“Slain Glory: Are We the People We Tried to Escape From?”
At Annual Conference our Bishop fixes appointments of clergy to local
churches for the new conference year beginning July 1. Julie and I
have been appointed to serve again in this congregation. We hope you
are appointed to serve again here as well! We cannot do our ministries
here without you doing your ministries here! That is, we hope we all
will embrace this beginning of a new year together as opportunity to
acknowledge that God appoints each of us our places, our times and our
tasks, throughout our own lives and in our life together.
As congregation and pastor, we are still learning each other’s moves and
rhythms. We know our dance together lies around being a “downtown”
congregation (Resident elder Ira Greene forever reminds us, “We may be a
downtown church, but we are not yet a downtown congregation!”), and around
being “progressive” in the sense of forward-looking to the new thing God is
doing. We are still tripping each other up a little -- at points of
offering leadership in the congregation – we need lots of new servant
leadership among us! -- and pooling resources, especially for the conference
and for our wondrous building -- and embracing connection and coalition with
others who share some visions and values with us.
Our good friend Bob Olmstead assures me,
“John, the congregation is behind you – I just can’t quite tell how far behind
you!” Believe me, I love you, I live for you, and I learn from you all the
time. When they gave me an award for social justice at conference, I just
repeated the words I’d heard someone else in a similar situation: “Why am I
getting this? All I ever did was say ‘yes’ to whatever anyone asked me to do!”
Above all and in all, I hope we are finding it easier to say “yes” to each other
and “yes” to the world around us!
We are clergy and laity, members and friends,
children and youth, together. We make up the people of God following Christ
with the help of the Holy Spirit. We name ourselves, again and again, “Reno’s
First United Methodist Church!” Even as nations do, we churches need revival,
renewal, rebirth all the time. There is always so much more for us to learn
about who we say we are and how we are called to act upon who we say we are.
Words for Meditation today remind us, we are a covenant people – a people of
God’s open-ended promise to be our God and to love us no matter what! As our
youth say for God, “I love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
Covenants are infinitely forgivable and renewable.
The “new covenant” we find in “Christ’s ministry of grace” supports and
sustains all of our covenanted relations – baptism into the church,
communion with one another, marriage and partnership with one another --
parents with children, teachers with students, doctors with patients,
leaders with organizations, municipalities, states and nations – whoever
offers witness and service with others in the spirit of mutual love and
respect. By whatever names to others, these are “lay ministries” to
us, and as it says here, such ministries know no limits! We are in
ministry with every part and every person of our lives – in our homes,
schools, workplaces, neighborhoods and communities: Wherever we are,
whatever we are doing, we are in ministry! We are offering ourselves,
putting ourselves on the line – for what we believe to be true for us and
for what we hope and intend to be life-giving, life-honoring, life-enhancing
for others.
Our Book of Discipline puts this
theologically, “all persons will be brought into a saving relationship with God
through Jesus Christ and be renewed after the image of their creator.” “Saving”
is not the whole work we offer for Christ. We try to offer ourselves and Christ
“holistically,” as we say. The bottom line remains, “All Christians are called
to minister wherever Christ would have them serve and witness in deeds and words
that heal and free.” There is no way to be a passive recipient Christian. We
may not all be active givers in quite the same ways – We embrace the great
variety of Spirit’s gifts and callings! – but we cannot choose just to be
spectators, nay-sayers, couch potatoes! The Body of Christ is a
fully participatory democracy – Every part has a contribution to make to the
whole!
In other Words for Meditation this morning,
we hear from contemporary patriot Aung San Suu Kyi. She’s pitting her life is
on the line for the people of Burma – for their independence and national
liberation as a people – as we say we are remembering for ourselves this week.
Since we as a nation are made up of so many other peoples -- and since we as a
nation are so instrumental – for better, for worse – in the national struggles
of so many peoples – we need to keep freshly aware of how related all such
struggles are – in origin if not in destiny. (Rev. John Chamberlin, a founder
of the East Timor Religious Network active in support of the struggle of the
very newest of the United Nations, will be with us for further reflection in
Adult Class at 9 AM next Sunday!)
Aung San Suu Kyi insists we are much more
than just the “economic” players our culture tells us to concentrate on. We
cannot be content to be seen and valued as nothing but pawns in the market –
owners/workers, sellers/buyers, brokers/investors, producers (insofar as we are
any more!)/consumers. Rather, we are whole persons – responsible for our whole
public life – religiously and politically! The technical “separation of church
and state” so one does not “run” the other has nothing to do with the
inextricable blendedness of religion and politics. Both have to do with the
public discernment and practice of values! And this brave Burmese leader
implores us to see that truly public participation is the issue of our time – in
every last nation and people on earth – beginning with us! We dare not give way
to others – so-called experts, often exploiters of public good and public
wealth. We dare not allow our leaders to act unilaterally and unaccountably.
We dare not allow what she calls “power above human worth,” and “control above
liberation.” We dare not treat “freedom” as just another standardized product
to peddle to others, while neglecting to practice ourselves!
Our dominant model of leadership – as David today pays the tribute of one
“divine king” to another -- remains “benevolent dictator” – arbitrary
decider – call “him” (and it usually is) “King” -- or “Pope” or “President,”
or “televangelist” or “CEO.” Saul was the first king of Israel. The
people demanded him. They wanted, as we seem to want, to give up their
power to someone they can trust like a god – much against the better, bigger
and broader judgment of God! For God never much trusted the people of
Israel’s desire to be led by a human king. God knew that accepting any
lesser “king” meant God’s own rejection as the real leading and guiding
Spirit of their lives, and ours! We can see why God worried.
