Big Picture Living
| Rev. Pat Bumgardner |
Hebrews 12:1-4 |
| August 19, 2007 |
Luke 12:40-53 |
“Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and who has taken a seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Jesus who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
Will you pray with me? [Prayer]
As many of you know, I just returned from Malaysia, where I saw many wonderful things. Malaysia is a country that though officially Islamic, harbors diverse religious and ethnic cultures. We visited the Thean Hou Temple or Temple of the Mother Goddess. --- A huge female deity sits enthroned in the center of this Temple, with the Goddess of Mercy on her right, and the Goddess of the Waterways on her left. And it was probably one of the most spiritual places we went --- very quiet, though tourists were there --- very prayerful.
We visited the Batu Caves --- completely the opposite! --- a Hindu Temple re-discovered in the late 1800s, hidden in a huge cave atop 172 steep steps that you have to climb to enter the Temple. (Ms. Gibney wisely had her picture taken at the foot of the steps!) It's very busy --- lots of activity --- and filled with monkeys eating cocomuts and bananas, and occasionally charging the unsuspecting visitor. They will run up to you at full speed and then put on the breaks as if to say, "Fooled you, didn't I?!?"
We went to the Masjid Jamie --- not the main mosque, but a very beautiful one, with its star-shaped pains of glass and sparkling marble floors. We saw the Islamic cultural arts center, one of the most beautiful buildings we encountered with ornate decorative tile pillars. It housed the history of Islam and its great mosques worldwide.
We saw Central Market, bustling with activity --- filled with tiny stalls and vendors eager to hawk their wares and haggle over prices. And on the streets, people from many cultures and creeds --- women in full burkas, and women in designer jeans with only tudons on their heads. Children everywhere. Kuala Lumpur is what we used to call a "teaming metropolis."
It had many of the sounds of New York City --- languages from many places all being spoken at the same time --- and traffic congestion up the kazoo! (Maybe our Mayor should try to sell his fee for entrance plan there!) And, it had many of the social ills we have here. Within three blocks of all the wealth, glamour and glitter of our hotel (*And there was a lot of glamour and glitter. --- We had a butler for our hotel room, which is the custom. And I remember from TV that you ring for a butler's service. But one night, our butler showed up un-beckoned. He rang our doorbell, and when we opened the door, Ashiq had a tray with a pillowcase on it embroidered with my initials, and two decorative sticks crossed over it. He explained that these were traditional Malaysia wedding favors and that he thought of us! (Later, Rev. Perry asked me if I thought Ashiq was on to Mary Jane and I --- YES! I think he was on to us!) Within three blocks of the glamour and glitter of our hotel, was the squalor and poverty of a huge percentage of the city's population --- people living in buildings covered in black mold; laundry hanging out their windows and garbage lining their alleyways.
When you drive the highway from Kuala Lumpur to Penang, there are clusters of tin roofed shacks, with dishtowels for pain glass in the windows, ten to twelve feet away from new high-rise luxury condos that are being built. They are neighbors to each other.
It's an economy of extremes, much like NYC is becoming --- and a nation of deep and obvious racial divides. Every cab driver we had was anxious to tell us his view of the Chinese if he was Islamic, or of the Indian people if he was Chinese.
And that question, "Do you think I've come to bring peace on earth?", Jesus asks in this 12th chapter of Luke's Gospel rang in our hearts. The answer, despite those angelic choruses that rang out at his birth, chiming, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth PEACE," the answer Jesus gives to his own question is “NO!” "From now on, households will be divided, three against two, and two against three; father against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
We've talked about this passage, rendered in a slightly different form in Matthew's Gospel, many times over the years. We have exegeted it, deconstructed it to the point of knowing that the significance of the divisions Jesus articulates is not only along generational lines, but along power lines as well. Fathers had absolute authority over sons, and everyone else in their households, as did mothers over daughters and female slaves. And we know that Jesus, far from being an advocate for or even sympathetic to what modern social critics like to call the "traditional family", ripped it apart!
To the religious inquisitionists sent from Jerusalem to find some charge against him, and to his birth family waiting outside trying to save him from their murderous anger, Jesus will say, “Who are my mother and brothers and sisters? I'll tell you who! Those who do the will of God are family to me.” Often there is no mention of fathers in his tirades, because there is no longer to be this investment of power and control in one person.
