Sunday, November 26, 2017
Christ the King Sunday
1.
Imagine a gathering down by the
riverside; Syria, Palestine, at the far reaches of the Roman Empire. First century. Imagine a community of disciples and
dreamers, agitators and peacemakers; and they’re gathering down by the
riverside to baptize a couple more. Initiates. And you can tell who they are—you can tell
who’s going in—because they’re starting to peel off layers. And there’s that look in their eyes. The circle’s growing. Down by the riverside.
Now we’re pretty sure they
spoke Aramaic back then and back there; but maybe, just maybe they sang
something together, maybe they sang a little something like:
Gonna lay down my
sword and shield
Down by the
riverside, down by the riverside,
Down by the
riverside,
Gonna lay down my
sword and shield
Down by the riverside
And study war no more
Kind of gets to the heart of
things. To the heart of Jesus’ teaching,
his movement, his hope. Gonna lay down my sword and shield. And study war no more.
Now scholars are telling us
that sometimes these initiates—the ones getting baptized—they would strip down,
and I mean all the way down, before going in.
We’re talking ‘buck-naked’ for baptism.
We’re talking ‘birthday suits’ for Jesus. So imagine a couple of friends now, taking
each one by the hand and leading each one, naked and tentative but oh-so-alive,
into the river itself. It’s almost
certainly early, early in the morning. Imagine
the energy on riverbank, the gathering of prayers, the stirring of spirit, the
thrill of watching Jesus’ movement grow.
And imagine the three-fold plunge, as each initiate is baptized into new
life, into timeless grace, into the beloved community of Christ. Water.
Water. Water everywhere! And it’s all good. And it’s all God.
Are you with me? Do you have a picture in mind?
Now imagine the new Christians,
the shiny, shivering, weeping Christians, stumbling out of the river and onto
that riverbank. Vulnerable, brave,
human, charged. Imagine the joy, the applause, the living
experience of heaven on earth. And
imagine someone stepping forward now, maybe an elder, a wise and experienced
elder; and she has robes, warm white robes in her arms. And imagine that she opens one robe wide, and
she wraps it around the first initiate, and then another around the second
initiate, and then another around the third.
And they’re still singing. The
beloved community is always singing:
Gonna put on that long white robe
Down by the
riverside, down by the riverside,
Down by the
riverside,
Gonna put on that
long white robe
Down by the riverside
And study war no more
And it’s at this point, down by
the riverside, that the elder quiets the crowd and speaks. And the words she chooses are the words she
always chooses by the riverside, as the movement grows, as the circle
stretches.
2.
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| Icon, Thessaloniki, Greece |
“In Christ Jesus,” she says,
looking first at the newly robed Christians and then around the delighted
circle. “In Christ Jesus you are all
children of God through faith. And you
who are baptized now, into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Imagine the community pulling in, closer, to
hear every word. Imagine hands reaching
out for other hands, shoulders bumping gently against other shoulders. And the elder goes on: “Among us there is no
longer Jew or Greek. Among us there is
no longer slave or free. Among us there
is no longer male and female. For all of
you, all of us, are one in Christ Jesus.”
And I have to imagine this
elicits another song, some kind of great affirmation, some kind of robust
blessing. Imagine. There they were, down by the riverside. And they were young and old, very poor and
very rich, male and female, gay and straight, Jew and Gentile. Arm in arm, and shoulder to shoulder. No longer defined by gender. No longer defined by race. No longer defined by status or wealth or
privilege. Clothed in Christ. One in Christ. Down by the riverside. Again, their language was Aramaic back then;
but maybe it had an African tilt: “Amen Si-ya-ku-du-misa!”
3.
A friend pulled me aside a few
weeks back. And he said he was wondering
if he might be too gay for this church.
“I know we’re all Open and Affirming and stuff,” he said to me, “but I
still wonder sometimes. Everybody seems
so normal here. Everybody seems so put
together. I wonder sometimes if somebody’s
going to decide I’m too gay. And then
they’re going to say that doesn’t work here.
I crossed a line.” I have to
confess that this wounded me. That his
fear cut deeply into my heart. And it
made me realize that we still have a long way to go. Our Open and Affirming journey is never, ever
done.
