Rosa Lee Harden: A Sermon on Proper 11, by my friend
My heart will sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn ...
(from a hymn based on Luke 1:46-58)
Yesterday was the investiture of Marc Andrus
as our new bishop here in California.
It was a glorious day ...The cathedral was full ...
more than 30 bishops in attendance
from all around the country ...
Banners from all the congregations in the diocese,
with ONE banner clearly the most beautiful!
The hymn we just sang, The World is About to Turn,
was from that occasion ...
It was the closing hymn from Bishop Marc's investiture ...
And seemed appropriate to sing here to help us all
connect what is happening here at Holy Innocents
to what is going on in the diocese and even
in the greater church ...
Also this week, on Friday,
there was a story on KQED on the California Report ...
about the differences between our diocese,
and the Diocese of San Joaquin.
They featured two churches ...
the Cathedral of St. James in Fresno ...
represented San Joaquin ..
and Holy Innocents, the Diocese of California.
Our own Andrew Aldrich started the piece
with a great statement that was very clear
about how we understand scripture:
Writings that come from a historical context
that can give us guidance about how we live our lives
when understood to have been written
to a different group facing different particular issues.
and Davey Gerhard closed it by saying
that Anglicans were born in conflict
and that we learn and grow in conflict ...
One of my church history professors says that without
someone disagreeing
(and that someone is called a heretic)
there is no movement ...
no change ...
And we know that Christianity has changed over the centuries ...
as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice ...
That has been the story of our faith ...
What Stephanie Martin, the reporter who did the story
used that I said was that I believe that Episcopalians
are on the leading edge of a new reformation of Christianity ...
I do strongly believe that ...
The world is turning.
We can look at the last 100 years
and see the arc of the history of the Church bending toward justice ....
First the full inclusion of women,
then of people of color ...
We're certainly not at the end of the struggle
for either women or minorities,
the patriarchy still has a powerful hold on us all,
and will until Jesus comes back ...
Yet we know, we can see in our own lifetimes
that the world is turning ...
We can see the reformation happening all around us.
I don't know about you all, but sometimes the voices
of hate and discrimination are sometimes so loud
that I begin to question myself.
Are we right?
Maybe we ARE those nasty revisionists ...
You know ... that is what they call us ...
They are the traditionalists, or the orthodox, and those of us
who teach and believe in the full inclusion of all people
in the life of the church are the revisionists ...
I have to tell you, I CLAIM that title ...
We are ...
We are absolutely re-visioning the world
in a different place than it is now.
BUT (and I want to be absolutely clear about this!)
we are NOT revisionists
when it comes to the teachings
of the early church ...
We heard that most clearly in the readingfrom Paul's letter
to the church at Ephesus today.
There was a powerful argument going on in the first century
about who was in ...
only Jews? or could Gentiles,
the uncircumcised,
be Christians, too.
and Paul was painfully clear:
In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God ...
2,000 years ago, and another fight about genitalia and
what should be done with that most important part of the body.
Not to put too fine a point on it,
but for the Jewish people it defined who somebody could be.
And Paul said to the Church at Ephesus:
Not SO!
The dividing wall in the first century was the hostility between
the Jews and the Greeks.the Jews and the Gentiles ...
the circumcised and the non-circumcised.
Paul said,
in the Body of Christ,
these artificial barriers do not matter.
I have had discussions with fundamentalists who would say to us ...
but what we are talking about now is SIN,
not circumcision.
Let me be VERY clear here:
What they were arguing about then was SIN, TOO.
To not be circumcised was to be ritually unclean.
In their way of viewing the world, it was a SIN to not be circumcised.
One was unclean.
And Paul said it didn't matter.
You are no longer strangers and aliens but Citizens ...
Not aliens,
but members of the household of God.
It was the understanding of what SIN was, and was not ...
not the people's actions, that had to change.
I do have a new vision of the Kingdom of God.
but it would not be new to the people of the first
century ...
The particulars of the disagreement would be different,
but the tensions
and anxieties would be exactly the same ...
“You mean we have to let people fully into our church
who we have always thought of as sinners?”
In the first century ...
