All People
A Sermon on Genesis 11:1-9
and Mark 2:13-17
by Griff Martin
On the First Sunday of Lent
(March 1)… "Because Jesus" series
For the Beloveds of First
Austin: a baptist community of faith
*This document comes from an oral manuscript
Because Jesus... Welcomes all, so we too welcome all people…. All genders, sexual orientations,
abilities, races, economic classes, and religions are welcomed, wanted and
celebrated here.
Incarnate God, we ask that
you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing
reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in
these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but
if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the
Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.
So being a preacher’s kid
is not always easy, in particular these days being the child of the preacher of
a First Baptist church, in particular when that First Baptist does not fit the
mold of most First Baptist churches but not everyone knows that.
For example, when we moved
here one of Blake’s first friends came from a very devout Jewish family, who
had also recently moved to Austin and I think they were not expecting one of
their children’s first friends to be the daughter of the First Baptist pastor.
Sadly, they know all too well the horrible theology that often happens in First
Baptist churches when it comes to our Jewish sisters and brothers, which is
more often exclusion and not inclusion.
So one day, the kids were
having a play date and I was going to be the one to go pick Blake up, so I went
with the goal of being as un-preacherish as possible (a trait I do remarkably
well).
And I did a very good job.
All was going well…. Until the end when the other family's youngest child came
down and was wearing full-on, footed fleece pajamas in the middle of the day in
August. Now at the same time I had a child at home who himself was in the
middle of a ‘I only wear winter pajamas all day’ phase. So when the mother
began to try and explain this, I knew her pain because I was there too, so I
started to explain that but Blake decided to help me and said, “It’s okay, we
know it’s a total Jude thing.”
The mother looked aghast
and said, “what did you say,” and Blake being ever helpful said “we know, it’s
a total Jude thing.” (Let it sit for a minute, catch it yet?) Leaving me
scrambling trying as fast as possible to emphasize the end of Jude’s name (Jude
thing, not Jew thing), and try to explain First Austin’s "all people" at the same
time.
I tell you this story this
morning for 2 reasons: 1) To give you a bit of a laugh before a sermon that is
going to hurt like hell if you listen right, and 2) Because in that humor there
is a deep sadness, the assumption that there would naturally be tension in a
relationship with someone practicing Judaism and a practicing Christian (and
sadly that assumption has much evidence to back it up these days, we have never
understood that we are our brother and sister’s keeper).
As Christians, we have
often failed to fully imitate the love that God has for every person, no
exceptions, love all… love one another. And yet often our love has been defined
and bordered and bound. Lines of exclusion and inclusion feature prominently in
Christian history and baptist history.
It appears that early on we
got a bit anxious that since God did not draw clear boundaries on who was in
and out, who was lovable and not.. that the line drawing was part of our
calling. We love to help God out by doing what we think God should have done, I
don’t know that God loves it as much.
Which is why it takes
Christians like Carlyle Marney, who for those of you who are new here is one of
our previous pastors and a hero in our faith, a brave preacher who was one of
the prominent voices in Austin speaking for civil rights, a man who preached
that we had to learn to live together or die, stating “The church must open
its doors! The church must be a place where people are so taken with Jesus, so
much in love with him, that they would be incapable of littleness and
narrowness and selfishness,” but would instead be a people “so humble that all
pride of position and race would fall away and unity could happen.” He preached
that any church that was not open to all was “less than church because it had a
Lord who is less than Lord.”
And it was not just his
words, while he was here as pastor Marney created a group of clergy that knew
themselves as the Young Turks, a mixed race group of pastors who refused to
meet and eat any place all were not welcome and who together worked until
predominantly black churches belonged in the Austin Baptist Association, which
was open to only white churches at that point.
Marney is the first to
voice all people, all people, all people. Although the concept does not belong
to him but to our God. Our God who has long loved, championed and created
diversity, who offers truth in many forms, many voices, many expressions, many
colors.
It’s one of the first
truths we learn about God, it’s the first text we read today, one that I am
beginning to think we might have imagined poorly. It comes from Genesis 11, the
very end of our origin story. All the people want to build something grand and
they build this tower that they want to use it to reach God and then God
destroys the tower. And typically, the sermon is preached from the angle of an
angry God who then sends them off with a judgement of different languages.
But what if God wasn’t angry?
