epiphany. The death of Christ has left his followers with an overwhelming sense of loss. Further, their understanding of this loss is limited. They have not gotten what Christ has been telling them during his life: that after he has been handed over to authorities and crucified, he will rise again. This last part is so foreign, it is incomprehensible.
When two women find Jesus’s tomb and return after the Sabbath to find the body gone, they are “utterly at a loss.” Of course they are. They have no experience that prepares them to understand the absence of the body. The women at the tomb are even more baffled when two men appear in dazzling garments and say, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (24:5-7) .
Understandably the apostles do not believe the women when they report what they have seen, as they too have had no experience, no mental or emotional equipment to comprehend this foreign concept of the dead not dead, of the dead rising again.
In the second appearance of Christ, two apostles are walking to Emmaus when a stranger appears and begins to visit with them. Unlike everyone else in the Jerusalem area, this stranger is utterly ignorant of Jesus, ignorant of his death after being handed over to authorities by their own chief priests and rulers (24:19-21). The apostles then tell the stranger of the post-crucifixion appearance seen by the women. At this point, the stranger, who is actually Jesus, is fed up with the ignorance of the apostles who have been given multiple opportunities to understand that Jesus lives after death. Having lost his patience, Jesus tells them, “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” (24:25).
In Jesus’s outbursts, he clarifies for us the notion that understanding of this new vision of life after death is not only a matter of intellect—more importantly it is a matter of the will and of the heart. Finally, the apostles recognize Jesus after he breaks bread with the apostles.
In fiction, this moment is referred to as a recognition scene, the moment when a story turns dramatically. Janet Burroway explains in Writing Fiction the dramatic turn occurs when the readers recognize that the character we thought was an FBI agent is actually an informer for the Russians, or the child’s doll we thought was trivial actually holds the clue to the murderer’s location, or the killer we thought was the villain is actually the savior of a kidnapped child (Burroway 38).
According to novelist James Joyce, this moment is an epiphany. “Epiphany as Joyce saw it is a crisis action in the mind, a moment when a person, an event, or a thing is seen in a light so new that it is as if it has never been seen before; at this recognition, the mental landscape of the viewer is permanently changed” (Burroway 38).
And this is what happens to the followers of Jesus who finally recognize him in the act of breaking bread. Christ’s appearance after his death changes their mental landscape so that they understand that life and death are not only physical states but more importantly, they are spiritual states of being.
We understand also that Christ will appear again and again in our lives, epiphany after epiphany. We may be foolish, we may be slow of heart to recognize Christ, but he appears to us daily.
Works Cited
Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. 4th ed. New York:
HarperCollins, 1996.
Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,
1990.
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