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Back to Sermon ArchivesJanuary
25, 2009
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Jonah 3:1-5, 10, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Mark 1:14-20
“Demand a Miracle: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Don’t Work!”
Somehow the events of recent weeks, from apportionments to inaugurations, left
me thinking about miracles. Such events represent huge leaps of faith!
Sudden shifts in logical linear sequence – completely out of the box and off the
chart! We are left breathless as to apprehension, clueless as to explanation.
Of course, as peoples of faith, we always live by and for rumors and hints of the
unexpected, the unpredicted, of God. We always look and listen for bits and
pieces, fits and starts of “good news” -- revealing God’s promise to be alive and
well in ways hard to grasp and interpret. Then comes an event, a moment suspended
in time -- when nobody can deny a gift and a good of the whole has come to exceed
by far the sum of all of its parts! It is not a gradual, even progressive
step. It is a quantum outburst! Some way, some time, some place, at
least, the world will be never the same again. Did you get any of that feeling
these past few weeks?
Yet our hopefulness, even miraculous, remains grounded in grim reality and
recognition that whatever “blesses” US belongs to all peoples as well.
That’s why I often turn to this snippet of Auden’s poem “The Time Being” -- “We
who must die demand a miracle. . . . Nothing can save us that is possible.
We who must die demand a miracle.” Just think of peoples facing death
around the world today demanding miracles – in Haiti, Gaza, Zimbabwe, Darfur,
Philippines, New Orleans, border cities of Mexico – just to name a topical few.
According to Jonah, the people of Nineveh demand a miracle, too. And they
get it! But Jonah does not. Jonah sees only sin and need for destruction.
God sees repentance and hope for salvation. God forgives. Even God repents
-- of the very punishment God promised Nineveh! Jonah cannot stand the
miracle of God’s grace and glory. Jonah, as we know only too well, would rather
die than see “sinners” offered forgiveness, new life. We hate to yield our moral
superiority!
Underlying all miracles, in images of today’s texts, are convictions that God
is providing for -- even promoting -- the passing away of all things we thought
we could take for granted forever. There is a passing away of Jonah’s old
world -- where sinners are sinners, and we are not; most are damned, and few are
saved. There also is a passing away of Paul’s old world – where all
present forms – of marriage, of sorrow, of joy, of wealth, of power – are
regarded as if nonexistent.
All dominant systems and structures, identities and ideologies, are being uprooted
and undermined. There is a passing away of Jesus’ old world as well. His cousin
and mentor John has been arrested. The work falls, and calls to him. The promised
time, the Jubilee time is fulfilled. The Spirit of change, of new life, is
moving around and among us. We are called to repent and believe – to run every
risk of Jesus with him. We are moved to go “fishing” for all peoples everywhere
-- reaching across all boundaries, barriers – letting go, letting God – dropping
our jobs, friends, and families-- every investment in things as they are!
That is taking seriously our baptisms and our communion as highest offices of
our lives. Ten years ago last weekend, many ordained clergy of this
conference joined in blessing the union of lesbian couple and leaders of
congregation and conference -- Jeanne Barnett (since died in Christ) and Ellie
Charlton – before hundreds of worship participants and the whole watching church
and world.
In spirit, we were risking our clergy orders and our jobs. In fact,
complaints were filed against us. We produced a whole book of “Statements
to the Committee on Investigation.” The committee recommended the
complaints be dismissed, and they were. That may have been a small bit and
piece of the miracle of marriage equality in California and in other states.
But that miracle is still demanded: “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Don’t Work!”
Those who have tasted sunlight and rain are not going back to closet and thirst.
Those who have risked truth about love and relationships are not going back to
lies and illusions, props and pretenses.
Just imagine a same-gender couple with children by previous marriage or adoption
-- one of the couple without parental right to accompany a child to the Emergency
Room! This is about building families, not destroying them. Or imagine
a preacher in love and committed relationship with a person they cannot talk openly
and honestly about as part of their spiritual life and family support! When
someone asks me if I believe in “same-gender marriage,” I answer as Mark Twain did
the same question about infant baptism – “Believe in it? Hey, I’ve seen it!”
I’ve seen long-term, healthy, loving, holy, covenanted relationships.
