a sermon for First Church Somerville, January 25, 2009
Thank you to Revs. Baskette and Jarrett for your willingness to relinquish this pulpit to me and thank you to the members of this congregation who have entrusted the pulpit to me this morning. I pray that I am worthy of the task before me this morning. Amen.
Friends, First Church Somerville has chosen to take up the National UCC's invitation to engage in sacred conversation on race. This invitation came to all UCC congregations after the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons and the relationship of Rev. Wright to presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
"Let's talk about race," they said. "And let's do that in a sacred manner as people of faith."
In a country in which the very mention of race stirs up strong feelings of discomfort for most, this was a prophetic invitation. Who really wants to talk about race? Let's face it. It's an edgy topic. It's tempting not to talk about it at all. Besides, now that Obama has been elected into the highest office of the land, can we not declare it a new day? Oh, God, please. Surely, racism is now a thing of the past.
But does anyone here believe that sexism in the church died once women began being ordained? Or that heterosexism in Massachusetts ended once same-sex marriage became legal? Regardless of how you voted, you know it is no small thing that a man with African ancestry is President. But I doubt anyone here really believes racism is over. Just the fact that talking about race is so disquieting tells us that all is not well.
But before we enter this conversation, maybe it's worth asking what difference conversation can make. After all, talk can be cheap. Isn't it more important to practice inclusion and multiculturalism than to talk about it?
Let me ask you though, how inclusive can we be if we can't or don't know how to talk about ways institutions and communities tend to cater to the people who are already there? How inclusive can we be if we are afraid to hear from or about those on the margins of our communities? How can we correct the things that stand against love if we can't talk about them? I contend that being able to talk about race is foundational to creating a community that is truly inclusive.
But, as we take steps to engage as a community in sacred conversation on race, it is worth noting our individual and collective worry. What if we fail at this? What if our confusion or ignorance is exposed? What if we don't want to hear what others have to say? What if no one really wants to hear what we have to say? What if the conversation is only ever superficial? What if it becomes more challenging than we think we can handle? What if we are made to look like the bad guys?
I have been part of many, many conversations on race - and let me tell you: most of them have not been sacred. Often, they have been arguments within and across racial groups. There is disagreement about what is true and who is responsible. There is accusation, denial, judgment, disappointment, indignation, hurt, shame, guilt. And then nothing. No change. No transformation. No difference.
I have tended to think of these as failed conversations. And who wants to be part of that? Better not to even pick it up. Better to leave it alone.
But how can we leave it alone? This country has yet to make peace with the contradiction of its founding ideals of equality, freedom and democracy on the one hand and the concurrent reality of slavery and land theft on the other. The legacy of that history remains. As people of faith, we are asked to deal with that history and that legacy because these are barriers to our experiencing God's beloved community.
I want you to believe that stepping into sacred conversation is worth the risk of failure. What is failure after all? Failure is me forgetting God. Failure is a closed off, airless space I put myself in when I assume the outcome of my words and deeds is up to me. Failure is forgetting that God is in charge of outcomes.
A failed conversation is the one in which we forget that no matter what happens - even if it causes discomfort and pain - nothing can separate us from the love of God. That's all we have to remember. Though this is not easy, it is that simple. It's not easy to remember the love of God in the middle of feeling fear or anger or disappointment or shame. It's not easy as we face truths we'd rather not know that we're in God's hands and whatever happens, all is well.
And when we remember the love of God, it helps us find the opening that can liberate us from the mental, emotional, political, social traps that create systems of inequality. If I enter conversation believing that I have to prove my point to someone, if I enter conversation afraid of what I might learn about myself or the people I worship with, if I enter conversation determined not to feel anger or grief or joy, if I enter conversation attached to a particular outcome, I have boxed myself into a container too tiny for transformation.
In sacred conversation, we begin and end by remembering that God is our ocean, our sky, our rock. We cannot fail. We begin by remembering that God is in charge, not us. All we can do is show up, speak our truth and listen deeply.
Our gospel story for today gives us some clues about sacred conversation.
A woman is brought to Jesus. She has committed adultery and, according to the law, she should be stoned to death. The religious leaders bring her to Jesus to find out what he would do with her. We are told Jesus is being challenged: will he or will he not uphold the laws of Moses?
What's the first thing Jesus does? He writes in the sand. Biblical scholars don't know why Jesus does this though other Arabic stories also tell of people writing in the sand with a finger. Apparently, there is a Semitic tradition of doodling on the ground as a way of dealing with distress. Maybe Jesus is praying as he doodles. Maybe he is meditating. Maybe he is clearing his mind. In any case, he holds silence and creates some spaciousness in a charged setting. And make no mistake: the stakes are high. A woman's life is on the line. Ancient traditions and laws that have guided a people for generations are on the line. Jesus's authority as a teacher is on the line. A great deal is at stake. And Jesus begins in silence.
In the silence, there is no hurry. In the silence, there is room to remember our connection to God. This is how we begin sacred conversation.