"How can we let uncircumcised people
who are ritually unclean into our community?"
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries ...
"How can we let people of color ...women ...
gays, lesbians ... transgendered folks fully into our Church?"
Paul told them, and tells us ...
"The dividing wall has been pulled down ..."
We're just slow in realizing that really ...
no --- REALLY --- means EVERYBODY ...
And the world is about to turn.
I want to share a story on the internet is attributed to
Bible scholar William Barclay
but I first heard Bishop Gene Robinson tell:
A group of soldiers during World War II had lost a friend in battle and wanted to give their fallen comrade a decent burial. So they found a church with a graveyard behind it, surrounded by a white fence. They found the parish priest and asked if their friend could be buried there in the church graveyard.
"Was he Catholic?" the priest inquired.
"No, he was not," answered the soldiers.
"I'm sorry, then," said the priest. "Our graveyard is reserved for baptized members of the holy church. But you can bury your friend outside the fence. I will see that the gravesite is cared for."
"Thank you, Father," said the soldiers, and they proceeded to bury their friend just outside the graveyard on the other side of the fence.
When the war had finally ended, before the soldiers returned home, they decided to visit the gravesite of their friend. They remembered the location of the church--and the grave, just outside the fence. They searched for it, but couldn't find it. Finally, they went to the priest to inquire as to its location.
"Sir, we cannot find our friend's grave," said the soldiers to the priest.
"Well," answered the priest. "After you buried your fallen friend, I went to sleep that night and thought about it and it just didn't seem right to me that he should be buried there, outside the fence."
"So you moved his grave?" asked the soldiers.
"No," said the priest. "I moved the fence."
For all of history we have been putting people
outside the fence ...
then going to sleep and waking up and realizing what we have done.
Then in our re-visioning of the world
we come to understand that we have no choice but to move the fence.
That is THE vision of the Kingdom of God.
Moving the fence further and further out
until we understand that
All are welcome ... All are included ...
There is no dividing wall ... no litmus test about who one must be
in order to be a full member of the household of God.
My heart will sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn!
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn ...
(from a hymn based on Luke 1:46-58)
Yesterday was the investiture of Marc Andrus
as our new bishop here in California.
It was a glorious day ...The cathedral was full ...
more than 30 bishops in attendance
from all around the country ...
Banners from all the congregations in the diocese,
with ONE banner clearly the most beautiful!
The hymn we just sang, The World is About to Turn,
was from that occasion ...
It was the closing hymn from Bishop Marc's investiture ...
And seemed appropriate to sing here to help us all
connect what is happening here at Holy Innocents
to what is going on in the diocese and even
in the greater church ...
Also this week, on Friday,
there was a story on KQED on the California Report ...
about the differences between our diocese,
and the Diocese of San Joaquin.
They featured two churches ...
the Cathedral of St. James in Fresno ...
represented San Joaquin ..
and Holy Innocents, the Diocese of California.
Our own Andrew Aldrich started the piece
with a great statement that was very clear
about how we understand scripture:
Writings that come from a historical context
that can give us guidance about how we live our lives
when understood to have been written
to a different group facing different particular issues.
and Davey Gerhard closed it by saying
that Anglicans were born in conflict
and that we learn and grow in conflict ...
One of my church history professors says that without
someone disagreeing
(and that someone is called a heretic)
there is no movement ...
no change ...
And we know that Christianity has changed over the centuries ...
as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice ...
That has been the story of our faith ...
What Stephanie Martin, the reporter who did the story
used that I said was that I believe that Episcopalians
are on the leading edge of a new reformation of Christianity ...
I do strongly believe that ...
The world is turning.
We can look at the last 100 years
and see the arc of the history of the Church bending toward justice ....
First the full inclusion of women,
then of people of color ...
We're certainly not at the end of the struggle
for either women or minorities,
the patriarchy still has a powerful hold on us all,
and will until Jesus comes back ...
Yet we know, we can see in our own lifetimes
that the world is turning ...
We can see the reformation happening all around us.
I don't know about you all, but sometimes the voices
of hate and discrimination are sometimes so loud
that I begin to question myself.
