“To refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore is to embrace the Gospel as manifesto for regime change — a prayer at a time, a protest at a time, an election at a time, an inch at a time.”
Sermon by Susan Russell at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, September 9, 2018.
We have to refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore.
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This is a verse from what I have come to think of as
The Gospel According to Rachel Maddow —
And I’ve been carrying around in my head and in my heart
since I heard her speak it one night in mid-August.
We have to refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore.
These are not just the clever words of clever television host who (full disclaimer)
I’ve been a total fan girl of since she was on Air America radio over a decade ago.
These are words of both hope and challenge to all who aspire
to live lives of faith in these challenging days of ours.
For make no mistake about it:
It is an act of faith refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore
when we are literally drowning in the manufactured chaos
designed to convince us that nothing is true
and that we have no power to make change
and that up is down and down is up
and the only thing George Orwell got wrong was the date.
Out of that chaos we are told
that facts are no longer a thing
that truth has no discernible value
that the checks and balances
that have held our fragile democracy together are disposable
that polarization and division are inevitable
that liberty and justice for all is a pipe dream
and that those who kneel in solidarity with that dream –
who challenge their country to live up to that dream —
that THEY are the threat to that dream –
the dream that is being dismantled before our very eyes
by those who tell us nothing matters anymore.
Nevertheless, we persist.
The other day I got in a bit of a wrangle on Facebook …
hard to imagine, I know, but work with me.
It was the week of John McCain’s memorial at our National Cathedral
and the issue was “preaching politics” —
and I found myself arguing (once again)
that a partisan-politics-free pulpit
frees the preacher to preach the
political implications that are a Gospel imperative
in the work of making that kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven
not just a prayer we pray but a reality we live.
As Christians not only are we called
to refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore
we are called to follow the one
who loved us enough to become one of us
in order to show us how to live our lives in alignment
with the one thing that always matters: Love
It’s why we come together week after week
to gather around this table
to receive the bread and wine made holy.
And then it’s why we go out into the world
as beacons of God’s love, justice and compassion:
as antidotes to the fake news that nothing matters anymore.
I love the way my colleague Wendy Dackson framed it:
Eucharist is the dress rehearsal for the Kingdom.
Every Eucharistic service proclaims resurrection —
Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.
The proclamation the human spirit cannot be silenced, even by death.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
famously said that the Gospel of Mark
is a manifesto for regime change
and that the church, the “ekklesia”
was the citizens’ assembly for those who had no rights as citizens.
So every step of the way,
Christianity has been a reversal of political order.
And it is at this table we practice
what we are called to make real.
The hungry are fed.
All who ask, receive.
There are no strangers.
All are equal.
Because Eucharist is the dress rehearsal for the Kingdom.
And dress rehearsal is less than worthless
unless the public performance follows.
When I did my pre-seminary intern year at St. Francis in Simi Valley the vicar there was Barbara Mudge – of blessed memory – and Barbara always gave the same dismissal:
The holiest moment is now.
Fed by word and sacrament,
go out to be the church in the world.
It is at this table we practice what we are called to make real
To go out and be a people of God
who refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore.
To go out and follow Jesus.
Even when it leads you smack dab into situations
where you’re over your skis,
out of your comfort zone and out on a limb.
Exactly like Jesus was in this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Mark.
Before we get to that, here’s a little teachable moment about the Gospel of Mark.
Biblical scholars point to two recurring themes its early chapters:
crowds and healing. And both had political implications.
The crowds following Jesus represent his growing power, influence and threat to political elite – and every account of healing challenges some political or religious rule. Mark – the earliest gospel — is from the get-go a subversive, regime challenging rule of love and compassion for others.
And that brings me to another quote from Rowan Williams
drawing a distinction between what he calls “terrible religion” and actual faith.
Terrible religion, Williams writes,
“is what happens when we use our religious language
and our religious stories
as a way of pretending to ourselves
that we have access to absolute and infallible truth,
and there’s no more to be learned.”
Instead he contrasts “terrible religion” with actual faith …
which “opens your eyes and uncovers for you
a world larger than you thought …
and of course therefore a bit more alarming than you thought …
leading you to stop denying, resisting and ignoring aspects of what’s real.”
And that’s exactly what Jesus did
when he encountered the woman in this morning’s gospel
who came and found him where he didn’t want to be found
and asked him to do something he didn’t want to do.
