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Nov. 28th, 2004 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zestfiveThis was forwarded to me by my cousin who lives on the west coast, she received it from one of her friends. Despite my lack of christian beliefs, I totally support especially the part in his closing minutes.
A sermon preached at
Plymouth Congregational Church
1900 Nicollet Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403
November 7, 2004
the Rev. James Gertmenian
Text: Psalm 46
The need for healing in our country after this erosive election-erosive not
so much for the way it ended as for the acidic and grinding spirit it
churned up in so many-is a palpable thing these days. Perhaps the losers,
seeing their dreams slip away and fearing deeply for the nation, have
the more immediate sense that healing is necessary. The winners, after
all, may understandably enjoy their moment of elation and the sense of relief
that accompanies the achievement of their goal. But thoughtful people on
both sides of the electoral divide ought now to be looking across that
chasm and setting out to bridge it. Thoughtful people on both sides know that
neither the despair of the losers nor the triumphalist glee of the winners are affordable for more than a couple of days, since all of our
resources-emotional, spiritual, political, and material-need now to be
directed toward solving the intractable problems that lie before us.
Those extreme responses-despair on the one hand and triumphalism on the
other-are, rather, extravagances of emotion that will deplete the
national will and ultimately cause more hurt than is sustainable in this great but weakened country. We are, after all, in this messy and dangerous world together-red states and blue, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and
conservatives, and we are, lest we forget, all partly responsible for
both the mess and the danger. We have work to do, and in order to do it we
should now be spanning the divide and joining hands with one another.
The bridge we need, however, cannot be built with gauzy phrases and
balsa-wood promises. The desire for healing cannot alone replace the
long, complicated work of healing. Jeremiah said, "They have treated the
wound of my people carelessly, saying 'Peace, peace,' where there is no peace." And we should be careful that, in our hope for a new amity, and in facing the pressure of our common dilemmas, we not ignore the issues and
behaviors that have separated us or pretend that they never existed. Let us at least muster from within ourselves the honesty to say that new rifts have
opened up in our body politic-and, as I will say later, in the body of Christ
as well-and that these rifts are real and formidable. Sentimental appeals
for healing couched in the language of pietistic patriotism will never do
the job of bringing our nation together. Wishful thinking won't make it
happen, either, nor will the capitulation of one side to the other. The
President, for his part, needs to do more than offer the sop of a few
conciliatory phrases or the occasional appointment of a Democrat. He needs,
instead, to make substantive moves toward a more inclusive agenda. And, on the other side, those who oppose the President must avoid charading cooperation while secretly hoping and praying for the administration to fail. Such disingenuousness does no service to the nation and ultimately
undermines the very causes that liberals hope to advance.
No, the bridging that is necessary, and for which all people of good
will yearn, needs more than a warm heart; it needs a clear eye and steely
resolve, too. And when it comes to spanning the distance between this
week's winners and losers, perhaps no line in scripture is so
structurally reliable as the one from the forty-sixth Psalm in which a voice from beyond us all insists over the din of our political process: "Be still, and know that I am God." It is a profound calling that demands much of each
side, and we stand together under its power. For those who equate their
electoral victory to some eschatological triumph, and who suggest that with
George Bush's re-election, God is in the White House (a direct quote from one
of the President's supporters), the words "Be still," come as a firm,
though loving corrective, a gentle demand for more humility, an invitation to
stop ringing the victory bell just long enough to hear the authentic voice
of the minority, to say nothing of the cries of the poor, the moans of
the wounded, which also need to be heard and which are, after all, the
true voice of God . God who is at the same time above every party, every
interest group, every candidate, every administration, every religion,
every nation. "Be still, and know that I am God," when addressed to
the winners, is an unambiguous call for them to step back from the
idolatry that would replace the transcendent God with a temporarily ascendant
ideology or a partisan power. George Bush was, after all, elected, not
anointed. A bit of that stillness, that humility, and that
acknowledgement of God's place above all partisanship would be a welcome sign from the White House just now . and would go a long way toward nurturing the
healing that the President claims he seeks for the nation.
On the other hand, the losers also need to hear, "Be still, and know
that I am God," though, for them, the words carry quite a different message.