Are we right?
Maybe we ARE those nasty revisionists ...
You know ... that is what they call us ...
They are the traditionalists, or the orthodox, and those of us
who teach and believe in the full inclusion of all people
in the life of the church are the revisionists ...
I have to tell you, I CLAIM that title ...
We are ...
We are absolutely re-visioning the world
in a different place than it is now.
BUT (and I want to be absolutely clear about this!)
we are NOT revisionists
when it comes to the teachings
of the early church ...
We heard that most clearly in the readingfrom Paul's letter
to the church at Ephesus today.
There was a powerful argument going on in the first century
about who was in ...
only Jews? or could Gentiles,
the uncircumcised,
be Christians, too.
and Paul was painfully clear:
In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God ...
2,000 years ago, and another fight about genitalia and
what should be done with that most important part of the body.
Not to put too fine a point on it,
but for the Jewish people it defined who somebody could be.
And Paul said to the Church at Ephesus:
Not SO!
The dividing wall in the first century was the hostility between
the Jews and the Greeks.the Jews and the Gentiles ...
the circumcised and the non-circumcised.
Paul said,
in the Body of Christ,
these artificial barriers do not matter.
I have had discussions with fundamentalists who would say to us ...
but what we are talking about now is SIN,
not circumcision.
Let me be VERY clear here:
What they were arguing about then was SIN, TOO.
To not be circumcised was to be ritually unclean.
In their way of viewing the world, it was a SIN to not be circumcised.
One was unclean.
And Paul said it didn't matter.
You are no longer strangers and aliens but Citizens ...
Not aliens,
but members of the household of God.
It was the understanding of what SIN was, and was not ...
not the people's actions, that had to change.
I do have a new vision of the Kingdom of God.
but it would not be new to the people of the first
century ...
The particulars of the disagreement would be different,
but the tensions
and anxieties would be exactly the same ...
“You mean we have to let people fully into our church
who we have always thought of as sinners?”
In the first century ...
"How can we let uncircumcised people
who are ritually unclean into our community?"
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries ...
"How can we let people of color ...women ...
gays, lesbians ... transgendered folks fully into our Church?"
Paul told them, and tells us ...
"The dividing wall has been pulled down ..."
We're just slow in realizing that really ...
no --- REALLY --- means EVERYBODY ...
And the world is about to turn.
I want to share a story on the internet is attributed to
Bible scholar William Barclay
but I first heard Bishop Gene Robinson tell:
A group of soldiers during World War II had lost a friend in battle and wanted to give their fallen comrade a decent burial. So they found a church with a graveyard behind it, surrounded by a white fence. They found the parish priest and asked if their friend could be buried there in the church graveyard.
"Was he Catholic?" the priest inquired.
"No, he was not," answered the soldiers.
"I'm sorry, then," said the priest. "Our graveyard is reserved for baptized members of the holy church. But you can bury your friend outside the fence. I will see that the gravesite is cared for."
"Thank you, Father," said the soldiers, and they proceeded to bury their friend just outside the graveyard on the other side of the fence.
When the war had finally ended, before the soldiers returned home, they decided to visit the gravesite of their friend. They remembered the location of the church--and the grave, just outside the fence. They searched for it, but couldn't find it. Finally, they went to the priest to inquire as to its location.
"Sir, we cannot find our friend's grave," said the soldiers to the priest.
"Well," answered the priest. "After you buried your fallen friend, I went to sleep that night and thought about it and it just didn't seem right to me that he should be buried there, outside the fence."
"So you moved his grave?" asked the soldiers.
"No," said the priest. "I moved the fence."
For all of history we have been putting people
outside the fence ...
then going to sleep and waking up and realizing what we have done.
Then in our re-visioning of the world
we come to understand that we have no choice but to move the fence.
That is THE vision of the Kingdom of God.
Moving the fence further and further out
until we understand that
All are welcome ... All are included ...
There is no dividing wall ... no litmus test about who one must be
in order to be a full member of the household of God.
My heart will sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn!
technorati tags:inclusion, christianity, episcopal, anglican, glbt, rosaleeharden