Come All You People
(This is one of those sermons you can only "preach" in a small congregation. It involved a great deal of moving around and conversation which cannot be captured in the manuscript. But it was a great service!)
Gal. 3:26-29; Gen. 17:15-17; Psalm 96; Rev. 7:9, 11-12
November 2, 2008
Last week it was a bit chilly in here, so I thought it might be a good idea to include some exercise in worship this morning.
So using the center aisle as the plot for our line graph, I want all of you who can do so to spread out along the aisle according to where you grew up. Use the back of the sanctuary as Arlington and the communion table as California, and beyond the table as points further around the globe. If you cannot easily move yourself physically, I want you to look at the line and mentally place yourself in it. Notice who is around you in the line – and make sure to greet those close to you by name.
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or 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. (Gal. 3:26-29)
Still using the center aisle for our plotting, I invite you to spread out according to age – approximately – with our most senior members toward the back and the youngest ones up by the table. Again, notice who is around you.
God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’ 17Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ (Gen. 17:15-17)
Now, let’s spread out according to our religious backgrounds. If you grew up in the Presbyterian Church, stand there in the back – where real Presbyterians always seem to sit! If you grew up with no particular faith background at all, gather up near the table. If you were raised Roman Catholic, gather near the front pews, if you were raised in a non-Christian faith tradition stand a bit further back from the Roman Catholics, and if you were raised in a Protestant tradition other than Presbyterian gather a bit further back. Again, notice who is around you.
In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian – all belong. … God’s dream wants us to be brothers and sisters, wants us to be family. … In our world we can survive only together. We can be truly free, ultimately, only together. We can be human only together, black and white, rich and poor, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jew. (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from his God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time.)
This time, let’s spread out according to what social concern or issue you are most passionate about. This is not a question about where you stand on an issue, but rather what you are most passionate about. If stopping hunger is your passion, gather up close to the table. If peacemaking is your thing, gather around that front pew. If the rights of women are your primary concern gather near the back. If it’s GLBT concerns, gather close to the back. If it’s children’s issues – education, child health, and so on – a little closer to the front. If you are passionate about the environment, stand here. If immigrants’ rights are your passion, stand here. If you are chiefly concerned about health care, gather here. If I’ve left your primary concerns out, go just beyond the communion table.
Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. (Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Next, arrange according to musical preferences. If you love classical music – broadly defined – gather in the back. If you are a fan of rock/pop – again, broadly defined – gather in the front. If jazz is your thing, gather here. If you’re into the blues, here. World music, here, and show tunes here. If something else entirely is your thing, come right over here.
There are approximately 140 instance of the word “song” in scripture. Here is one of the best known:
1O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvellous works among all the peoples.
4For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
5For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6Honour and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. (Psalm 96)
We have arranged ourselves in quite a few ways over the past few minutes. I hope that, at the very least, you’re not as chilly as you were last week! But, beyond generating a bit of heat, what’s the point?
Simply this, to remind ourselves that while we do share much in common here, we are also quite different from one another. There is among us a great degree of diversity of thought, of opinion, of experience.
Jesus did not call his first followers, nor his contemporary followers, to be the same. He calls us, instead, to be faithful. Indeed, he calls us to a faithfulness that crosses all of the various lines of kin and nation that world uses to define and, too often, to divide us from one another.
Thus diversity is more than merely another in a laundry list of progressive political ideas. Diversity is an essential practice of Christian faith and life. As Diana Butler Bass puts it, “A Christian practice of diversity is not secular relativism. Rather, it is the active construction of a boundary-crossing community, a family bound not by blood but by love, that witnesses to the power of God’s healing in the world.” She goes on to say that “diversity is not a capitulation to political liberalism. Rather, it is a deeply biblical and profoundly theological Christian practice – one that is desperately needed in today’s world.”
We are shaped and formed here by that commitment, but moreover, it is our calling to be a light to the nations that demands of us a steadfast commitment to grow in our practice of diversity such that those who are deeply divided by race or creed or social issues or partisan politics can look to us – in our diversity – and say, as they said of the earliest Christians, “see how they love one another.” For in a world that is connected at the speed of the internet yet divided at that same pace, it is more important now than ever that we practice a deep love for one another even and especially in our diversity.
The Christian canon of scripture ends with the apocalyptic vision of John. In that vision of the kingdom of God, John sees this: “There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages … they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” (Rev. 7:9, 11-12.)
It is as small parts of that multitude, diverse in kind and tribe, in age and in sexuality, in taste and in talent, that we hear and respond to the invitation of our Lord to gather at table in his name to remember his life, death and rising to new life, to taste and see that God is good, and to experience the renewed reality of grace and mercy and love in our own lives. Amen.
