Red Bison Faith: Akbaakuxshé: Sermon for the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, May 29, 2016, "Yes, please"

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, May 29, 2016, "Yes, please"

C Proper 4 9 Ord BFC 2016

Galatians 1:1-12

May 29, 2016

Paul’s writing to the Galatians tells one of the great stories in Christian faith—in keeping with the United Church of Christ’s “God is still speaking” identity campaign. For Paul believes that he has been given special insight into world-transforming news of a breakthrough, of God doing something new in the world.

Our Scripture reading today is a letter. And we know the meaning of letters by what is said in the body of the letter. One is to read the salutation, the conclusion, and the closing in context with the body of the letter defining the whole of the letter’s meaning. Found in the body of Paul’s letter to the communities in Galatia, Paul uses the most ancient baptismal formula of the Christian Church to tell us what this world-transforming news of the gospel is all about. That ancient baptismal formula goes something like this: “You are no longer Jew or Greek, slave or freeborn, male and female. Instead, you all have the same status in the service of God’s Anointed, Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28) Paul writes in the 1^st Century, when a familial system based on patriarchy, an economic system built on slavery, and with Jews and Greeks killing each other at alternate civic events, making that baptismal formula a radical, life-altering baptismal formula.

Imagine a baptismal formula that brought people of different cultural and religious backgrounds, diverse socio-economic status, of various gender and sexuality labels all around a table to break bread in love. I would want to be a part of a project like that. Wouldn’t you? That is what the church, in Paul’s grandest dream, communicated in the letter to the Galatians, is supposed to be.

Imagine baptisms based on ending those labels or divisions religiously and culturally, socially and economically, and based on gender and sexuality polarities. That is not avoiding the Bible to be more loving and progressive. That’s Bible. And, at the end of this sermon, I’m going to invite all of us to an opportunity to live out the book of Galatians in the city of Billings. So people get ready.

As I stated, the idea that God is doing something new and bringing new life and building new community is contained in that wonderful UCC identity campaign, “Never place a period, where God has placed a comma. God is still speaking.” That first sentence is from Gracie Allen to her husband and comedic partner George Burns. When Gracie died, George found himself bereft with grief. Until, one day, he found an old note from Gracie that seemed like a love letter from heaven. It was her last letter to him, telling him to buck up, that he should never place a period where God has placed a comma.[1] Word is that this found letter assuaged George’s grief so that he might go onto tremendous success as a solo act, including playing the role of a genial and benevolent God with a great sense of humor..

As Gracie Allen and George Burns might both counsel ways to be open to possibility and new life, so I have found that to be true with two comedians who have become family favorites. In our two most recent road trips, we picked up the audio recordings of two Saturday Night Live alums, comedian Tina Fey, her book, Bossypants, and often her partner in crime, Amy Poehler, her new book, Yes, Please. I highly recommend both books. They had us laughing, tearing up, and admiring the courage of two women who are doing their level best to be genuine leaders in the world. I believe one of the most meaningful parts of each book was when they described what improvisational theater has meant to their lives. And how the rules for improv might provide lessons for everyday life. Hear in these descriptions of improvisational theater an openness to new life and new possibilities—arms outstretched.

I’ll start with Tina Fey first. She writes that the first rule of improv is to agree. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we’re improvising and she says, “Freeze, I have a gun,” and you say, “That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me,” our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if she says, “Freeze, I have a gun!” and you say, “The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!” then you both have started a scene because you both have AGREED that her finger is in fact a Christmas gun.

The Rule of Agreement reminds you to “respect what your partner has created” and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a YES and see where that takes you. As an improviser, Fey writes, she always finds it jarring when she meets someone in real life whose first answer is no. “No, we can’t do that.” “No, that’s not in the budget.” “No, I will not hold your hand for a dollar.” What kind of way is that to live?

The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then add something of your own. If she starts a scene with “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you just say, “Yeah…” the both of you are kind of at a standstill. But if she says, “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “What did you expect? We’re in hell.” Or if she says, “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “Yes, this can’t be good for the wax figures.” Or if she says, “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “I told you we shouldn’t have crawled into this dog’s mouth,” now the both of you are getting somewhere.

To Fey YES, AND means don’t be afraid to contribute. It’s your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you’re adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile.