Jesus is reconstructing the social parameters by which we define and separate ourselves into camps of the haves and the have-nots/those with power and those without/those who belong in some sense and those who are excluded.
After we left Malaysia, the Minister of Tourism there said that nation would work to oppose the formation of Metropolitan Community Churches there because "we don't want to be another Bangkok," infering a city teaming in sex trade. We are a country, he said, "where people are good, excellent followers of their respective religions." "We don't want people to think Christians condone homosexuality," said The Rev. Wong K in Hong Kong, a local religious leader.
What do you want people to think? That Christianity is some kind of rigid code that condones the condemnation of literally millions of lives to hell? How Christ-like of you!
Cecil Sinclair, a retired Navy veteran, wasn't even allowed to be buried out of the Church his mentally challenged brother scrubs and cleans each week, because, said The Rev. Gary Simons, the family --- Cecil's siblings and his lover (Paul Wagner) wanted to include photos of men hugging. He was an armed service veteran --- would it have been acceptable if they wanted to include photos of men killing each other?! They wanted to have the Turtle Creek Chorus, a gay men's group in Texas, sing. "We have our principles," the Pastor said. Yes, and Jesus had his.
People use Jesus to condone and to justify a lot of things, mostly how much they dislike, despise and judge those different from themselves. But the truth is, the kind of "division" Jesus was talking about here was not between those who believe themselves to be "good" and those they deem to be "bad" or outside the fold. The traditional argument that Jesus was naming the division between followers and non-followers does not hold water here. First of all, there was no such thing as freedom of religion in first century Palestine. (And there really is no such thing in Malaysia today. People are born Muslim, unless they can prove that their families are Hindu or Buddhist or Christian. It is against the law to convert. The case of a woman who tried to convert was decided while we were there --- she was sentenced to three month of house arrest, during which time she will be re-indoctrinated.)
If the head of the household in first century Palestine was Jewish, everyone was. --- That's the skipped over detail in the Acts 10 account of the conversion of Cornelius AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. Everyone became a follower of Jesus that day, not be virture of religious fervor or conviction, but because Cornelius, the head of an extended family unit including slaves, became a follower.
This passage from Luke is not about young people who want to follow Jesus and older people, their parents who do not, as one author I read suggested. It is about Jesus' vision of a new social order, where the lines of demarcation around power --- who controls our lives/what controls us and why --- those lines are dismantled.
I was in a gay club one night in Kuala Lumpur. (Perhaps you're thinking --- you don't go to gay clubs! But in many places around the world, that is the one place gay people have to go, and maybe that should be a consider as we build not only churches but safe spaces for our people globally.) We were in a club with activists from around the globe, gathered to hear The Rev. Troy Perry speak. There was a man named Dede, a leading Queer rights activist in Indonesia --- leaders from Thailand, from Singapore, from Hong Kong --- all over South East Asia --- it was a virtual U.N. of social revolutionaries, all hungry for one thing: the freedom to be themselves --- and they were hungry not only for themselves and our people, but for people everywhere/all of humankind. That is the awe-inspiring thing about visionaries: they see the world in a way that broadens not only their own horizons, but those of others around them.
"Thank you for your presence in Malaysia," Jeremy, one of our young Pink Triangle hosts wrote. "I had never prayed fervently, before I prayed for you....Your presence in Malaysia has made a difference for our future."
Building a new future --- a bright, hopeful, promise-filled future --- for ALL of us --- all the boundaries and divisions that have curtailed our hopes and dreams/our fulfillment as human beings being dismantled --- THAT is what Jesus is talking about here. He's talking about what I'm calling "BIG PICTURE LIVING," where we have a dream for all of us, and then go for it for all we're worth. The issue in the Gospel, says Jesuit Richard Rohr, is never that God will get us; the issue is that we will miss life in all its fullness. Live now, he says, what matters forever.
That's what we are doing in Malaysia and Singapore --- what we saw people doing --- living now what matters eternally. And it wasn't just Queer people --- our dream is about building a spiritual center for ALL people, just like God's dream of heaven is about bringing all people together. And I would venture to say that that, as much as anything else, is the reason other churches will rise up in opposition to MCC.