When their laments and the woes, the cries of despair and the insults
hurled against the other side, and the fusillades of black humor drown out
any whisper of hope, any possibility of reconciliation, God says,
patiently but firmly, "Be still." Despair, understandable as it might be, especially for those who invested so much of themselves in a losing cause, becomes, after a brief time, a self-indulgence, a self-pity that is unbecoming for those who truly believe in their cause. Yes, weep for a time. Yes, let a blast of anger clear out the sadness that clogs your heart. Yes, grieve, in the depths of your soul, what is clearly a real and significant loss. But then, sooner rather than later, the tears must be wiped away and the work taken up again. The anger, except just that part of it that fuels righteous effort, must be let go of. And the grief, if it continues, should do its work in some quiet corner of the soul, neither forgotten nor allowed
to impede the more pressing work of the nation. Many of the saints whom
we remember today are people who suffered loss after loss, but who,
instead of giving up, instead of despairing, simply kept at the work to which
they were called. They are noble examples of faithful courage, and can be
inspiring models for those who felt defeated on Wednesday morning.
Respect for one another, a pervasive willingness to listen, the
dropping of all pretension to moral or intellectual superiority on either side, and, above all, the practice of that common stillness before God is the
hard work that our nation has before it . these, even while we do the
equally hard work of forging, with others, a peace in the world, of caring for our most vulnerable citizens, and of securing the common weal. I wonder,
in that context, what each of you-whether Republican or Democrat, Green
or Independent-has determined to do to neutralize that acidity that has
marked our national discourse. Note that I am not suggesting that anyone
sacrifice their basic principles to achieve this balance, only that we seek,
together, to lower our voices and elevate our conversation,
recognizing that in these perilous times, any common ground we can find is surely holy ground.
With that as a somewhat lengthy preface, let me open a conversation
that we will have to have more of in the months and years ahead, namely a
dialogue that addresses the fault lines within American Christianity. I have
heard more than one progressive Christian express a sense of near-complete
estrangement from our more conservative or fundamentalist
co-religionists, and some on the more liberal end have wondered whether they should even leave the church altogether rather than risk being painted, by the media or anyone else, with the same broad brush as those Christians who crowd toward the right. I confess to some of my own discomfort in the face of these strains, but I resist the impulse to run away, because I know that the
higher calling and the nobler way is not to surrender the faith but to
keep it.
Keeping the faith, for progressives (and here I include Republicans
and Democrats) means staying in the debate about what the core of Jesus'
message was and is.
Keeping the faith for us means learning to articulate liberal
Christianity to a reductive press and a skeptical world so that a more expansive and inclusive vision of the Gospel can take root and flourish.
Keeping the faith means insisting that the moral weight of Jesus'
teaching is not primarily on narrow, personal sexual and reproductive behavior, but on the broad, public commitment to justice and peace.
Keeping the faith, for progressives, means declaring that science and
religion are not enemies, and it means exposing the hypocrisy of those
who would enjoy the benefits of technology while denying the validity of
basic scientific truths, like evolution and quantum physics, on which that
technology is based.
Keeping the faith means valuing and protecting the creation rather
than continuing to damage and deplete it.
Keeping the faith means rejecting the equation of power with
righteousness, of Christianity with Americanism, and of public piety with true spirituality.
Keeping the faith means praying daily for the safety of our soldiers
even as we, with equal fervor and in the name of the Prince of Peace, abhor
the machines of war they are forced to employ.
Keeping the faith means having the humility before God to repent of
sins like those at Abu Ghraib, not to treat them as anomalous lapses but to
have the moral clarity to understand that they are the inevitable product
of the confusion of our own power with God's.
Keeping the faith means lining up with God's preferential option for
the poor, so clearly propounded in scripture.
Keeping the faith, for progressives, means abandoning rigid certainty
as a way of being in the world, as a way of expressing religious belief, or
as a way of doing politics.
Keeping the faith means replacing legalistic and dogmatic absolutes
with an awestruck wonder at the way in which God grows with us, changes with
us, lives with us, dies with us.
In all of these things, churches like Plymouth offer an alternative
view of Christianity, of religion, than that which seemed to emerge victorious in the election. With respect for those who differ, but with the firm conviction that this alternative voice must be heard . with a
willingness to listen but the courage to dissent . with the humility to see our own faults but a joyful embrace of our own strengths, and with the
patience of seeing the long view but the impatience of an urgent hunger for
justice, those of us who understand ourselves to be progressive believers are
called, in this time, to keep the faith, not to abandon it, to keep
the faith and to ensure that it is not stolen from us by anyone with a
narrower view or a louder voice, to keep the faith not as our own possession or as the sole answer but as a necessary and vital ingredient in a
pluralistic world. This, I believe, is Plymouth's charter, and never could it be more important than it is today. This church has a charge to keep . and we
will keep it.
