“The world is crying out for a different way. And here we are as All Saints Church committed to walk with a revolutionary Jesus. I wish I could stand here and tell you exactly what that looks like for us. I wish I had a five-point plan with metrics for success and funders in place. But revolutions of love don’t begin that way.
Here’s how they do begin: They begin by us first imagining … just imagining … that the way things are isn’t the way things have to be. That in the words of Andre Henry, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” That we might be a womb where the dreams of a new world can be conceived.”
Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, November 24, 2019.
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We are walking with a revolutionary Jesus.
We are artists of the impossible.
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Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I have a short opening statement.
I thought that might be the best way to get your attention. Did you know that around 12 million of us tuned in each day to watch the impeachment inquiry hearings?
I know because I was one of them.
I didn’t start out that way. I began the week planning on sticking to my pattern of hearing summaries each morning and ignoring the news the rest of the day … walking that tightrope of being informed without getting my whole life sucked in.
And … then I got sucked in.
And, not without good reason. After all, this is history and being a witness to history is important.
And once I started, I was captivated by the courage of many of the witnesses. That with the Constitution continually under attack, some will still risk their jobs to rise to its defense. I was inspired.
And … as I watched and listened, I felt something else happening in my heart that I want to share to see if it might be happening in yours as well.
I realized my heart was wanting victory more than justice. And that this process was designed and even intentionally marketed to us to produce that desire.
However necessary and proper they are, these proceedings are marketed to us like sports. Each team has its star players – the ones we love and the ones we love to hate. Broadcasters provide highlights and commentary at halftime and versions of SportsCenter so we can watch it all again at the end of the day.
And if this are being marketed to us, it means someone is profiting. And it is not just the TV networks. It is those reaping huge profits from injustices that continue and even deepen while we look the other way. While we get sucked in.
The Roman Empire used bread and circuses to keep the people content amidst deep injustice because it worked. Trouble is, this is truly a sophisticated circus … because it actually isn’t sport. It is about injustice. There are important things debated here that should not be ignored. The very fitness of our leaders to lead.
And yet, our system for doing this perpetuates the injustice. The very core of our national values debated on a stage where each player has to raise nearly seven million dollars a year to keep their seat … and every word they say means money given either to them or their next opponent. Even with best intentions and purest hearts, how can this be government of the people, by the people, for the people?
And yet, what do we do? This is what we have, right? Didn’t President Obama remind us that “Politics is the art of the possible?” We have to work within the system because that’s what we have. As President Obama told Ta-nehisi Coates, “Better is good. I’ll take better every time, because better is hard. Better may not be good as the best, but better is surprisingly hard to obtain. And better is actually harder than worse.”
So, we do what we can and trust Dr. King that “the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice.”
It’s a convincing and appropriate argument for dedicated people like President Obama and so many others who have devoted their lives to working within the system. Indeed, being an artist of the possible – is the way change from within happens.
And I am wrestling with all these things … and then I read today’s Gospel.
Today is what most of the church calls the Feast of Christ the King. It springs from 1925 when Pope Pius XI reacted in fear to the increasing secularization of European governments. Pius thought making everyone recognize Christ’s kingship would serve what he believed was God’s will of the alignment of church and state that had stood in Europe since the time of Constantine and Theodosius in the fourth century.
Years ago, All Saints Church started calling this observance the Reign of Divine Love, recognizing it is antithetical to the very nature of God to place Christ on a throne of domination.
The Gospel we hear this morning speaks to this. Jesus is not on the throne but on trial before it.
“Then the whole assembly arose and led Jesus to Pilate.” That “whole assembly” was the religious establishment … people like me. We led Jesus to Pilate. And when Pilate tried to make Jesus play the game of Empire, inviting him to claim the power of a king, Jesus didn’t affirm or deny … he refused to play. “You have said it.” Jesus said. The word king meant nothing to him.
When Herod put Jesus in the witness seat and asked for his opening statement, Jesus refused. Jesus knew that when the game is stacked against truth, against justice, against love, the only winning move is not to play.
Church and state were united that day. Herod and Pilate became friends that day. And what united them all was the danger posed by someone who wouldn’t play the game. Who would not be distracted by power or glory. Someone who would work for the reign not of a king or president or principality or earthly power but for the reign of divine love even unto death … and beyond.
Those who claim we should be a Christian nation utterly miss the nature of the Christ. And that means we who walk with a revolutionary Jesus are invited into an awkward and at times treacherously paradoxical dual citizenship.
As citizens of this nation, we can use our power, voice and vote to work within the system to make it better. That is an opportunity that has been earned with people’s lives and demands our respect and honor.
And … we also walk with a revolutionary Jesus. And part of what is revolutionary about Jesus is his refusal to accept systems of oppression as they are and be satisfied with slow change from within.
Because what Jesus knew is this. That other than the pragmatic arguments of realpolitik, the attraction of working within systems is there is usually limited risk for those of us who those systems generally benefit.
