In my first preaching class in seminary, our professor, a dry stoic
Dutchman named Syd Greidanus, told us that the best way to start off
every sermon is with a story, a story that captured both the theme of
the sermon and the attention of the congregation. It can be a funny or
a sad or an exciting or a profound story, as long as it IS a story and
serves those two purposes. But the scripture reading today, Galatians
3:23-29, doesn't need a story. It is so fantastic, so alive and
bright, it can stand all on its own.
Now, before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law
until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our
disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by
faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a
disciplinarian, for in Christ you are all children of God through
faith. As many of you as were baptized onto Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no
longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of
you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you
are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
"There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are on in Christ
Jesus." THAT is the Holy Grail of preaching texts. I got lucky that I
get to preach that for my first sermon here at Faith United Church of
Christ. This text is, as far as I am concerned, a representative of
all that is best and brightest in the Christian faith. It is about
unity, and it is about God's love, and it is about how God can make US
loving, and it is about HOPE for the life we live here on this planet.
If I really wanted to hit a homerun with my first sermon here at Faith,
I would just read that passage from Galatians again, and send you all
home feeling the Christian Warm-Fuzzies, and the sermon would end right
now. Can I get an Amen?
But unfortunately I don't get paid for 3-minute sermons, and worse than
that, I am a student at Chicago Theological, and we can never just sit
back and preach the expected sermon. We have to problematize the text.
Which, actually, isn't too hard in this case. Because for all the
idealistic hope that resides in this verse, all of us here know that
just because someone claims Jesus Christ, they don't stop being male,
or female, or African American, or European American, or straight, or
gay, or from Dayton, or from a small town in New York State, or a
computer technician, or a florist, or whatever words this world uses to
describe that person. The real differences and prejudices that make it
so hard for people to get along don't disappear when we join the
Church. They are still there. What DOES happen when we join the
Church is that we become FAMILY. And the old cliche is true: You can't
pick your family. And that is exactly what we are here at Faith
Church, and that is exactly what Christians and humans all over the
world really are --family -- whether we like it or not.
Now, as I look out at all of you gathered together to worship here
today, I can see that you here at Faith know all about Family
Diversity. And you know that it is a wonderful thing given to us by
God, and you know that it is hard work to blend traditions and
personalities and theologies and goals. And that is exactly why I am
here this summer, because at Faith you are committed to being one in
Christ, and you are doing that hard work, and you can teach me a little
something about it that I can take to another church someday. All that
to say that I am NOT going to preach to the proverbial choir today
about honoring diversity in the body of Christ. You all know about
that, and the endless discussions and meetings and compromises and
frustrations and joys. You know. Instead, today, I want to talk about
something a little harder than mere diversity in the body. Today, I
want to talk about those in God's worldwide Church, those members of
our family, who are demon-possessed.
We don't talk too much about demons in the United Church of Christ.
For that matter, we don't talk too much about demons in the modern
Church at all. Just the same, part of our lectionary reading for today
is Luke's version of Jesus and the man possessed by a Legion of demons.
This story, for some reason, was so important to the earlier followers
of Christ that it also made it into Mark and Matthew as well. It must
mean something, if all three thought it was significant enough to
include...so, what do we modern, scientific-minded folk do with it?
It just so happens, despite what I said at the beginning of the sermon,
that I DO have a story for today, and excellent story, the best kind of
story, because, this story is about ME. But I think you all will be
fascinated with it despite that because it really happened, and has all
the drama and trauma that makes for fascinating soap operas and
Shakespearean tragedies. So here goes: I think that most of you got my
introductory letter. If you did, and if you actually READ it, then you
know that I spent the first two years of my seminary education at
Calvin Theological, a very conservative seminary in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. And you also know that that two-year segment in my life
ended when I came out there as a lesbian. What you don't know is that
that ending coincided with a betrayal by a close friend, and was
surrounded by gossip and innuendo and fear and alienation: I went down
in flames, not out in a blaze of glory.
Someday this story will make an excellent novel and then a blockbuster
movie, with Jodie Foster playing the role of Paige Wolfanger, kind but
misunderstood seminarian. But for now, I will give you the condensed
sermon version. My best friend and housemate for two years was a woman
I will call Joyce. When Joyce asked me about my sexual orientation,
and I told her in a flush of relief to be finally able to talk to her
about it. She assured me that although theologically she thought I was
wrong, she would continue to be my friend and support me. She also said
that she would never tell anyone at school. Two weeks later she...
In short, Joyce made my last semester at Calvin a waking nightmare. I
lost sleep. I lost confidence. I lost friends. I lost my community.
