“In this creation story in Genesis we have confused the timeless poetry of the electricity of human connection with a frozen-in-time snapshot of an early moment in our ever-evolving understand of the wonder of gender and sexuality. Too often, we have used this story to dominate rather than to liberate, preaching a scriptural mandate of gender binaries, hetero and cis-normativity that we now know has always been an impoverishment and not the rich reality of human existence. Yet there is deep, poetic electric wisdom in the story: wisdom we desperately need for such a time as this.”
Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, October 7, 2018.
“This time! This is the one! Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”
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There can be an electricity to human connection. We’ve all felt it. It jolts us. It sets our hearts on fire. It can be physical and sexual. It can be emotional or intellectual. It can be a connection of compassion or empathy. The discovery of a common experience, a common homeland, a common dream.
There can be an electricity to human connection. We’ve all felt it.
Eyes meeting from across a room or a voice reaching through our ears and taking hold of our heart.
The joy of the sound of our native tongue being spoken in our land of exile.
The courage of a stranger to tell a truth that sounds so much like ours that all our tears flow into one.
The glimpse of a form on the dance floor that reminds us that we, too, are made for freedom.
There are biological reasons that our bodies are able to live, but this connection is what it means to be alive. It is wonderful and mysterious and electric and yet ultimately defies definition. So, we tell stories. Stories about what it feels like. Stories about where it comes from. Tales of the inexplicable.
That’s what our reading from Genesis is this morning. It’s not a history lesson or a scientific treatise. It is the ancestors whispering in our ear a tale of the electricity of human connection.
In the case of this story, we have confused the timeless poetry of the electricity of human connection with a frozen-in-time snapshot of an early moment in our ever-evolving understanding of the wonder of gender and sexuality. Too often, we have used this story to dominate rather than liberate, preaching a scriptural mandate of gender binaries, hetero and cis-normativity that we now know has always been an impoverishment and not the rich reality of human existence.
And yet we keep telling story. For there is deep, poetic, electric wisdom in the story. Wisdom that we desperately need for such a time as this.
In telling the tale that we are made out of both the stuff of the earth and the breath of God, we are proclaiming the truth that each of us by ourselves is whole and good. That our need for one another is not because there is anything about us that is lacking. Tom Cruise crooning “you complete me” is not only emotionally manipulative dialogue, it’s terrible theology. Each of us by ourselves is good and holy and enough.
And … while solitude can be blissful, we do need one another. We are wired for one another. We have the ability to awaken in one another the electric connections that are the deepest joy and meaning of human existence.
God says “it is not good for the earth creature to be alone. I will make a fitting companion for it.” We are wired not for relationships of domination and utility but relationships of celebration and equity.
When God cleaves the earth creature in two and presents them to one another, the electric zap of that connection echoes throughout time and space. It becomes living song:
“This time! This is the one! Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”
This story is not about enforcing narrow gender and sexual constructs that can never stand up to lived experience and scientific inquiry. This story is about the truth that we are many, that we are different – and because of that we have a glorious choice.
How will we treat the other?
Will we believe that the other is only to be feared and used?
Will we build a wall to keep the other out?
Will we demonize the other and arm ourselves against them?
Will we sustain economic systems designed to dehumanize the other so we might use one people’s labor for another people’s profit?
Or will we make the choice that God in the story yearns for us to make?
Will we seek first the beauty in the other that awakens the beauty in us?
Will we let the other’s voice reach through our ears and take hold of our heart?
Will we let the courage of a stranger’s truth-telling touch the truth locked deep in our soul so our tears and hers flow together into one?
Will we glimpse the other on the dance floor and remember that we, too, are made for freedom?
Will we look on each other as objects to dominate and use, or will our eyes meet across rooms and borders and our hearts sing
“This is the one! This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”
Unity without the demand for uniformity.
Love without the shackles of fear.
Hearts set on fire.
More than enough joy.
More than enough love.
More than enough life for everyone.
The opportunity for that choice is our greatest gift. And, that does not mean it will always or even ever be easy.
As much as we are wired for one another, we will always struggle with the difference, particularly because we are not static elements with predictable chemical reactions when we touch. Each of us and all of us are always wonderfully growing, changing, becoming. The reactions between and among us are as changeable as we are.
In the extreme, that which was once life-giving can become death-producing. And so just as those electric moments of first connection can be holy, partings can as well. And yet the song remains the same. Even if we no longer can be together, we are still bone of bone and flesh of flesh. Even if we no longer can be together, we are always being invited into new ways to love and honor the deep beauty in each other’s humanity.
Jesus’ teaching on divorce from this morning’s Gospel is another passage that has tragically been weaponized against many who are simply trying to struggle with the messiness of human relationships, the longings of the heart, and our own human frailty.
Our commitments to one another are important, vitally so. And … they are not supposed to be prisons but secure, fertile ground for new life to grow and thrive.