There's a man named Carlton Pearson; he's a Bishop out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some of us had a chance to hear him speak at General Conference. Six thousand people up and walked out of his mega church --- you know why? Because he had the audacity to say that all of us get saved. Hell sells, he says; heaven doesn't.
Malaysia, like the United States, is a land deeply divided along religious and ethnic and economic lines. When I was talking to my friend Peter, who is a member of CREDO, a sort of underground Christian group for Queer people in Kuala Lumpur, he said we'd hit the nail on the head with our observation that the real issue is always keeping people in their places, be it religiously or economically, so that some futures can prevail over others. --- And that's not a critique of Malaysia. It's a critique of our world. We, here, can be told repeatedly our economy is strong; it's growing --- forget the rising unemployment rate in THIS city, forget that those figures would probably rise by 50% if all the people not counted as unemployed because they don't receive unemployment benefits were counted. We are told repeatedly how good things are, until ... suddenly... the Dow Jones average drops ... 6 ... days ... in a row, and fear is those a bit wealthier than the rest will now begin to suffer set-backs, too, and then low and behold! It's time for the Feds to step in and do something! Ours is a world --- not just here, not just there, but everywhere --- a world deeply dividing along economic lines, along ethnic and gender identity and sexual orientation and age and all kinds of lines of demarcation, that insure the best of futures for some and the worst for others. And Jesus is constantly destroying/tearing apart those borders and boundaries.
That's essentially what most of the stories in the Gospel are about. It's what that story of the "Good Samaritan" we read not too long ago was about. That guy practices what we like to dismiss as "socialized medicine", but it boils down to this: Someone in need of health care got what they needed when they needed it. --- Practicing mercy and compassion for everyone is part of "big picture living"/of living now what matters forever. Mercy matters for all eternity; not judgment.
Implementing our dream of a world where everyone eats and is cared for and has meaningful and sustaining employment and gets to go to school and have a decent place to live --- that's our dream at the Marsha P. Johnson Center. Tell me it isn't what you want for yourself or for your kids if you are raising them or for your household and family? Wanting it for the whole world is what the Gospel is about --- and living that big picture is both the promise and the call of the Gospel tonight.
If you openly declare yourself for me, Jesus says at the beginning of Luke's 12th chapter, I will openly declare myself for you That's the miracle --- the opening of Christ's presence --- that we saw happening in Malaysia and Singapore, simply because of the longing of people's hearts for that Gospel dream of what is right and just and true.
You know, the government in Singapore banned Rev. Perry from speaking. They were very specific. They said it was "against the public interest" and that he could not stand at a podium and give a public address. So he didn't. He sat down!!!! And for over an hour and a half, answered every question any Queer person had about faith and hope and our vision for the future.
It was ordinary people in that room taking the long view/the big picture view --- saying, who really controls our lives and what can anyone do to us anyway? That was the question Rev. Perry addressed with this group of eighty young spiritual activists. --- I learned a long time ago, he said, that the worst thing that can happen is that someone take our lives --- but to be absent in this body, he testified, is to be present to God; it is to stand with the angels before the throne of God. For the joy that was set before him, Jesus disregarded the same of the cross. That's big picture living --- not because we don't care if we live or die, but because we care passionately that all of us live and live fully!
The higher you build your barriers, we often sing here, the stronger I become... That's what happened in Singapore. It's what's happening in South Africa right now. The two Lesbians, one a Queer and HIV activist (Sizakele Sigasa) and her friend (Salome Masooa) found slaughtered, the string of Queer people murdered recently in that land, people are disregarding whatever shame the society around us tries to heap upon us, and rising up, stronger than before. "Our lives may be constitutionally protected there," said out gay and HIV positive jurist Edwin Cameron, "but there is a long way to go before Constitutional promises are translated into reality."
That long way to go/taking the long view is what our Gospel is all about. Your duty, Jesus will say to people who want to put other things first, is to spread the Good News. And that Good News is that for freedom Christ has set us free!