Now, I tell you this story neither to be a martyr or a crusader. That's
what the Jodie Foster movie will be for. My goal is not to garner pity
from you. Because likely everyone here today has a story of some sort
that is worse than mine. And my goal is not to preach on the evils of
homophobia. You all know about the evils of homophobia. No, this
story is just an illustration of my main point. The reason I tell this
story today is because Joyce wasn't just someone who disagreed with me
theologically, she wasn't just a friend who hurt and betrayed me...all
of that I could have dealt with. What I couldn't deal with was that
Joyce was a SISTER of mine in CHRIST who hurt and betrayed me. We were
supposed to be ONE, UNIFIED in our brother Jesus. Now, I have a lot of
other friends, my parents included, who disagree wholeheartedly with me
about this subject, and I do my best to make room for their growth and
mine. But they never hurt me on purpose, and they never betrayed me,
and they never acted like my sister Joyce. And that's the real rub
here. That's what baffled me the most, that we both claimed Christ,
and she hurt me on purpose.
I WAS baffled, so I thought a lot about this, and the only thing I
could come up with, the only reason I could find for her behavior was
that Joyce was demon-possessed. Now, when I say that, I do mean it
metaphorically. I don't think that she had a strange scaly gargoyle
lodged in her brain. But I do think that, in some way, she may as well
have. She acted bizarrely, like the man in Luke today who hung out in
the wilds and wore no clothes. There was something in her, something
beyond her ability to control, that made her act the way she did. I
really, as honestly as I am able, believe that. But the scariest thing
about it all is that Joyce, as honestly as she is able, believes
exactly the same thing about me. And here we are, sisters in the same
family, whether we like it or not. You can't choose your family.
This leads me back to why I think we read the story of the
demon-possessed man today. It is to remind us that in Christ's body it
is not just with the differences with each other that we have to deal.
It is, rather, the demons that we all carry and think we can see
lurking in the shadow places of our brothers and sisters. The Church
has never been the place where the healed and holy gather, no matter
how much we like to pretend that we are indeed perfect, or sanctified
to use a good churchy word. No, the Church is the home of the broken
and the addicted and the angry and the sad, which is frankly the only
reason I can still call it home, because I too am broken and addicted
and angry and sad. (Let me clarify right now that I do not think that
homosexuality is something from which I need to be healed. When I
speak of my demons, here, I mean other things...my fear and anger and
anxiety, for some.) But it means that all of us broken and addicted
and angry and sad people are milling around bumping into each other and
jarring each other's wounds and rubbing each other the wrong way and
even actively hurting each other sometimes. So what do we do? As much
as I would love to write off the Joyces in the Church and say, "She
can't be a real Christian because she isn't as broad-minded as I am," I
realize that isn't going to work. Because she thinks the same thing
about me, and both of us, somehow, have found room in God's Universal
Church to hold us while our demons are getting exorcized. I'm not
going anywhere and neither is she.
See, that's the problem with God. God fishes with a net, because God
wants everyone. And that means that God is going to get everyone, and
God is not waiting until we are healed before we are allowed into God's
loving embrace. No, it is in that embrace where the healing happens.
And we Christians, who have all been netted by God's love, find
ourselves in close quarters with a family we haven't chosen. And God
said, "This family won't work unless you get along. Put your
differences aside, and love each other just like I love you all."
When I talk about God's Family, I am not just talking about Faith
Church, or course. I am talking about all of us in the United Church
of Christ, and our interactions with each other, and with our brothers
and sister the Presbyterians, and the Methodists, and the Baptists, and
the Catholics, and the Pentecostals, and the Episcopalians, and the
Metropolitan Community Church, and the Seventh Day Adventists, and the
independent bible churches and on and on. And I am talking about all
the stuff we fight about, be it dumb or radically important, be it how
to read the Bible, or who Jesus really is, or how best to baptize, or
whether we have Communion every Sunday or just every four months. God
said that in Christ, we are all one, and we have to get along.
That's the rub. A liberal sort of Christian lesbian gal like myself
can demand tolerance and justice and equality and quote Galatians 3:28
to make room for myself and oppressed others all I want, and I should,
and so should you. But I have to remember that God's embrace includes
a whole lot of people, a whole lot of people with demons and doubts.
And it is certainly not my job or my privilege to write off others who
God has wrapped her arms around. We are all here in God's arms to
stay, and I have to do the work of finding out how to be one in Christ
with everyone squashed here with me. I am not allowed to wait for them
to make the first move, because they might never.
We are all here, with all our differences and all our demons, the gays
and the homophobes, and the trick is not to just hope that saying we
are one in Christ long enough will sooner or later make it so. The
trick is to WORK, long and hard, and to pray without ceasing, and to
reach out, and to trust in God and God's love that is big enough for
everyone and strong enough to cast out the demons, even our own. We
must reach outside our own congregation and denomination to find common
ground with others who claim Christ. We must start talking to them,
about the things on which we agree, and about the things on which we
disagree, and even about the things that make us raise our voices. We
must be willing to get angry and get hurt and get forgiven again and
again and again. We must be willing to change some of our opinions and
our actions on those things that don't matter as much as Christ and our
sisters and brothers. This wonderful, messy gathering of different and
ornery people who make up God's Universal Church testifies to the fact
that there is room in God's embrace for anyone. We must pray that God
makes room in our embrace for anyone, too. Amen.
Copyright ©2001 by the author
All Rights Reserved
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Forget Jabez! Learn "The Prayer of Jesus"