You see, this is what it means
to be clothed in Christ. And this has to
be what it means to be fully, dynamically, proudly and boldly Open and
Affirming too. We’re called not simply
to tolerate one another, but to love and respect and honor one another. We’re called not simply acknowledge one
another in passing, but to claim kinship in the Body of Christ. When you suffer, I suffer. When you rejoice, I rejoice. And this is what it means to be clothed in
Christ. Male, female. Binary, non-binary. Gay, straight, bi, trans. Black, white, Latino, Asian. Whether you sing on key, or you sing just because. When you suffer, we all suffer. When you rejoice, we all rejoice. That’s the Body of Christ.
This week I came across an old
favorite, a passage by the great mystic and monk Laurence Freeman. Here’s what he has to say about the Christian
journey and the spiritual life:
“Unless we pass through the
shadow of the valley of separation, we cannot rest in the green pastures of
union. At some point in the journey, the
wall of individuality that seems to cut us off from the whole simply opens. The sorrow of existence that held it together
dissolves and the wall collapses.”
And I think this is exactly
what Paul’s saying about baptism, about Christianity, and about the Open and
Affirming church. With Jesus, we pass
through the shadow of the valley of separation.
All the categories that divide us, all the categories that make us
fearful or suspicious of one another, they begin slowly to dissolve. They’re less and less binding. They’re still important, of course. They’re pieces of our selves, dimensions to
our lives. But they’re less and less
binding. They don’t determine our
relationships or inhibit our trust, our freedom, our affections. Laurence Freeman says: “The wall of
individuality that seems to cut us off from the whole simply opens.” Paul says: “There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female.” That’s the beloved community. That’s how the wall collapses. That’s the union we find in Christ.
So just to be clear this
morning, I want to say this to my friend, on your behalf, on the church’s
behalf, BUNK and BALDERDASH. If we are
Open and Affirming here, if we are all God’s children here, if we clothe
ourselves with Christ in this place, there is no normative orientation, there is
no normative way to speak or communicate, there is no normative way to
dress. If we are the Body of Christ, you
are the Body of Christ. So you be
you. You be who you are. All of it.
And you are and always will be one of us.
4.
I had a whole other sermon this
morning, on what Joanna Normoyle calls “the accountability moment” that’s
sweeping the culture this fall—around sexual harassment, sexual violence and
sexism in general. We’ll do that some
other time. But I think this baptismal
liturgy—tucked into Paul’s Letter to the Galatians—is a provocative alternative
to the sad, violent misogyny we see all around us. Not just in Hollywood and Washington, but all
around us.
Paul’s arguing—as Jesus argued
before him—for an entirely new set of relationships in the church. Down by the riverside, the church imagines
collaboration grounded in loving-kindness and curiosity. Down by the riverside, the church commits to
collapsing each and every wall that divides us.
“In Christ Jesus,” Paul says, “you are all children of God through
faith.” So that has to mean new
partnerships between woman and men and friends who identify somewhere else on
the gender spectrum. All of us. And it has to mean new partnerships between
Jews and Gentiles, between peoples of all races and ethnicities and life
experiences. Paul’s insisting that the
church of Jesus Christ can only be the church of Jesus Christ when we are in
full communion: loving communion, generous communion, curious communion. And that has to mean gay and straight and bi
and trans in ministry together. And it
has to mean the soprano section and the alto section, the tenor section and the
bass section in harmony together. That’s
what Jesus is all about. And that’s what
it has to be about for us.
We live in a divisive time, in
a mean-spirited time, in a lot of ways.
So let’s not miss the extraordinary opportunity we have, by faith, to
offer the world an alternative. Let’s
not miss the bold invitation of the Holy Spirit of God this morning. We are called to clothe ourselves with
Christ. We are called to clothe
ourselves with Christ. Not bitterness,
not rancor, not suspicion, not fearfulness.
We are called to clothe ourselves with Christ.
So when you come to communion
in just a few moments, I want you to play with that a bit. Look to your left and your right. This is the Body of Christ. Be aware of the hands you’re holding. This is the Body of Christ. Pay attention to the prayers that rise
up. We are the Body of Christ. We are male and female and somewhere else on
the spectrum. There is no normal,
friends. We are one in Christ. We are gay and straight, and many of us
someplace in between. We are one in
Christ. We are black and white, Latina
and Asian, and we come from all kinds of homelands and backgrounds. But we are one in Christ.
And when we reach for that
loaf, for that broken, holy bread, clothe yourselves with Christ. Commit yourselves to Christ. Follow Christ. And we will go with you. We will go together. Amen.