That Good News is that all over the globe Queer people are putting that call first --- I met them --- you know them HERE --- Rev. Edgard out on the streets last week, with people from all over the world --- people from Caracas, from Cologne and Mexico City, from San Diego and San Francisco, people from Stockholm and Vancouver, Washington and Warsaw, all taking to the streets to secure the implementation of the Jakarta Principles, trying to get the UN and nations to incorporate the right of Queer people to housing and to employment and to equal immigration opportunities and to health care into HUMAN rights codes. That's BIG PICTURE LIVING, saying WE are a part of the whole.
Are we there yet? Not really, not when homophobic, death mongering musicians can still book concerts right next door --- and not when transgender women like Victoria Arellano die in immigration detention centers, shackled to her bed, denied the simple HIV medications that would have saved her life -- not in some other place, but right here in the United States. We're not there yet, but that's the point/the call: Big picture living takes perseverance in times of trial --- it takes faith.
Only faith can guarantee the blessings we hope for, the book of Hebrews says --- nothing else! And faith, as we've said a million times before here, is not what we say, but what we do. People can say they believe in a lot of things and do nothing; but people who have faith can't help but live life fully and work for that fullness for others, too. That's why Jesus will say, "It's not those who say to me, 'Lord, Lord,' who will enter the reign of heaven." You can deny me, the song we sing says, but I don't have to deny myself. Faith is about believing that there's a power inside us so strong, it must prevail. God will not fail us. And therefore, we can run with perseverance the race set before us, as Hebrews says, looking to Jesus, NOT AS OUR JUDGE, but as the pioneer and perfector of our faith --- who for the sake of the joy set before him, endured the cross, disregarding its shame.
There is no shame for those who long for the fulfillment of the promise/long for God's vision to be fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven, and go for it with everything we have. Simply longing for a better day, removes our shame/opens the presence of Christ to us/to all of us.
That was the witness in Penang, where over 200 young people --- very young (I thought they were in grammar school, but folks swore they were in college!) --- over 200 people gathered in a room that couldn't hold much more than 100 comfortably. People are hungry for a better day. "It made me want to stand up and shout, 'I'm gay!'", whispered the young, closeted Candidate for the Ministry seated next to me.
He didn't do that, though, when the senior pastors of the mega church he is part of called him in the next day to confront him about his beliefs and to question him about his sexuality. He was scared --- scared he could and undoubtedly would lose his job, his church family, maybe even the roof over his head since he and his lover share a room in his family's home. (How those parents don't know anything is another sermon altogether!)
This young man lied about who he is, and then practically collapsed in our arms the next day, feeling like he had betrayed us he said. --- But that's not what we said to him --- and I want everybody to hear this now, because we preach a hard Gospel here, and I think a lot of times, we, as human beings, carry around a lot of guilt and shame about what we could or should have done in all kinds of situations. Sometimes it's guilt and shame about coming out as an LGBTQ person, and sometimes it's about coming out, acting like a person of strong faith and conviction --- practicing compassion and mercy and generosity. Sometimes it's about things we did do and sometimes it's about things we failed to do. There are a lot of reasons we carry a lot of shame. But hear me now: As long as there's that spark in you of longing for the promise/longing for God's vision in this world to become our common reality, THERE IS NO SHAME! DISREGARD IT! Really! That's the sum total of Scripture's advice about what to do with shame: disregard it and keep your focus. That's what enabled Jesus to keep moving toward Jerusalem --- he disregarded the shame of the cross and kept his focus on the joy he could see/the joy that is God's hope and dream and promise for all of us. Long for that, we told our young friend, and the promise of new life will be yours; it will one day be all of ours! We are not in this world to condemn anyone --- that may be the Baptist's or the Methodist's or the Roman Catholic's job, but it is not MCC's job! We are not in this world to condemn people, but to set them free.
No one can tell anyone else what to do, ever! It's not my life --- it's your life! What I can tell you is this: keep the vision of a world at peace, a world of equity and equality, a world of compassion and healing ever before you --- long for it with everything in you --- LIVE from that longing, as best you can every single day --- and if you make a mistake along the way or fail in some sense, start again; that's all --- live from that longing every single day, and one day the trump shall resound, the Christ shall descend, and we shall all be taken together into glory.
That I can give you my word on, because that is the Good News. Amen.
ALL are welcome in MCC. MCCNY is one of hundreds of MCC churches worldwide