Gal. 3:26-29; Gen. 17:15-17; Psalm 96; Rev. 7:9, 11-12
November 2, 2008
Last week it was a bit chilly in here, so I thought it might be a good idea to include some exercise in worship this morning.
So using the center aisle as the plot for our line graph, I want all of you who can do so to spread out along the aisle according to where you grew up. Use the back of the sanctuary as Arlington and the communion table as California, and beyond the table as points further around the globe. If you cannot easily move yourself physically, I want you to look at the line and mentally place yourself in it. Notice who is around you in the line – and make sure to greet those close to you by name.
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or 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. (Gal. 3:26-29)
Still using the center aisle for our plotting, I invite you to spread out according to age – approximately – with our most senior members toward the back and the youngest ones up by the table. Again, notice who is around you.
God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’ 17Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ (Gen. 17:15-17)
Now, let’s spread out according to our religious backgrounds. If you grew up in the Presbyterian Church, stand there in the back – where real Presbyterians always seem to sit! If you grew up with no particular faith background at all, gather up near the table. If you were raised Roman Catholic, gather near the front pews, if you were raised in a non-Christian faith tradition stand a bit further back from the Roman Catholics, and if you were raised in a Protestant tradition other than Presbyterian gather a bit further back. Again, notice who is around you.
In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian – all belong. … God’s dream wants us to be brothers and sisters, wants us to be family. … In our world we can survive only together. We can be truly free, ultimately, only together. We can be human only together, black and white, rich and poor, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jew. (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from his God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time.)
This time, let’s spread out according to what social concern or issue you are most passionate about. This is not a question about where you stand on an issue, but rather what you are most passionate about. If stopping hunger is your passion, gather up close to the table. If peacemaking is your thing, gather around that front pew. If the rights of women are your primary concern gather near the back. If it’s GLBT concerns, gather close to the back. If it’s children’s issues – education, child health, and so on – a little closer to the front. If you are passionate about the environment, stand here. If immigrants’ rights are your passion, stand here. If you are chiefly concerned about health care, gather here. If I’ve left your primary concerns out, go just beyond the communion table.
Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. (Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Next, arrange according to musical preferences. If you love classical music – broadly defined – gather in the back. If you are a fan of rock/pop – again, broadly defined – gather in the front. If jazz is your thing, gather here. If you’re into the blues, here. World music, here, and show tunes here. If something else entirely is your thing, come right over here.
There are approximately 140 instance of the word “song” in scripture. Here is one of the best known:
1O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvellous works among all the peoples.
4For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
5For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6Honour and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. (Psalm 96)
We have arranged ourselves in quite a few ways over the past few minutes. I hope that, at the very least, you’re not as chilly as you were last week! But, beyond generating a bit of heat, what’s the point?
Simply this, to remind ourselves that while we do share much in common here, we are also quite different from one another. There is among us a great degree of diversity of thought, of opinion, of experience.
Jesus did not call his first followers, nor his contemporary followers, to be the same. He calls us, instead, to be faithful. Indeed, he calls us to a faithfulness that crosses all of the various lines of kin and nation that world uses to define and, too often, to divide us from one another.
Thus diversity is more than merely another in a laundry list of progressive political ideas. Diversity is an essential practice of Christian faith and life. As Diana Butler Bass puts it, “A Christian practice of diversity is not secular relativism. Rather, it is the active construction of a boundary-crossing community, a family bound not by blood but by love, that witnesses to the power of God’s healing in the world.” She goes on to say that “diversity is not a capitulation to political liberalism. Rather, it is a deeply biblical and profoundly theological Christian practice – one that is desperately needed in today’s world.”
We are shaped and formed here by that commitment, but moreover, it is our calling to be a light to the nations that demands of us a steadfast commitment to grow in our practice of diversity such that those who are deeply divided by race or creed or social issues or partisan politics can look to us – in our diversity – and say, as they said of the earliest Christians, “see how they love one another.” For in a world that is connected at the speed of the internet yet divided at that same pace, it is more important now than ever that we practice a deep love for one another even and especially in our diversity.
The Christian canon of scripture ends with the apocalyptic vision of John. In that vision of the kingdom of God, John sees this: “There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages … they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” (Rev. 7:9, 11-12.)
It is as small parts of that multitude, diverse in kind and tribe, in age and in sexuality, in taste and in talent, that we hear and respond to the invitation of our Lord to gather at table in his name to remember his life, death and rising to new life, to taste and see that God is good, and to experience the renewed reality of grace and mercy and love in our own lives. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
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