A Easter 7 BFC 2017
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John
17:1-7
May 28, 2017
The group of renegade, super spies
reaches the heavily guarded castle, and before they get ready to take the next
step, a step that will most likely cost some of them their lives, the leader
turns to them and asks them their commitment level. Knowing that their mission will never be a
success if any person’s investment waivers, the leader wants to make sure,
before she or he risks their life, whether every member of the team is still on
board.
In
a momentary pause, the leader asks, “Are you in?” And every member of the team looks at the
other, checking to see—do they read fear or courage in the eyes of their
colleagues? After a good look-over, the second in command reports back to the
leader, “We’re all in.” It is a phrase
that conveys their community investment and commitment. It has a way of saying that not only are we
invested individually, but we’re committed corporally. There is not a single pinky toe, a stray nose
hair, or a mental thought that is retreating from where we are now. “We’re all in.” And, so that their overarching goal might be
accomplished, the dangerous part of their mission begins.
The
Chicago White Sox, in trying to hang onto the last of their World Series glory
from 2005, turned this little phrase into their advertising campaign six years
later, showing that the new and left over White Sox players were committed to
getting back to the World Series, they were all in. Their commitment level was higher than any
other team. The White Sox organization,
clearly in a rebuilding year, was trying to get fans on the bandwagon, so that
fans, in turn, would gobble up season tickets, buy more White Sox swag, watch
or listen to White Sox games more “religiously.” What if we were to win the World Series, and
you fans looked back and cursed the fact that you never bought a ticket? “We’re all in,” the White Sox encouraged their
fans, “we need you to be all in.”
Whether
that phrase, “We’re all in,” or “I’m all in,” began with a poker game, an
athletic team, or a super spy mission, with all of the other commitments and
calls for involvement in our lives, it is rarely a phrase used when life has us
feeling so scattered. So many things
bargain to be the highest commitment or investment in our lives, that we can
drive ourselves crazy trying to negotiate what will be important this
week. And then the church comes calling,
slapping us with guilt about one more committee, one more giving opportunity,
or one more mission to which we should give our undivided attention. “Please,” we beg, as the second in command
looks at us to see fear in our eyes, “please . . . not now.” And we hang up the phone feeling like we are
muddling through at a much lower rate than many other beings on the planet.
Some
time ago, I remember sitting at the computer staring at the e-mail sent to me
by one of my seminary friends. It was
sent to me as a joke, but, as always, I was over-thinking, and so the question
turned over and over in my mind. The
question? What if the hokey-pokey is
what it’s all about? Now stay with me
here. We all start in a communal circle,
singing together, putting pieces of ourselves inside the circle and then taking
them out—testing the waters as it were, to see if the circle is safe. You put your right arm in, you put your right
arm out, you put your right arm in, and then you shake it all about it. You do the hokey pokey and then you turn
yourself about. That’s what it’s all
about. At the end of the hokey-pokey, when
we test all kinds of different parts to see if the circle is safe, we put our
whole selves in the circle, and celebrate.
We do the hokey-pokey.
What is it all about? On this New Member Sunday, with 12 people
putting at least their arm into the circle, what is it all about? And for what would we be willing to put an
arm inside the circle? For what would we
be willing to put our whole bodies in, to be “all in?”
Early Christian communities lived in
a time when they regularly asked themselves what it was all about because their
very lives were at stake. We hear that
in the teaching to the early church from the epistle of 1 Peter in our
Scripture lesson for today. The teaching
begins with talk about a “fiery ordeal” and uses language that is all about
commitment and investment to a way that is going to get Christ’s disciples in
trouble. “Resist” and “remain steadfast”
knowing that others are going through suffering as well. “Discipline yourselves” and “keep
alert.” This is not teaching for the
faint of heart. You’ve got to be all in.
Dr. Cornel West was asked at a
lecture given at Union Theological Seminary in New York what we are to do in
times of such fear and darkness. At
first, Dr. West said, “I don’t know.”