The people of California -- or any other state facing marriage equality – might
each ask themselves, Who would I want, or trust to vote on MY marriage? Like
Jonah, we may need some sense of humor, some ironic humility, to temper our righteous
indignation that God might condone and include folks beyond our pale. There
was an email going around California just before the vote on “Prop 8” – “10 Reasons
gay marriage is wrong” – each followed with a good logical twist –
-
Being gay is not natural . . . And real Americans always reject unnatural
things like eyeglasses, polyester, air conditioning, tattoos, piercings and silicon
breasts.
-
Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay . . . In the same way
hanging around tall people will make you tall.
-
Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy
behavior . . . People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal
standing and can sign a marriage license. Lamps are next.
-
Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed
at all . . . Hence why women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites,
and divorce is still illegal.
-
Straight marriage will be less meaningful is gay marriage is allowed
. . . And we can’t let the sanctity of Britney Spears’ just-for-fun marriage be
destroyed.
-
Straight marriages are valid because they produce children . . .
So therefore, gay couples, infertile couples, straight couples with no intention
of having kids, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our population
isn’t out of control, our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
-
Obviously gay parents will raise gay children . . . Since, of course,
straight parents only raise straight children.
-
Gay marriage is not supported by religion . . . In a theocracy like
ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s
why we have only one religion in America.
-
Children can never succeed without a male and female role model at
home . . . Which is exactly why we as a society expressly forbid single parents
to raise children.
-
Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never
adapt to new social norms . . . And like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector
economy, or longer life spans (among other things).
LOVE makes a marriage.
LGBT folks are baptized, too! Nobody challenged the baptism of our son
in his early months. Nobody challenged his first communion. Nobody challenged
his confirmation. He was homosexual from the get-go. But nobody questioned
that -- any more than we question heterosexuals. Yet by the Book of Discipline
of our Church, if he and his partner came to me for marriage or the blessing of
their union, I would have to put my orders back on the line. If he were to
choose to enter the ministry telling the whole truth about himself, he would never
be given orders at all. To paraphrase Auden, We who are made to lie demand
a miracle!
If and when we dare to be faithful to God’s calling, God’s own demanding, WE
may become miracles ourselves! Is anyone here not a miracle in their own way?
A mysterious, magical, mystical, musical, missional, irreplaceable, unrepeatable
child of God -- who throws away each of our molds upon making us in God’s own
image? Can I get a witness, or what?! Like Jonah who’s gone through
the whale here, we astonish ourselves by the difference we can actually make!
Jonah does not want to go to Nineveh. He does not want to preach what John
calls repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He does not believe in himself,
or in God, that anything really can change. He finds it (as we do?) much easier,
less demanding and more comforting, just to “write everyone off!” To divide
everyone (this Reconciling Sunday) into mutually exclusive, irreconcilable camps:
good guys and bad guys, winners/losers, saved/damned, true/false, pure and defiled.
Jonah does not believe (do we?) with Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and the
Holocaust, that, “Evil can be aborted, diverted, vanquished. Better yet, it
can be transformed; it can undergo countless mutations – by choosing repentance.”
God is not done with anyone yet! Not even done with straight people yet –
nor with the messes we have made of so many of our so well-defended and well-protected
marriages! Didn’t you love the end of the Inaugural benediction by United
Methodist Rev. Joseph Lowery – for a time “when black does not have to get back,
when brown can stick around, when yellow can be yellow, when the red man can get
ahead, man; and when white can embrace what is right!” Amen?
One way it seems we try to feel much better about ourselves is to feel as badly,
as judgmentally as we can about somebody else! The more they “earn” or “deserve”
their suffering, the better! So to Jonah it is bad news, not good – when all
the people (and even the animals!) come to believe; when led by the king they repent
and put on sackcloth and ashes; when they turned from evil and violence, from that
which divides and conquers, separates and destroys. I’m just asking—but doesn’t
every great city, every great state or nation, need to do that once in a while?
Do we not stand in need of a “Jubilee” of a new beginnings? On common ground?
With equal standing? Of residents and citizens? Peoples and nations?
A Jubilee of fresh start and forward, not backward movement? Which may
go for congregations and pastoral changes as well? The Jonah question is asked of
us: How much “good news” can we stand? How many fears/phobias can we
let go?