In my closing minutes, I want to address a few, more focused words to
those in our congregation who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgendered
and to your family members and friends. A number of you have written or
spoken to me in the last few days to say how dismayed you were to see amendments against gay marriage and, in some cases, even gay civil rights, being passed by large margins in eleven states. Some of you spoke of feeling
frightened, imagining, as well you might, that a new wave of hatred
and fear is about to wash over you. You feel betrayed by a country that
promised to value every human being equally . and perhaps even more
damaging, you feel betrayed by representatives of a religion that
claims love as its foundational value. I understand your fear. Many of us
here at Plymouth do. But I want to remind you that this spasm of hatred is the lashing out of a dying dragon. This dragon, homophobia, is angry
because it is dying. And it is frightened because it is dying. And in its anger and its fear it may even seem stronger than it really is. But it is dying. What is being born is the love of God which will show forth in a time in which your God-given value will be recognized by all. In the meantime,
though, I want you to know this: Whatever happens anywhere else, in this place, and in this family, you need not be afraid. Even if every state in the
Union were to pass an amendment, these walls stand to protect you. This is a
sanctuary where your lives will be celebrated, and your loves blessed,
and your relationships honored. And from this place we will go out and
fight together for human rights for all. That is a solemn covenant which we
here make with one another. And woe to this church if it should ever break
that covenant, for in so doing it will have broken its own heart.
The forty-sixth Psalm says "there is a river whose streams make glad
the city of God." I want to close on a note of gladness, today. This is
not a gladness of any particular party or any ideology, but the profound and
elemental gladness that comes from knowing that God's purpose-which is
peace and good will among people, equitable sharing in the things of
the earth, and respect for the gift of creation-is working itself out even
when we cannot see it. If, in order to drink from that Glad River (to use
Will Campbell's wonderful phrase) we need to wade in right next to someone
whose politics, or world view, or religious understanding is different from
ours, then let us, by all means, begin wading. Somehow, there, with the
current of God's love swirling around our legs, and with all of us nearly
losing our balance for the sheer joy of it, we might be able to see one
another for who we really are and understand, with a new vision, our essential oneness as human creatures. There, with the rush of God's justice
flowing down inexorably as Amos promised it would, we might discover a new
politics-a politics of generosity and abundance. And there, with the
cooling spring of God's presence welling up in each of us, we might
finally join hands with one another and become, in our very flesh, pilgrims
across every human divide, seekers after reconciliation, and bridges of
Peace.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
A sermon preached at
Plymouth Congregational Church
1900 Nicollet Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403
November 7, 2004
the Rev. James Gertmenian
Text: Psalm 46
The need for healing in our country after this erosive election-erosive not
so much for the way it ended as for the acidic and grinding spirit it
churned up in so many-is a palpable thing these days. Perhaps the losers,
seeing their dreams slip away and fearing deeply for the nation, have
the more immediate sense that healing is necessary. The winners, after
all, may understandably enjoy their moment of elation and the sense of relief
that accompanies the achievement of their goal. But thoughtful people on
both sides of the electoral divide ought now to be looking across that
chasm and setting out to bridge it. Thoughtful people on both sides know that
neither the despair of the losers nor the triumphalist glee of the winners are affordable for more than a couple of days, since all of our
resources-emotional, spiritual, political, and material-need now to be
directed toward solving the intractable problems that lie before us.
Those extreme responses-despair on the one hand and triumphalism on the
other-are, rather, extravagances of emotion that will deplete the
national will and ultimately cause more hurt than is sustainable in this great but weakened country. We are, after all, in this messy and dangerous world together-red states and blue, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and
conservatives, and we are, lest we forget, all partly responsible for
both the mess and the danger. We have work to do, and in order to do it we
should now be spanning the divide and joining hands with one another.
The bridge we need, however, cannot be built with gauzy phrases and
balsa-wood promises. The desire for healing cannot alone replace the
long, complicated work of healing. Jeremiah said, "They have treated the
wound of my people carelessly, saying 'Peace, peace,' where there is no peace." And we should be careful that, in our hope for a new amity, and in facing the pressure of our common dilemmas, we not ignore the issues and
behaviors that have separated us or pretend that they never existed. Let us at least muster from within ourselves the honesty to say that new rifts have
opened up in our body politic-and, as I will say later, in the body of Christ
as well-and that these rifts are real and formidable. Sentimental appeals
for healing couched in the language of pietistic patriotism will never do
the job of bringing our nation together. Wishful thinking won't make it
happen, either, nor will the capitulation of one side to the other. The
President, for his part, needs to do more than offer the sop of a few
conciliatory phrases or the occasional appointment of a Democrat. He needs,
instead, to make substantive moves toward a more inclusive agenda. And, on the other side, those who oppose the President must avoid charading cooperation while secretly hoping and praying for the administration to fail. Such disingenuousness does no service to the nation and ultimately
undermines the very causes that liberals hope to advance.