What if the Tower of Babel is not about an angry God and more about a big God
who wants a thousand different languages and a thousand variations of God’s
name and a thousand ways of worshiping God and communicating about God? A God
who is worthy of more than a tower, a God who is too big to fit into any one
language, too large to fit in a box, too massive to fit into a simple category
and too vast for any one religion.
It’s how I think Jesus read
this story and how Jesus viewed God, which helps us understand why Jesus so
often found God outside the places one would expect Jesus to find God. It’s the phrase “you have heard it was said,” pay attention to that phrase
because that is not how Jesus introduces teachings from the Old Testament,
however the phrase itself implies a communal teaching, meaning Jesus is freely
borrowing from other religions, from philosophy and from common culture of the
day. It’s why Jesus breaks all sorts of borders between clean and unclean, holy
and sacred. It’s Jesus kissing lepers, it’s Jesus eating at tables with sinners
and it’s Jesus having long conversations with women at wells and religious
leaders like Nicodemus long into the night. But it’s also Jesus interacting
with Pharisees and Sadducees and followers of the Torah, Jesus preaching in the
temple, Jesus practicing Judaism. For Jesus, it’s all people and all places.
Jesus seems to be very
content playing a divine game of hide and seek and Jesus often finds God beyond
the expected places, but the surprise is that Jesus is not surprised when he
finds God and goodness in those places, he knew that of course he would find
God there. Jesus seems to find God everywhere he looked. There were no limits.
Which makes me wonder what
Jesus would think of us today?
This world which is a world
as polarized as we have ever seen. A world in which how you vote, who you love,
what kind of athletic wear you wear, what kind of car you drive… that any one
of those can define way more about you than it ever should and not only define you,
it then dictates how you are treated and where you belong.
In a world in which a
church like ours has to list that we want people regardless of gender, race,
economic class, ability, and orientation. It might seem trite to have to list
that, but let me assure you that if you belong to a group that has been
marginalized and excluded, that listing matters and sadly the church still has
to do it because our reputation is not that good when it comes to inclusion.
In a world in which we are
all scared to death of another election because we don’t know how much more
fracture our world can take, our souls can take, our families can take, our
hearts can take.
And this means that in this
polarized world, the most loving Jesus like thing, the most Gospel thing we can
do is love everyone. That is as Gospel as it gets. Love one another (and he did
not stutter when he said it, it was real clear. Love everyone).
And here is what I know: we
here at First pride ourselves on doing that really well, but in truth I think
we have to admit that we don’t do it all the time, that there are groups of
people who don’t feel welcome here and even worse groups that we actively
exclude.
We do a good job welcoming
those from various and diverse faiths, genders, orientations. We are working
hard on welcoming those from other economic classes. We fail miserably at
welcoming those who voted differently from us or whom have a less popular
political views than the majority of First Austin.
And I know this is really
complicated and to be honest I am scared to wade into it, but I also know the
truth that exclusion is exclusion is exclusion. And I know the truth of "all
people" is that it includes people who did not vote like you voted (because "all
people" does not mean all people who think like we do). And sadly I could preach
testimony after testimony of folks who have sat in my office and said, “you
know there are some issues that we certainly don’t agree on and we probably
never well, but that is okay because that is life, but what is not okay is that
folks shun us and don’t include us, they mock us and belittle us because we
didn’t vote like them and because of that we can’t do church here any longer.”
It seems a lot of it
happens on Facebook and social media and let me just make it real clear in case
you have missed the memo: social media is not a place to dialogue with those
you disagree with on political issues, no one is going to change their mind
because of a clever post that you put up and then you pat yourself on the back because
you feel good about it like you just took a real stand. For God’s sake, be
bigger and braver than that. (And if you have done so or are doing so, please
when you find someone you disagree with don’t talk about it on-line and when
it’s someone in this community, not only don’t talk about it on-line but
instead call that person and make space to have a conversation and don’t do it
to change their mind, go in with this question and this question alone “What
made you feel so passionate about ___? Tell me how you got here and why this
matters to you.” And then listen and learn).
And some of it happens here
in the way we treat each other. We don’t disagree with those who hold different
political views, it appears we look down on them. We don’t have real dialogue
when we disagree, instead we dismiss one another. We enter conversations not
with the sacred purpose of listening and learning from one another but instead
of proving ourselves right and of arguing you into another way of thinking. You
know what never changed someone’s heart and mind- being looked down on, being
argued with, being proven wrong. For God’s sake, be bigger and braver than
that.