What happens next in the story offers further insight into how we might proceed in sacred conversation. The woman's accusers insist that Jesus respond. And what does Jesus do? Does he tell them to back off? Does he deny the legitimacy of their charges against the woman? Does he challenge their authority to condemn her? Does he engage with them in debate about the shortcomings of judgment or the merits of mercy? No. Jesus accepts what is. The woman has sinned. The scribes and Pharisees have the right to condemn her to death. Whether Jesus likes it or not, he accepts what is.
Silence. Acceptance.
And then, an invitation: "Let the person who has no sin, throw the first stone." An invitation to consider how they are like the woman. They are not better than her. They are not separate from her. Jesus invites them to remember their connection.
Silence. Acceptance. Connection.
All key ingredients in sacred conversation.
But when Jesus invites the scribes and Pharisees to consider their own lives, he in not just reminding them that they are as imperfect as the woman. It goes much deeper than that. Jesus invites everyone in this drama to consider themselves and their tradition from another perspective. In suggesting they have options, Jesus invites these men to consider both their capacity for sin and their capacity for compassion. Not only does this remind them of their connection to the woman, it reminds them that they are the deciders. They choose. And today, they can choose something different. Today, not necessarily laws, accusations and condemnation. Today, the freedom to show loving kindness - not because they have to but because they can if they want to. Choice: another ingredient for sacred conversation.
Jesus invites the scribes and Pharisees to remember their own imperfection and their capacity for loving kindness. But he does something else, too. Equally profound. He invites them to consider the limitations of their perspective, the limitations of their understanding of their tradition. He asks them to consider that the laws of Moses might warrant a wider lens, a reconsideration.
Consider who the Pharisees are. They are the keepers of the tradition. Men who have devoted their lives to upholding Jewish law. It is difficult for Christians not to assume that the Pharisees are the bad guys in this gospel story because they are cast as the bad guys in every gospel story. Consider the way in which Christendom defines pharisaical: self-righteously moralistic and hypocritical. As Christians, we have been trained to believe that the Pharisees were small-minded bureaucrats who cared more about laws than about people.
In the spirit of sacred conversation, I invite us today to reconsider the limitations of our own tradition by looking at this story in a new way. Consider the possibility that John makes an incorrect assumption. That the scribes and Pharisees were not out to trap Jesus but to find liberation. Imagine that they did not have a taste for killing, that they wanted to be freed from the limitations of a tradition that asked for death as an antidote to sin. That they considered the possibility that Jesus might help them find the way to loving kindness. Maybe they were looking for a choice. Indeed, that is what they are offered. In sacred conversation, we are offered new ways of seeing and thus, possibilities foracting in new ways, too.
After Jesus opens up new perspectives, he bends down again and writes in the sand some more. He waits. Waiting, too, is part of sacred conversation. And what is Jesus waiting for? Is he waiting for the men to do what he wants them to? I don't think so. Jesus does not impose an agenda. This is what choice means. Jesus isn't waiting for them to do what he wants them to do. He is waiting for them to do whatever it is they will do. He knows he is not the decider. He has simply opened up the space for each of them to come to their own decision. And then, he waits. And, one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, they choose mercy.
Silence. Acceptance. Connection. A wider perspective. Choice. Waiting without attachment. New possibility.
That's how sacred conversation unfolds. In the quiet place where we can find the opening. In prayer. With acceptance that things are as they are - not some way we wish were different. In a recognition that all of us - no matter who we are or what life has offered us so far - all of us have within us both sinfulness and holiness; fear and love; accusation and compassion. Each of us can reconsider the truths we hold we hold most dear. Each of us can choose between condemnation and compassion. Each of us can learn to wait and resist imposing our will on others. Each of us can open ourselves to God's work in our hearts.
Sacred conversation assumes that the container for the conversation is God. God can hold it all. Whatever comes. The pain. The rage. The disappointment. The denial. The truth. The wholeness. Even the injustice. God is bigger than it all. Bigger even than the rules, the laws, the traditions. Nothing is outside of God.
In sacred conversation, no one is asked to deny their feelings, their experience, their longing. No one is asked to hold their questions. No one is told that their understanding is not legitimate. In sacred conversation, everything can be held. And because it can be held, there is no battleground, no need to use our feelings or understandings as clubs to pummel someone else. Whatever is, is.
At the end of the story, there is liberation. The scribes and Pharisees have freely chosen to exercise mercy. The woman is free to leave. And Jesus is free to continue his ministry of love and healing.
That, my friends, is the hidden possibility within sacred conversation: our own and others' liberation. In engaging in sacred conversation on race, we open ourselves to the possibility of the freedom God wants us to experience: the freedom to choose between fear and love, the freedom to open ourselves totally to the miraculous love of God and to the dream of beloved community.
May we remember this in the sacred conversations that unfold here at First Church Somerville in the coming weeks and beyond. May we proceed with confidence in the knowledge that whatever unfolds, however fearfully or hopefully we begin, however rough or smooth the road becomes, nothing can separate us from the love God.
Amen
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