The risks in working within systems are almost always borne by those who already feel the boot on their necks … that it will stay there a little longer, press down a little harder. The risk is that justice delayed truly becomes justice denied … and that in the name of incremental change and hope of ultimate good, we leave those suffering most to suffer a little longer and then a little longer in the hope of bringing about an ultimate, greater good.
And so those of us who can live with it get what we can and live to fight another day. We strive to be sensible and respectable and make more friends than enemies along the way. We preach the inarguably pragmatic wisdom of politics as the art of the possible.
And yet that quote “Politics is the art of the possible” is not originally from President Obama. It’s from Otto von Bismarck. That’s right… the 19th century “Iron Chancellor” who used a combination of arch-conservative stances mixed with progressive reforms to unify 39 independent German states under Prussian rule. Bismarck’s leadership did bring unity … and it came at a cost. His successful playing of nations and factions against each other set the stage for two world wars and the Holocaust.
Practicing a politics that is the art of the possible has regularly led to proximate good and it has certainly over time led to significant reform. And yet, even when it hasn’t had the disastrous effects of Bismarck… it never leads to God’s dream of healing and transformation for ourselves, our community and the world.
Jesus could have compromised with Pilate … or Herod … or the religious leadership, negotiated some reforms and lived to fight another day. But he did not. He chose not to play the game and paid for that choice with his life. And it wasn’t until three centuries later that the state struck back decisively realizing the only way to kill Jesus was not to crucify him but to put him on the throne. To make him a creature of earthly power and politics and in so doing to cut out his revolutionary heart.
That’s because a revolutionary Jesus does not deal in the art of the possible.
A revolutionary Jesus bids us become artists of the impossible.
Now much like Obama with Bismarck, the phrase “art of the impossible” is not original. It is from Václav Havel, playwright, dissident and key figure in the liberation of the former Czechoslovakia and the fall of the iron curtain.
Havel knew that working within the system would only prolong the suffering of those rendered powerless by it. He knew revolutionary love was the only answer … a love that changed Havel and through him and others, changed the world. In 1979, he wrote: “We never decided to become dissidents. We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how. Sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less.”
Havel was not alone in following this path of revolutionary love. Every movement of real transformation for good has leaders and prophets who have said similar things.
Facing the systemic evils of racism, homophobia, and misogyny, Audre Lorde wrote: “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
Oscar Romero, facing the church’s deep complicity in oppression and death wrote: “A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone’s skin or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed: what kind of Gospel is that?”
The founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day, walked with the revolutionary Jesus in saying “the greatest challenge of the day is: How to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us?” and urged “don’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”
And so here we stand as All Saints Church in this moment in history. We have claimed as our mission walking with a revolutionary Jesus … and the Gospel gives us a glimpse into what that looks like.
And it does not look like Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people.”
It does not look like a church trying to keep status, respectability and power by preaching a Gospel that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin.
It does not look like trying to use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.
We who walk with a revolutionary Jesus have always been called to be the alternative community to the systems of domination in which we live. Not mirroring them but showing there is a different and better way.
The world has always cried out for that different way. And every time the world has cried out, the Holy Spirit has alighted on courageous leaders like Havel, Tubman, Mandela, Gandhi, Romero, and Day. Leaders like Marsha Johnson at Stonewall and Dolores Huerta in the fields. And yet each time those leaders have risen up, the church that is supposed to be that alternative community has almost always cozied up to Herod and Pilate and stood against them.
Once again, the world is crying out for a different way. This week, Ferguson freedom fighter Brittany Ferrell wrote: “The way the academy teaches us how to think is suitable for the world we live in. But what if we dream of an entire new place where the way we are taught to think wouldn’t be necessary. I dream more about ending racial capitalism than I do about diversity, equity and inclusion.”
The world is crying out for a different way. And here we are as All Saints Church committed to walk with a revolutionary Jesus.
I wish I could stand here and tell you exactly what that looks like for us. I wish I had a five-point plan with metrics for success and funders in place. But revolutions of love don’t begin that way.
Here’s how they do begin.
They begin by us first imagining … just imagining … that the way things are isn’t the way things have to be. That in the words of Andre Henry, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” That we might be a womb where the dreams of a new world can be conceived.
Revolutions of love begin as they did for Dorothy Day and Vaclav Havel. By revolutions of the heart in each one of us. By each and all of us simply going ahead and doing things that we feel we ought to, that seem decent for us to do … whether or not they are smart or pragmatic … nothing more nor less.
Revolutions of love don’t come with a road map or a five-point plan. They are born in moments of deep courage and compassion. They begin with each and all of us imagining what if and daring to make those dreams come true.
Revolutions of love are not so much campaigns as dances, not so much science as art.
And … thank God … we are ready for that.
Because we walk with a revolutionary Jesus.
We are artists of the impossible. Amen.