But then he went on to say that the only thing he had to offer was what
he learned as a young boy in Sunday School class. Dr. West said that at times of fear and
deepest night he learned that you, “just had to learn to love your way through
the darkness.”[1]
And Dr. West has great fear. Dr. West’s fear is that in such a time as
this we are much more likely to become a fascist nation, abandoning democratic
principles to become the very thing we fear.
West says this because he believes progressive Christians have very
little idea about their identity and rarely think about what their faith
compels them to do in commitment.
Progressive Christians have no idea where we are, who we are, and what
we’ve got to do. In that same lecture at
Union Theological Seminary, Dr. West talked about the fact that the FBI comes
to visit him and people like him about twice a year to tell him that he is on
some rather infamous lists. Some eleven
years ago, the FBI told Dr. West that he is on the list, a targeted list of 276
white supremacist militia groups. I
cannot even imagine what that number must be right now. Into that hatred and evil, Dr. West
responded:
That’s like four fascists for every
progressive. And they’re organized. With
guns! What are we talking about? You better get your spiritual identity
together. You going to talk in that
space with that kind of force? You better
have a sense of who you are. You better
be willing to die. You better be clear
about what the depth of your level of commitment and love is. This ain’t no plaything.[2]
We live in that kind of time. This ain’t no plaything. But like Dr. West I remain a Christian
because the spiritual geography charted in these stories, found in shared bread
and cup, stories that told Jesus and the community around him that we shall
overcome, get over to the other side, if we enter the struggle and learn, what
it means to love our way through the darkness.
Those stories teach, among other things, that God is still at work creating,
that soul force in midwives and stuttering shepherds breaks the force of
bondage, that we learn the rules of how to live in a new place as we walk in
the wilderness, that God has intended grace and joy to provide salvation for
all of us, that we build community and unity out of a beautiful tapestry of
diversity. And, we do that, smack dab in
the ugliness of warfare, alienation, and the flood of immigrants and
refugees. That building of community,
where we all become one even in our diversity, that brings about abundant
life. They are timeless stories.
The
gospel passage is from that farewell passage in the gospel of John where Jesus
is praying to God on behalf of the disciples.
Jesus prays about his unity in God, his unity to his disciples, prays for
their protection and their unity with one another. “I have known you by completing the labors
you gave me to do. They have honored
your word, O God,” Jesus prays, “don’t lose sight of them.” I have shown myself “all in” with you. They are all in, be all in with them.” This is Jesus saying he trusts the
disciples. This is Jesus hoping he can
trust God to be “all in” with those same disciples. Remember them. Don’t forget them.
This
is Memorial Day weekend, a time when we remember our fallen dead to say, “No
more. No more death. No more war.”
We honor sacrifice by our willingness to love our way through the
darkness. If we have not learned, war
only compounds violence and death. War
does not offer solutions. As Jeanette Rankin said, “You can no more win
a war than you can win an earthquake.”[3] We remember death so that we might recommit
ourselves to a more meaningful life. As
people of faith, we make such statements even knowing that we ourselves are not
immune from the lust for violence and vengeance. As César Chávez, the great
practitioner of nonviolent struggle for justice, said: “I am a violent man
learning to be nonviolent.”[4] Yet, here we are in the longest running war
in U.S. history. So this is a reminder
that it needs to come to an end.
On
this last week of the Easter season, we affirm that the Resurrected Christ is
also a reminder. Easter is a reminder that
we do a disservice to the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth if we make our
faith all about his last week on earth: his suffering, his torture, and his
death. The Resurrected Christ is always
sending disciples back to the beginning—to his teaching, life, and
ministry. Easter affirms the teaching,
life, and ministry of Jesus so that when we arrive at Jesus’ last week on earth,
we know from the dangerous path he chose that he wasn’t some milquetoast,
mealy-mouthed leader. He knew his
teaching, life, and ministry would get him into trouble. But he was all in. He did not shrink from those things God was
calling him to. Even with the threat of
suffering and death, Jesus continued to walk the path to which God called him.
