February 20, 2005
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for Life: Unconventional Wisdom We have been asked in these days to think outside the box, to be innovative, to try new things, to let the Holy Spirit lead us we continue to become a growing and changing congregation. We want to receive 100 new members by 2007. In order to do that, we will have to trust God enough to believe that God is present in every change we experience. I know change makes us a little nervous, but the the truth is that change is all around us. It is a natural process that leaves us older, fatter, thinner, wiser, it helps us appreciate time and it gives us some perspective, so that we learn as we change. Change causes us to react to life as it happens. Change can be an external process and change is inevitable. But we are about more than change. God calls us to be a transformed people, and transformation calls us to change deeply and internally. We witness transformation when we watch any of a dozen home and personal improvement shows such as “Extreme Makeover”, “This Old House”, “What Not to Wear” and “Trading Spaces”. A fresh coat of paint, some new furniture, a wall knocked out to expand a room, a wall built to create smaller space, an elevator installed in a house so that the wheelchair bound person living there can have access to the whole house; a new look in a room or a new clothes courtesy of a $5,000 New York city shopping trip will change us. The transformation happens when all of that change is internalized. The remodeled house or the updated wardrobe helps us see ourselves in a new way. Am I saying that transformation is as shallow as new clothes? No – I am saying that when we are renewed in any way, our attitude changes and with that change in attitude leads us to transformation. Transformed attitudes not only invite us to think outside the box, or be the innovative, or to try new things, and to let the Holy Spirit lead us. Changing attitudes encourage us to look at our conventional wisdom, those things we’ve always thought to be true, and ask if there isn’t a better way. We have named some transforming core values in this congregation. Our core values, the foundation on which we are building our ministry are spirituality, love and justice, and friendship leading to relationships. Look at how we have already lived those values. What Martin Luther King, Jr. said forty years ago is still true in too many places, Sunday morning at 11 am, or 10:30 am, or whenever people gather for worship is still the most segregated hour in America, but not here, and in fact the trend is moving toward what Broad Street Christian Church has been doing for more than fifty years. The conventional wisdom is that only men can lead the church as pastor and elder, and that women are best suited to lead the choir and play the organ, we have said, no, let us show you what a faithful and unconventional congregation looks like. Conventional wisdom about worship tells us that we cannot sing traditional, spirituals, contemporary, and gospel music in one church, we might do it all in one service. Our unconventional wisdom tells us that we will live and move, serve and celebrate as God leads us. We are thinking outside the box and letting the Holy Spirit lead us. We live in a country founded on the principles of liberty and opportunity. We are part of a movement, a denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) whose founders like to say, “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love”. These are also core values and they too help us to change our conventional wisdom to unconventional but faithful wisdom. In the United States, conventional wisdom used to be that it was legal to own slaves and to treat people as less than human; it was understood that until 1920, women were legally barred from voting in federal elections, and it was written into the law that cities could maintain separate water fountains and public restrooms, that African Americans, paying the same bus fare as anybody else could be forced to sit in the back of a bus, and that the sons and daughters of hard working tax paying citizens of the south could be denied, just on the basis of race admission to public high schools, colleges and universities. By law in parts of the country, by custom and practice in other parts, the conventional wisdom supported and enforced separation. But thank God there have always been people who said, we have some core values that lead us to challenge the conventional wisdom. We want to be unconventional in the service of love and justice. Many of the challengers were people of faith. That was true of the leaders of the abolitionist movement, it was true for advocates for women gaining the right to vote, and it was true for the civil rights movements of the 50’s and 60’s. It is true now as people of faith come together to remind us that our values as a nation and as Christians, no matter our politics, leading us to embrace compassion for all people, unity of vision, liberty of thought, and love in all things, help us claim our values. Such an attitude is not about conventional wisdom that limits morality to matters sexual. It is about unconventional wisdom that asks moral questions such as, is it right to balance our state’s budget by cutting medical assistance to the poorest and most needy among us? Will the lack of medical care help us to be a state with able-bodied workers? Surely it is possible to create jobs that support families and help the least among us at the same time in a state that claims as its motto, “with God all things are possible”. Do we trust God enough to risk being unconventionally wise? Perhaps you saw the opinion piece by Leo Sandon in Friday’s Faith and Values section of the paper. It talks about Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, and his movement of renewal that includes the spectrum of Christian experience, including Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Pentecostals, and historically African American Christian churches. Members of those communions have pledged to reclaim the language of moral values so that they include concern for the poor and among us. Sandon says of them, “they speak of a ‘consistent ethic of life’ that understands morality to be about the quality of all life rather than a few aspects of our lives” (Columbus Dispatch, February 18, 2004). Jesus and Nicodemus show us the blessing of being unconventional. Conventional wisdom tells us that Nicodemus and Jesus would have nothing to do with each other. To Nicodemus, Jesus is a traveling rabbi who had gathered around him the