Paul is so gloriously full of contradictions! It’s what makes him, I’m
sure, such a great organizer – all things to all people, he puts it! Paul
seems to sanction so many unjust relationships, in church and out – women beholden
to men, slaves beholden to masters, gays beholden to straights, and more.
Yet Paul turns right around to proclaim, “In Christ there is no male or female,
Greek or Jew, slave or free!” We who “proof-text” Paul in some preferred places
sure cut him a mess of slack in others! Paul prefaces this very section of
text by confessing he has no special commandment on the question of celibacy–then
unloading tons of advice!
Our UM denomination needs to become so discerning as Paul – as to find ways to
reconcile between what is “church law” that clearly states sacred worth and human
rights of every person, and what are “social principles” that spell out our
worth and rights. How do we reconcile between what is “binding” and what is
“advisory”? Between what our founder John Wesley calls “essentials” and “non-essentials”?
“In essentials, unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity!” How do
we learn not to sweat scriptural small stuff? But to risk scriptural big stuff? After all, when we look at a book of what Jesus says
about homosexuality, we find only blank pages. But how much does he say about
love? Justice?
Let us open ourselves to grace-discerning, gift-distributing work of Holy Spirit
within and among us! Remember the Spirit is given the very same day (Pentecost!)
as the Law: One is the letter of God, the other is the intent. One is written,
the other revealed. Two of them, Law and Spirit, Bible and Church, remain in constant
creative tension toward truth. We live not so much in truth as in tension
toward it! The Spirit reveals in US the living Word of the risen Christ!
The Spirit is God’s way of bringing to bear upon every people, in every time
and place, the unrelenting urgency counseled by Paul -- because we await the
return of Jesus. Paul does not want us investing in anything! Even
in loving and lasting relationships! If Paul were our only “investment
counselor,” we would be waiting still. If we are already married, Paul
advises – addressing men as ones with the “right” to divorce! Some things,
in effect, never change! – we should not divorce. But if we are not
married, he adds, for God’s sake, don’t do it if you have the choice! So
much for “defense of marriage” and “family values!” It’s Paul’s way of
sounding a “Jubilee,” too – All previous bets are off! Nothing is as it
was! Everything is up for grabs! But if Jesus returns in the Holy
Spirit on Pentecost, all of these “either/ors” posed by Paul become “both/ands”
for us to live out in tension toward truth. All of Paul’s subversive
advice still stands – only no longer in a part-time, provisional way -- but now
in a fulltime, permanent way.
We are stuck with the absolute urgency of the life and work, the ministry and
mission, of God in Christ as revealed by the Holy Spirit of the everyday Jesus we
know and love – once and forever! Amen! The Jubilee is at hand – in
all ways, in all peoples, in all times and places! Amen again! (We’re
getting there!) Everything is made flesh, made visible, made audible, made
freely followable and fully liveable, says Jesus – wherever I am! Wherever
you are! For I am with you, and in you, and for you, and through you!
In this time, in this place, in this people – Grace is here! Forgiveness is
here! God’s future, God’s promise, are here! Everything past, everything
broken, has been received, repaired, absorbed into God! Jesus who leads us
will go to every last length, every last depth and breadth for us! Jesus will
never, never, never give up on us – but will endure for us whatever it takes to
call us and set us free; to heal us and make us whole.
The Reconciling Ministries Network of our denomination invites each
congregation to sign onto an “All Means All Declaration” to change our UM
Constitution to include ALL people in the life, leadership and rites of the
church.
The Declaration concludes, Believing ALL MEANS ALL, our congregation welcomes
persons of all ages, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities,
economic conditions, marital status, mental or physical abilities to attend, join,
and participate fully in the life of our congregation. Such belief advances
our United Methodist mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation
of the world by applying the three simple rules: Do no harm. Do good.
Stay in love with God. What do we say? What do we do? (http://www.rmnetwork.org/index.asp)
Thank God, in Jesus, we are related, we are connected, we are reconciled with
one another – already and forever more! How can we not be? I am so glad
I quoted “Peanuts” comic strip a few weeks ago. I got one back from someone
who heard it. Please say it with m – Charlie asks Lucy / “You know what I
wonder?” / “Sometimes I wonder / if God is pleased with me.” / Do you ever wonder
/ if God is pleased with you?” / Lucy responds / He just HAS to be!” Happy
Reconciling! Amen.
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