The next rule is MAKE STATEMENTS. This is a positive way of saying “Don’t ask questions all the time.” If we’re in a scene and she says, “Who are you? Where are we? What are we doing here? What’s in that box?” she is putting pressure on you to come up with all the answers.

In other words: Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles. We’ve all worked with that person. That person is a drag. It’s usually the same person around the office who says things like “There’s no calories in it if you eat it standing up!” and “I felt menaced when Terry raised her voice.”

The final improv concept is this: THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities. If she starts a scene as what I think is very clearly a cop riding a bicycle, but you think I am a hamster in a hamster wheel, guess what? Now she is a hamster in a hamster wheel. She is not going to stop everything to explain that it was really supposed to be a bike. Who knows? Maybe she’ll end up being a police hamster who’s been put on “hamster wheel” duty because she is “too much of a loose cannon” in the field. In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful happy accidents. And many of the world’s greatest discoveries have been by accident.[2]

Those are Tina Fey’s improvisational theater rules. Imagine those rules not only applied to our individual lives but to the collective life of the church. What would it mean to hold our hands open to new life and possibility by answering, “YES AND”, taking the responsibility to make statements, and seeing nothing as a mistake? How would that open our lives up to the future?

In much the same way, Amy Poehler wrote about the rules of improvisational theater by referencing the first response as “Yes, please,” a way to be open to your partner’s leading. She summarized her rules in a commencement address given at Harvard five years ago: “Listen, say yes, live in the moment, make sure you play with people who have your back, make big choices early and often. Don’t start a scene where two people are talking about jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you are scared, look into your partner’s eyes. You will feel better.”[3]

All of those rules for improv sound like an invitation to a pretty grand, courageous, and adventurous life. They are positive rules. In them, the universe is friendly and God is good and you don’t go around thinking about what could go wrong and clutching your shame purse or wallet. I think that’s what Paul intended in his letter to the Galatians. He wanted the Galatians to see the new thing that God was building, the world-transforming news that was making possible new relationships, new table companions, new . . . life.

In the Scripture passage for today, Paul makes it clear that this world-transforming news is not something of human origin. God is in this. So buck up. Look for commas. Yes, please.

In the next two weeks we will follow the Revised Common Lectionary in Galatians to begin unpacking some of the backdrop, context, or matrix in which Paul finds himself and the genius way he upends the present violent system for something that begins to define all of Christianity. We will look at an incredibly massive piece of art and architecture that defined who Rome thought they were and who Rome thought the Galatians were. I will, hopefully, with the help of Biblical scholars, unearth the deep politics and power found in Galatians. So I hope you will come to get the whole picture of Galatians over these next few weeks, that you will say, “Yes, please” through your participation in worship.

But here is my idea for our community. And I’d like to enlist as many of you as possible to help. As a church that is becoming known for our public liturgy, why not get the radical meaning of baptism out into the street? The downtown farmer’s market will be soon be humming along every Saturday. Why wouldn’t we be outside, with evergreen boughs in a re-affirmation of baptism to say to everyone gathered that no matter what the world calls you, God looks at you and says, “You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son. And I see nothing in you that should ever get in the way of my love for you?” What if we did that three or four times this summer, once a month, for about an hour during the farmer’s market? I would be glad to get everybody ready by writing for Sue Olp in the Billings Gazette. And we could get rid of this idea that church is supposed to be this provincial, select few kind of thing and get Jesus out of the building and out onto the street. So let me know if you are willing to saying “Yes, please” by sending me an email. What if we could plug into that radical baptismal formula that is open to building something new, to new life, and new possibilities for relationship so that no matter what our culture or race, what our socioeconomic status or position, no matter what our gender or sexuality, we are all just one. That’s the project. I’m in.

In that baptismal formula from Galatians we might tell the story of Dekha Ibrahim Abdi. “She was an ethnic Somali peace activist based in Mombasa, Kenya who worked as a consultant to government and civil society organizations until her untimely death in 2011 as a result of a tragic car accident. Abdi’s spiritual identity as a Muslim and her devotion to the Qur’an’s teaching on understanding the soul served as a foundation for her work in bringing about durable peace. Abdi declared, ‘there is no failure in peace initiatives.’”[4] Peace building then, sounds like improv. One love. One heart. Let’s get together and feel all right. Let’s give thanks and praise to the Lord, and we will feel all right. Amen.