No, the bridging that is necessary, and for which all people of good
will yearn, needs more than a warm heart; it needs a clear eye and steely
resolve, too. And when it comes to spanning the distance between this
week's winners and losers, perhaps no line in scripture is so
structurally reliable as the one from the forty-sixth Psalm in which a voice from beyond us all insists over the din of our political process: "Be still, and know that I am God." It is a profound calling that demands much of each
side, and we stand together under its power. For those who equate their
electoral victory to some eschatological triumph, and who suggest that with
George Bush's re-election, God is in the White House (a direct quote from one
of the President's supporters), the words "Be still," come as a firm,
though loving corrective, a gentle demand for more humility, an invitation to
stop ringing the victory bell just long enough to hear the authentic voice
of the minority, to say nothing of the cries of the poor, the moans of
the wounded, which also need to be heard and which are, after all, the
true voice of God . God who is at the same time above every party, every
interest group, every candidate, every administration, every religion,
every nation. "Be still, and know that I am God," when addressed to
the winners, is an unambiguous call for them to step back from the
idolatry that would replace the transcendent God with a temporarily ascendant
ideology or a partisan power. George Bush was, after all, elected, not
anointed. A bit of that stillness, that humility, and that
acknowledgement of God's place above all partisanship would be a welcome sign from the White House just now . and would go a long way toward nurturing the
healing that the President claims he seeks for the nation.
On the other hand, the losers also need to hear, "Be still, and know
that I am God," though, for them, the words carry quite a different message.
When their laments and the woes, the cries of despair and the insults
hurled against the other side, and the fusillades of black humor drown out
any whisper of hope, any possibility of reconciliation, God says,
patiently but firmly, "Be still." Despair, understandable as it might be, especially for those who invested so much of themselves in a losing cause, becomes, after a brief time, a self-indulgence, a self-pity that is unbecoming for those who truly believe in their cause. Yes, weep for a time. Yes, let a blast of anger clear out the sadness that clogs your heart. Yes, grieve, in the depths of your soul, what is clearly a real and significant loss. But then, sooner rather than later, the tears must be wiped away and the work taken up again. The anger, except just that part of it that fuels righteous effort, must be let go of. And the grief, if it continues, should do its work in some quiet corner of the soul, neither forgotten nor allowed
to impede the more pressing work of the nation. Many of the saints whom
we remember today are people who suffered loss after loss, but who,
instead of giving up, instead of despairing, simply kept at the work to which
they were called. They are noble examples of faithful courage, and can be
inspiring models for those who felt defeated on Wednesday morning.
Respect for one another, a pervasive willingness to listen, the
dropping of all pretension to moral or intellectual superiority on either side, and, above all, the practice of that common stillness before God is the
hard work that our nation has before it . these, even while we do the
equally hard work of forging, with others, a peace in the world, of caring for our most vulnerable citizens, and of securing the common weal. I wonder,
in that context, what each of you-whether Republican or Democrat, Green
or Independent-has determined to do to neutralize that acidity that has
marked our national discourse. Note that I am not suggesting that anyone
sacrifice their basic principles to achieve this balance, only that we seek,
together, to lower our voices and elevate our conversation,
recognizing that in these perilous times, any common ground we can find is surely holy ground.
With that as a somewhat lengthy preface, let me open a conversation
that we will have to have more of in the months and years ahead, namely a
dialogue that addresses the fault lines within American Christianity. I have
heard more than one progressive Christian express a sense of near-complete
estrangement from our more conservative or fundamentalist
co-religionists, and some on the more liberal end have wondered whether they should even leave the church altogether rather than risk being painted, by the media or anyone else, with the same broad brush as those Christians who crowd toward the right. I confess to some of my own discomfort in the face of these strains, but I resist the impulse to run away, because I know that the
higher calling and the nobler way is not to surrender the faith but to
keep it.
Keeping the faith, for progressives (and here I include Republicans
and Democrats) means staying in the debate about what the core of Jesus'
message was and is.
Keeping the faith for us means learning to articulate liberal
Christianity to a reductive press and a skeptical world so that a more expansive and inclusive vision of the Gospel can take root and flourish.
Keeping the faith means insisting that the moral weight of Jesus'
teaching is not primarily on narrow, personal sexual and reproductive behavior, but on the broad, public commitment to justice and peace.