In
other churches, however, this is a rather strange gospel. Even movies seem preoccupied with Jesus
suffering and death and say very little about his teaching, life, and
ministry.
My
New Testament professor, Stephen J. Patterson, who was trying to explain how
unusual this Christian cultural phenomenon is. “Can you imagine,” Steve asked,
“if every time we celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in our
public gatherings, in our schools, or in our churches, that we never mentioned
racial justice, the march in Selma, ‘I have a dream,’ ‘Beyond Viet Nam,’ or
marching for the poor in Memphis, but instead showed his assassination over and
over and over again outside that Memphis hotel?
Can you imagine spending more time preaching his suffering and death
rather than his life, teaching, and ministry?”
“That
is,” Steve believes, “what we do to Jesus.”
King had an idea that he might be killed. Death threats and attempted assassinations
were part of his reality. Certainly,
Jesus, who had seen John the Baptist beheaded before him, contemplated what it
would mean to walk in the shadow of the cross.
For their values, teachings, and ministries, Dr. King and Jesus of
Nazareth were all in.
This
may sound like a plea to ask us to be “all in” with Billings First
Congregational Church. As pastor of the
church, I certainly hope and pray that there will be a high level of
involvement and commitment. I also
recognize, however, that church investment and commitment can be just about
another task among an already unhealthy amount of tasks about to break our
backs. Or a guilt-ridden obligation we
feel we must do for fear of hell. I certainly do not want to call us to deeper
meaning by taking on one more straw or out of some motivation that only brings
shame and fear.
I
want to make a call, to what I think, is a far deeper question than all of
that. I want to ask us, as a
congregation, and as Christian individuals, for what are we willing to go “all
in?” Not unlike the hokey-pokey, maybe
we have to put our arm or foot in first to test the waters, but, if you could
be living out your most deeply held values, risking and resisting against all
evil, what would you wanting to be or maybe already are doing to invest and
commit in such a way that your whole body would be “all in?” Think about that.
Now
to think about Billings First Congregational.
I want to take one minute, just one, of complete silence and ask the
question, if you had your druthers, if Billings First Congregational was doing
anything in this community, in the world, in resistance and remaining
steadfast, what would you not only put your right arm in for, or your left foot
in for, but what would you be “all in” for, maybe even sacrifice your life
for? Because if you are willing to be
“all in”, we probably should do it, right?
After a minute of silence, I would like some of you to share what
Billings First Congregational could be doing in this community or in the world
that would make you say, “I’m all in.”
This
is just the beginning of the dialog and discussion. Out of our diversity, we will need many
formal and informal conversations beyond today to discern the path God has for
all of us. If there is silence after a
minute, it does not mean we lack investment or commitment. If there is something someone says that you
think shocking and repulsive, I hope you will engage that person sometime down
the road to truly hear what they have to say and maybe measure them with your
own perspective. If Billings First
Congregational were doing this in the community or the world, I would say, “I’m
all in.” Now one minute of silence.
What
if the hokey-pokey, in some metaphorical way, is what it is all about? We learn to celebrate and have fun with the
hard work we are doing. As a
congregation, as Christian witnesses, let us continue and begin the task of
discerning for what we will put in our whole selves, our whole bodies within
this circle of faith. Amen.
[1] Dr. Cornel West, “The
Socratic, Prophetic, and Democratic,” 4th Annual Barry Ulanov
Memorial Lecture, James Memorial Chapel, March 29, 2006.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Dip Mitra, “You can no
more win a war than you can win an earthquake,” January 9, 2016. https://hubpages.com/literature/You-can-no-more-win-a-war-than-you-can-win-an-earthquake.
[4] Ken Sehested, “Articles
& essays: Conflicting
memorials: The Lord’s table of
remembrance v. the nation’s vow of preeminence,” prayer and politiks, http://www.prayerandpolitiks.org/articles-essays-sermons/2017/05/23/conflicting-memorials.2623829.
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