No good comes when we cease
to dialogue, when we look down on one another, when we polarize, when we lead with
our minds more than our hearts, when we start thinking and acting in terms of
us vs. them, when we write off entire persons because we disagree with one of
their beliefs… for God’s sake, be bigger and braver than that.
Here is what I know…. Each
few years I sit and I write a list of things that I believe and then I rank
them like a target, those in the middle being those I feel strong enough I
would give my life for, give my calling for and then those in the next circle that
really matter to me, but they aren’t obligatory and then those in the next few
circles each important but I am learning to leave space to listen and to learn.
And each year I get fewer in the center of the target, but those that are there
matter a lot more… like last time I did this exercise that came down to three:
Jesus provides the example of living (his life, his death and his
resurrection), that everyone is beloved and deserves to be treated as such and
that love wins. All my theology and politics, all my life is centered there.
This entire series, “Because Jesus” begins there.
And here is what else I
know…. That I did not start where I am today in terms of my ideas, my theology,
my justice, even my politics. I have evolved and I have learned, I have moved
and I have changed. And on some issues I have become more progressive and on
other issues I have become more conservative, two words that need some
redefining today because if the church does our calling we move in both
directions.
I think about my stance of
being welcoming and wanting of our beloved brave queer community, I did not
start there, in fact I started as far from where I stand today as possible.
That journey took relationships with people who did not think like I thought,
it took people who lovingly challenged me, it took people that wanted to
dialogue with me as equals, it took learning from one another. If it had not
been for folks loving me enough to do that work with me, I would never have
evolved on my thoughts.
Which means that if we want
to get to Kingdom of God it’s going to take stories, listening to those we
disagree with, learning from one another, figuring out what are our
non-negotiable and where we have a bit of give (and there needs to be more give
than non-negotibales). That the Kingdom of God is not going to happen by
dividing up into teams on issues and further and further removing ourselves
from one another.
Because the Tower of Babel
is still true…. There is a really big God out there and that God is too big for
any one gender, orientation, faith, language or political party. None of those
are huge enough to contain all of God. Which means my job, my calling is to be
humble enough to recognize that, to be loving enough to listen, to find God in
places and people and conversations where I never expected to find God.
That "all people" means just
that, all people.
That any church that
was not open to all is (and I quote Marney again) “less than church because it
has a Lord who is less than Lord.” And pay attention… that does not mean the
church does not stand for things or take a stand against things or doesn’t
speak truth to power, we do all those things, it just means we do them in such
a way that we invite you to the table even if you don’t stand for the same
things. It’s a compassionate inviting stance, like Jesus taking on the powers
of the day with his arms open wide, which is as big and brave as we can be. It
means that the stances we take, we take boldly but with compassion, gentleness,
warmth and grace.
That Jesus often sat at
tables with folks who did not agree with him because he knew a shared table
with listening and compassion and story can change hearts for everyone.
That Jesus always is with
those who have been excluded.
That Jesus put love over
everything else including having to be right.
That the Gospel
calling today is for us to love another, to truly love another because that
love can change hearts and minds and unite us better than anything else we
could ever hope for.
That Jesus wants a big
messy church full of people who have different ideas because together they see
a bigger picture of truth, who are passionate about different things because
together they love the world, who bring their differences in to learn from each
other and see God fully in our diversity, who know what matters most and pursue
only that.
One of my favorite stories
of church comes from the Durham Cathedral. This space is home to the shrine of
Saint Cuthbert. If you have ever been to this cathedral, you will notice there
is a strange black marble line running down the floor. When the Cathedral was
built, this line represented the stopping point for all women. They were
welcome only so far into this worship space. Past this line was for males only.
This line still exists in the church today only as part of its history. Women
can cross the line and the worship center is shared space between both genders.
The line is simply history,
a really horrible part of our Christian heritage, until someone was brave enough
to say, you know God did not draw lines but circles.
One of my favorite authors
writes the following about this line: “I believe that the day that marble line
was laid, God wept. And I believe that every time we cross a line like that,
God dances.”
First Austin it is time to
go out into the world and to dance over boundaries with God, to draw circles
and not lines, to truly be All People and to be the church of God with open
doors, open hearts, open minds and open arms.
Jesus lived like that, so
we too shall live like that.
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Lenten Labyrinth, painting by Mike Moyers, mikemoyersfineart.com
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