Keeping the faith, for progressives, means declaring that science and
religion are not enemies, and it means exposing the hypocrisy of those
who would enjoy the benefits of technology while denying the validity of
basic scientific truths, like evolution and quantum physics, on which that
technology is based.
Keeping the faith means valuing and protecting the creation rather
than continuing to damage and deplete it.
Keeping the faith means rejecting the equation of power with
righteousness, of Christianity with Americanism, and of public piety with true spirituality.
Keeping the faith means praying daily for the safety of our soldiers
even as we, with equal fervor and in the name of the Prince of Peace, abhor
the machines of war they are forced to employ.
Keeping the faith means having the humility before God to repent of
sins like those at Abu Ghraib, not to treat them as anomalous lapses but to
have the moral clarity to understand that they are the inevitable product
of the confusion of our own power with God's.
Keeping the faith means lining up with God's preferential option for
the poor, so clearly propounded in scripture.
Keeping the faith, for progressives, means abandoning rigid certainty
as a way of being in the world, as a way of expressing religious belief, or
as a way of doing politics.
Keeping the faith means replacing legalistic and dogmatic absolutes
with an awestruck wonder at the way in which God grows with us, changes with
us, lives with us, dies with us.
In all of these things, churches like Plymouth offer an alternative
view of Christianity, of religion, than that which seemed to emerge victorious in the election. With respect for those who differ, but with the firm conviction that this alternative voice must be heard . with a
willingness to listen but the courage to dissent . with the humility to see our own faults but a joyful embrace of our own strengths, and with the
patience of seeing the long view but the impatience of an urgent hunger for
justice, those of us who understand ourselves to be progressive believers are
called, in this time, to keep the faith, not to abandon it, to keep
the faith and to ensure that it is not stolen from us by anyone with a
narrower view or a louder voice, to keep the faith not as our own possession or as the sole answer but as a necessary and vital ingredient in a
pluralistic world. This, I believe, is Plymouth's charter, and never could it be more important than it is today. This church has a charge to keep . and we
will keep it.
In my closing minutes, I want to address a few, more focused words to
those in our congregation who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgendered
and to your family members and friends. A number of you have written or
spoken to me in the last few days to say how dismayed you were to see amendments against gay marriage and, in some cases, even gay civil rights, being passed by large margins in eleven states. Some of you spoke of feeling
frightened, imagining, as well you might, that a new wave of hatred
and fear is about to wash over you. You feel betrayed by a country that
promised to value every human being equally . and perhaps even more
damaging, you feel betrayed by representatives of a religion that
claims love as its foundational value. I understand your fear. Many of us
here at Plymouth do. But I want to remind you that this spasm of hatred is the lashing out of a dying dragon. This dragon, homophobia, is angry
because it is dying. And it is frightened because it is dying. And in its anger and its fear it may even seem stronger than it really is. But it is dying. What is being born is the love of God which will show forth in a time in which your God-given value will be recognized by all. In the meantime,
though, I want you to know this: Whatever happens anywhere else, in this place, and in this family, you need not be afraid. Even if every state in the
Union were to pass an amendment, these walls stand to protect you. This is a
sanctuary where your lives will be celebrated, and your loves blessed,
and your relationships honored. And from this place we will go out and
fight together for human rights for all. That is a solemn covenant which we
here make with one another. And woe to this church if it should ever break
that covenant, for in so doing it will have broken its own heart.
The forty-sixth Psalm says "there is a river whose streams make glad
the city of God." I want to close on a note of gladness, today. This is
not a gladness of any particular party or any ideology, but the profound and
elemental gladness that comes from knowing that God's purpose-which is
peace and good will among people, equitable sharing in the things of
the earth, and respect for the gift of creation-is working itself out even
when we cannot see it. If, in order to drink from that Glad River (to use
Will Campbell's wonderful phrase) we need to wade in right next to someone
whose politics, or world view, or religious understanding is different from
ours, then let us, by all means, begin wading. Somehow, there, with the
current of God's love swirling around our legs, and with all of us nearly
losing our balance for the sheer joy of it, we might be able to see one
another for who we really are and understand, with a new vision, our essential oneness as human creatures. There, with the rush of God's justice
flowing down inexorably as Amos promised it would, we might discover a new
politics-a politics of generosity and abundance. And there, with the
cooling spring of God's presence welling up in each of us, we might
finally join hands with one another and become, in our very flesh, pilgrims
across every human divide, seekers after reconciliation, and bridges of
Peace.
Thanks be to God. Amen.