And nevertheless, she persists.
As a result his eyes are opened to a larger world:
a world where hope and healing is for all nations, tribes and peoples —
not just for the “children at the table” …
a world where #SyroPhonecianLivesMatter.
And in that moment –
a moment preserved for us in both Mark and Matthew’s gospels –
we see the radical rabbi from Nazareth choose the path
between the binary choices his tradition offered
“clean or unclean” –
“children or dogs” –
“healed or unhealed” —
choosing instead the path of faith we strive to follow all these centuries later …
the path that leads to stop denying,
resisting and ignoring aspects of what’s real
even when they surprise, challenge and unsettle us.
Unexamined privilege
Systemic racism, misogyny and heterosexism
Implicit bias in all its forms … just to name a few.
My friend Liz Edman who wrote an awesome book called “Queer Virtue” put it this way:
Christianity is an invitation into movement, into change. It may contain moments of stunning simplicity but it is never simplistic. It is designed to challenge simplistic efforts to grasp, to contain and to tame both God and our experience of God.
The backbone of Christian faith decisively ruptures three binaries that previously were thought to be inviolable:
That God and humanity are fundamentally distinct from each other.
That life and death stand in opposition to each other.
That religious belief and practice are part and parcel of tribal, ethnic or national identity.
Rupturing binaries that previously were thought to be inviolable
is part of the DNA of Christianity —
and it is an ongoing process.
Like the big bang theory of an expanding universe
queer theory leads us to understand
that our “actual faith” is always expanding.
We are never done having our eyes opened
to a world that is larger than we thought.
The best story I have to illustrate that principle
is one that I’ve told before but bears retelling.
It’s the story of my son Brian
and his struggle in grade school
as he tried to master the mystery of Long Division!
I remember the night he proudly announced at the dinner table
that he’d finally figured it out.
“First you guess,
then you multiply,
then you subtract until you run out of numbers!
[pause for effect]
So, now I understand math.”
And I remember his older brother,
quickly bursting that bubble
with the sobering news of algebra, geometry and calculus yet to come.
“Oh no” exclaimed Brian in disbelief and horror.
“You mean there’s MORE?????”
Yes there’s more — for Brian and for us. And just as my mother’s heart ached for him that night at the dinner table — wanting him to celebrate the achievement, yet knowing how much further he has to go — how many lessons he had yet to learn — I imagine God who is parent to us all feeling much the same about us every time we’re tempted to think there is nothing left to learn.
And what we’re called to learn and re-learn
in these chaotic and challenging times
is that by refusing to believe that nothing matters anymore
we are taking our place on that long arc of Gospel history
that continues to bend toward justice —
the justice that Presiding Bishop John Hines defined as
“the corporate face of God’s love.”
To refuse to believe that nothing matters anymore is to embrace the Gospel as manifesto for regime change — a prayer at a time, a protest at a time, an election at a time, an inch at a time.
It is to continue to stand with and for all those on the margins.
With all those in danger of losing healthcare,
with anyone being profiled because of their race or their religion,
with neighbors under threat of deportation,
with refugees seeking a safe haven
and with Dreamers seeking an education.
It is to challenge those who applaud excessive force by law enforcement officers and those who threaten to undermine equal protection for LGBTQ Americans.
It is to refuse to choose between competing oppressions;
and rather to stand together and resist any and all assaults
on the dignity, the safety and the humanity
of any and all of God’s beloved human family.
It is the refusal to allow ourselves
to be either distracted or discouraged
as we continue in to live out All Saints’
DNA-deep commitment to turn the human race into the human family –
a commitment that fuels our resistance,
sustains us in the struggle and inspires our vision
for a kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven
that includes absolutely everyone.
It is to become a world where
The hungry are fed.
All who ask, receive.
There are no strangers.
All are equal.
And it is to remember that
Eucharist is the dress rehearsal for the Kingdom.
And dress rehearsal is less than worthless
unless the public performance follows.
The holiest moment is now.
Fed by word and sacrament,
go out to be the church in the world.
—————
‘What Difference Does it Make?’ – The Gospel in Contemporary Culture | 20th February 2008 | A lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, held in Great St Mary’s Church, Cambridge
‘Queer Virtue’ – Elizabeth Edman, 2016
Rachel Maddow Show, August 16, 2018