church, followers who listened to him, were sent out by him, who were blessed by him, and who loved him. Jesus spoke in parables, using country fields, the birds of the air, and even a Roman coin to teach us about the coming realm of God. Nicodemus is a Pharisee. He is part of the religious elite who are especially observant in their faith and who insist that others be as observant as they were. The conventional wisdom tells us that the Pharisees are the enemies of Jesus, and that they could only be hostile to him. But the unconventional wisdom tells us that Nicodemus wanted to see Jesus and talk to him by himself. He does not believe that Jesus is an inferior enemy, but rather someone he wants to know better. He knows who Jesus is, and he comes at night to see him. Now much has been made of the nighttime visit. There is speculation that he didn’t want to be seen with Jesus in the day-time. But the time of day does not really matter, what matters is that they talked together and in so doing give us insight in to our core values of friendship and relationships. If we keep our minds open, we can build relationship with people who seem different from us. The relationship forms as Jesus talks about being born anew, we hear it as born again, and that phrase has come to mean a sudden, life changing experience that causes us to turn our backs on bad habits and then move into a time of spiritual purity. That is a real experience for some. But think of being born anew as a growing awareness that the love of God is so strong, that once we know it, feel it, experience it, God’s love calls out the best in us. It is not about how I used to be wild and uncaring until Jesus found me. It is about since I found a relationship with Jesus, the Savior of the world, I have learned how to love myself enough and to love others enough to care about them and me. As we build our relationship with Jesus, we find our core value of spirituality deepened. Jesus makes the spiritual connection for Nicodemus and for us when he shares a prediction and a promise. The prediction is that he will be lifted up on a cross. The promise is that those who believe in him will have life in an amazing and unending way. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone believed in him may not perish, but may have eternal life” (3.16). When we live in that promise, we grow close to God, we are able to see God, to serve God, to know God, because of God’s great love for us. That love is so great, so deep, so sacrificial that God sent Jesus to express it to us. The promise is one of renewed and eternal life for we who believe. Will we die to this life? Yes we will. But by the power of our faith in Jesus Christ and his faith in us, even after our bodies leave this earth, there is new and endless life waiting for us. If we have the promise of eternal life, should we not show our gratitude by living as God’s people now? Will not our spirits be drawn to stand with those who have lost hope, especially in the church? Do not our renewed spirits want to connect with theirs? But, the conventional wisdom tells us that God loves some of us and condemns others. But we are unconventional, and we want to declare that when John says that God sent Jesus not to condemn, there are no conditions on no condemnation. Are we accountable to each other, of course we are, we are called to treat each other with respect and to do what we have said we will do. But no condemnation means that Jesus was sent not to denounce anyone, but to announce the good news of salvation to the world. That is a straightforward statement and it not only supports our value of spirituality, but it also gives support to our value of love and justice. No condemnation.Late last year, or early this year there was a march in Atlanta in support of families. Now I do not know anyone who does not support families, but the particular interest of these marchers, and the mostly African American pastors who led them was the proposed constitutional amendment that defines marriage. Of course there is a conversation to be had about marriage and family and about how we as a society and we as a people of faith support strong families. But I am convinced that we can have that conversation with out politicizing and exploiting anybody in their most intimate human relationships. In January, and in response to that march, an African American seminary professor wrote a full page ad for the local Atlanta paper in the form of an open letter to Martin Luther King, Jr. Eventually 50 other pastors and religious leaders signed on to the letter. Part of the letter says what it means that God loves the whole world and its people, and offers salvation, not condemnation. After declaring that “in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth” all people belong to God including, “diseased and the dis-eased, the discomforted and the distressed, those who live on the margins of the marginalized, who are the oppressed, the sexually battered and the abused, the homeless and the bereft, the HIV/AIDS infected, who are the young and old, female and male, gay, lesbian and bisexual, transgender and straight” all belong to God, the letter goes on to say what a transforming diverse, inclusive church believes: “We must engage one another, prophetically demand more of one another, and prepare to suffer, cry, and toil with each other when it comes to matters of racial and sexual justice, economic and political empowerment, to waging peace. We must be courageous in confronting the social conditions that divide: elitism, poverty, militarism and more await our deepest response. We must continue to look to the ancestors and to Jesus, ‘the author and finisher of our faith.’ We must dedicate ourselves to a world where borders can be crossed and a new consensus can be found, where we call our own community beloved. We vow to accept and to honor all regardless of their gender, class, age, or sexuality for we all are the children of God, The power is in our hands” (An Open Letter to Martin Luther King, Jr.” Published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, January, 2005). In the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, led by the spirit, with the power to be faithfully unconventional in our hands, God help us to do all that we can to honor God’s beloved people, to be about spirituality, love and justice, and building friendships and relationships, and to number ourselves among those whom God loves. God so loved the world. Thanks be to God. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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