Saul spends his whole kingship at war – war with his own fears and failures,
war with his own people (including David whom he tries to kill!), war with
every available “enemy” – as if to avoid the hard work of loving service,
making peace.
The glory of war -- and the demonizing of
others war feeds on -- is only good for slaying and being slain. That’s why we
ask in the sermon title this morning -- Are we the people (like Saul) God was
afraid we would turn out to be? Are we the people (like King George and other
abusers of power in 1776) we tried to escape from? At least King David wrestles
with love as some alternative to fear. David seems poly-amorous even – loving
Jonathan as much or more than he loves many women! David never quite gives up
on Saul as his king. He even spares Saul’s life, though he could have been rid
of the threat against his own. David is deeply touched by Saul’s death. He
acknowledges -- perhaps as only another king can -- the passing of an era of
“kingship” – whether anyone “gets it” or not. The glory of kings is slain. The
might of kings (to make right?) is fallen. Most insightfully, the weapons of
war are perishing. Again, we have not got that word. David is no pacifist. But
here he sees clearly that the false glamour of war is no substitute for the true
courage of peace – of the justice that makes for peace.
Maybe we think of David as a transitional
“king” toward Jesus. I appreciate how many today drop the “g” in “kingship” and
turn it to “kin-ship.” I believe in the “kin-dom,” the “one big family” (like
the “one big union?”) of God. But we must remain mindful as well – especially
when tempted to separate and divide, and thus conquer, ourselves “religiously”
and “politically” -- of the scandal that Jesus is condemned and crucified as a
“king” of the Jews! Jesus’ ways of “lay ministry” and of mission for God are so
threatening to the abuses of all forms of power in his time as to get him
convicted -- not only of blasphemy against the religious powers but also of
treason against the political powers – the powers of “empire” that remain
blatant in our nation, our world, today.
Church historian Loren Mead speaks to us of
“lay ministry” on Independence Sunday – “A ‘layperson’ is not the same as a
‘citizen.’ . . . Someone who has a ministry has a citizenship with God
that may conflict with citizenship in a particular political state. There it
is. If there is a ministry of the laity, then the Church is no longer
the same as the Empire.” As citizens of God we are not so much “separate” from
our nation as we stand “over against it” in witness to the larger hope and
purpose to which we are called! Remember how we describe ourselves “like a tree
that’s planted by the Truckee, we shall not be moved!” The leaves of the Tree
of Life in the New City of God are for healing all the nations!
United Methodist congregations today are busy
discovering, for instance, even in Fresno and Omaha, how to honor the
partnerships of gay members and friends without violating the laws of the church
–and, in Tacoma, how to provide sanctuary to soldiers refusing assignment to
Iraq. If we are to follow Jesus, it will have to be closely enough
that we risk identification as co-conspirators with him against all the
power arrangements and social controls of our own time and place. It’s
in this very story from Mark’s gospel. First of all, for Jesus there is no
escaping the crowds, the mobs, the masses of people who find hope and
healing in him. It’s a little like being in downtown Reno, West Street
Plaza, all the time!
Life for Jesus is one long and sometimes rude
interruption. Father Henri Nouwen used to say of his teaching that his students
were always interrupting his work – until one day it dawned on him, that his
work was to be interrupted! Maybe being “covenant” together is one long
interruption of “business as usual!”
Jesus follows the interruptions. First comes
Jairus -- with a name, perhaps known to Jesus -- a leader of his social and
religious class. Normally he would avoid Jesus and his rabble. But something
desperate has happened to him. His daughter lies near death, and he will try
anything! Anyone! One would have thought Jesus’ way was clear. What a chance
to impress all the powers that be!
But then comes this woman – unnamed,
unnoticed, unacknowledged, uninvited, unwelcomed -- ritually unclean and impure
and kept out of worship twelve years -- victim of every possible economic
exploitation and abuse -- with no claim on Jesus whatever! Yet by her faith --
by the undying, unfailing power within her – she fights through all odds against
her to steal a healing from him – and interrupts Jesus dead in his tracks.
Jesus is so sensitive to this miraculous power within – which is within each and
every one of us, really, if we will but believe Jesus and believe in him! – that
he treats every interruption as opportunity -- to establish relationship and to
restore to community! Jesus’ genius (which gets him killed?) is always to
connect covenant with community, personal life with social life – even religious
life with political life.
Jesus is just where such polar “opposites”
meet. In fact, Jesus and his body the church maybe the only places where the
full social/economic spectrum belongs! Do we not aspire this Independence Sunday
to be a place and a people – even a nation – where everyone’s free to “belong?”
Jesus is lifting up diversity and difference at the same time he is breaking
down division and distinction. Jesus embodies the call and the challenge to
fully participatory democracy – to the right of all human beings to equal claim
on the resources of God! Each and every one of us needs and is entitled by God
to saving and setting free, to healing and making whole! Jesus refuses to
choose these two women – or anyone over another -- but heals them both
equally. Surely this Jesus has room – in his heart, in his body – for you and
for me. There’s room for us all! Amen.