Jesus doesn’t condemn divorce. He speaks out against a divorce that doesn’t honor the beauty and power of the other but rather sacrifices a fellow human being to satisfy ones’ own desires. The underlying truth is bigger than marriage and divorce. The underlying truth is that we cannot sacrifice the other just to get what we want.
Divorce is never the realization of the hope of marriage. There is always the pain of falling short of that hope – and usually a great deal of other pain as well. Yet divorce can even be holy when we recognize that even when we are changing the nature of the relationship, there are ties between us in the human family that always must be honored. That we always must be concerned with the well-being and thriving of the other, even if that concern means fleeing for our lives so that we will no longer be wounded and an abuser will not have the opportunity to continue to abuse.
For Jesus, the evil is not divorce. For Jesus, the evil to which we too often succumb is sacrificing the other just to satisfy our own desires. And that is an ethic that cuts across all human relationship.
I cannot come before you this morning without noting that this evil … and it is evil … is precisely what has been playing out on our national stage these past weeks and in human life for millennia.
For Jesus, the evil is sacrificing the other just to satisfy our own desires. Truths of rape, sexual assault and abuse are this kind of evil. They are the sacrificing of the safety, well-being and humanity of another for the satisfaction of one’s desire for power and domination.
Tragically, this is nothing new. Some of us, many of us in this very room have lived the deep pain of this evil and scarcely need reminder of it. And yet what has been revealed this week and particularly yesterday is another insidious layer to this evil that has long been there if we have had the eyes to see and ears to hear.
What has been revealed this week is that it has never been about whether those in power believe the truth of this evil’s existence. It’s that when confronted with that truth, they compound the evil by admitting that they simply don’t care … or at least care far more about other things.
We have elected a president who not only admitted but bragged about sexually assaulting women. Why? Because as a nation we decided that we don’t care … or at least we care more about other things.
Now, a profoundly courageous woman testifies that a nominee for the Supreme Court sexually assaulted her. Others who have been similarly assaulted, abused and dehumanized cry out in the pain of remembered trauma. The nation’s tears flow together. Senator after senator and the President of the United States call Dr. Ford’s testimony credible – which literally means they believe she is telling the truth. And then in the same breath the president mocks her and the senators cast votes that send the clear message that women lives and bodies are expendable if they stand in the way of what men want. Saying essentially that “it’s not that we don’t believe Dr. Ford, it’s just that we simply don’t care … or at least we care more about other things.”
For Jesus, the evil is sacrificing the other just to satisfy our own desires and for us this means we must call this behavior out for the dehumanizing evil that it is not just in this instance but in all instances.
But then what? What do we do in this moment where once again our nation has elevated a bully and an abuser and mocked the bullied and abused? Where we are so profoundly tempted to fear and despair? What does love invite in this moment in history.
Love invites us to come together. And love invites us to care.
Love invites us to come together and care because it is in coming together and caring that we refuse to let evil win.
Love invites us to come together and refuse to dehumanize and objectify and abuse even those who would do that to others.
Love invites us to come together and refuse to sacrifice any member of the human family and together stand against any force that tries to do so.
Love invites us to come together and believe the truths of those among us who have been abused, and join together in committing to the healing of all.
Love invites us to come together and amplify the cries of those whom this evil wishes to silence, knowing that since healing requires feeling and power concedes nothing without a demand,
pain must raise her voice,
grief must raise her voice,
rage must raise her voice and cast her ballot and be heard if we are ever to have true justice and equity in this land.
Love invites us to come together and rededicate ourselves to making the choice that God in this most ancient of stories yearns for us to make.
To seek first the beauty in the other that awakens the beauty in us.
To let the songs that others would silence reach through our ears and take hold of our heart.
To let the courage of one another’s truth-telling unlock the deepest secrets of our hearts and the power that truth has to transform the world.
To join one another on the dance floor and remember that we, too, are made for freedom.
There can be an electricity to human connection. We’ve all felt it. It jolts us. It sustains us. It sets our hearts on fire.
That electricity is in this room. It is right here. Right now. If we will just set it free.
Look at each other. I mean it. Look around at each other. Feel who we are together. God is in this house and every house. And together our eyes can meet and we can shout with one voice that
We are beauty.
We are power.
We are compassion.
We are hope.
We are love.
Look at each other. There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place. And not just in this place. This is the time! We are the one. All of us. In this room. Out in the streets. Around the world. The whole human family. And we will not sacrifice one another for our own desires or agendas. Instead, we will look deeply into one another’s eyes and sing:
“This is the time! We are the one! We at last are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
And together we will cry out and together we will be healed and together we will share our good news with the world.
Good news that is stronger than any evil.
Unity without the demand for uniformity.
Love without the shackles of fear.
Hearts set on fire.
More than enough joy.
More than enough love.
More than enough life for everyone.
Alleluia.
Amen.
