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RECONCILIATION
AS MYSTERY, MIRACLE AND MISSION
A sermon
preached by Rev. Harry C. Kiely at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church
May 20, 2006 -- CHUMC's one-year anniversary of becoming a reconciling
congregation.
Text:
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
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If
anyone ever asks you to give a short definition of the Christian faith,
you can accurately answer with these words of the Apostle Paul: God was
in Christ, reconciling the world to God's self, and giving us the ministry
of reconciliation.
The first phrase is mystery: "God was in Christ…" How so?
The second phrase is miracle: "…reconciling the world to God's
self…" We all know that reconciliation is quite impossible-unless
by some miracle God enables it.
The third phrase is mission: "…and giving us the ministry of
reconciliation." In other words, what are you gonna do about it?
I. RECONCILIATION
AS MYSTERY
"God
was in Christ." Note that Paul does not say that "Christ is
God," but that God was in Christ. But don't feel frustrated if your
mind can't take that in because Paul is not using mind-talk, he's using
heart-talk. That's why we have music and poetry and art as our best teachers.
Words speak to the mind, but these things speak to the soul. That's the
mystery-and it is wondrous. If you want to really understand what Paul
is talking about, don't just consult your Bible commentary; go sit where
you can watch the sun go down and feel the gentle breeze flowing past
you like the Holy Spirit.
Paul understood in his gut what reconciliation with God is because it
upset his whole way of life on the road to Damascus when he was enroute
to persecute more Christians. He was literally knocked off his horse,
then he heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting
me?" On that day he began to know Christ, not as his enemy, but as
his amigo-his friend. Paul had been seeing to the stoning of Jesus' followers,
but inexplicably Christ confronted him with compassion. Paul never got
over it. But what happened to him was mystery-he could not explain it,
only rejoice in it.
Those of us who have traveled the long journey from our most committed
homophobia to our conversion can testify that our transformation may begin
when we deal with facts rather than fiction. But the real change takes
place in our hearts. In my own case, the awakening occurred when a very
dear friend and former parishioner, Suzanne, told me she was a lesbian
living in a committed relationship. Offering my wife, Arlene, and me hospitality
in their home one evening, Suzanne told us the story of her own coming
to terms with her true self. She did not change except in her view of
herself-she saw that God had made her a lesbian. This came as shock to
her, but then as release. She was able to rejoice in finally coming to
know who she really was. Her life since then has been one of joy-joy in
her relationship to Lynne, joy in discovering her gift as an artist, joy
in relating to her family and old friends in a new way. I would say, using
Paul's terms, that God was in Suzanne, reconciling her to herself and
to God.
The Gospel cannot be the Gospel if you take away the mystery. That's why
biblical literalism is self-limiting. It rejects imagination, and imagination
is required to enter into the mystery of the Incarnation. Literalism insists
on pre-set answers to life's most serious questions, while imagination
opens the way for unlimited possibilities. Literalism is an attempt to
maintain control, while imagination liberates us. It liberates us from
old prejudices and opens us to new possibilities. If you want to understand
the dynamic of the civil rights movement, the key is imagination. The
old order was determined to keep things as they were, while the freedom
movement unleashed a new vision, and that vision was more powerful than
all the police and police dogs and city ordinances and centuries of prejudice
that held together the old order in the racially segregated south. A minority,
committed to a new vision, paved the highway toward a more just world
and invited all of us to come out and join the parade. God was in that
movement, reconciling us to God's self. How do we explain that? Well,
mysteries cannot be "explained," they can only be celebrated.
II. RECONCILIATION AS MIRACLE
God was
in Christ reconciling the world to God's self.
Are there some people you just love to hate? People who-in our humble
opinion-commit so much evil that we hope never to hear of them again?
In the areas of life where political decisions impact us or the world
around us, there may be individuals we would not mind having disappear.
Paradoxically, this burden of hate may be what we have most in common
with our enemies. But hate cannot heal us. Only God can do that, and that
action on God's part is called "reconciliation."
We are in the midst of an intense struggle today. We cannot help being
conscious of the fact that religion is being used to manipulate the public,
that attacks on sexual orientation and gay marriage are weapons in a movement
to gain political control, and that the byproducts of these machinations
are self-righteousness and hate. Those of us who are not victims in this
struggle can only imagine what it must be like, in the poisoned fog of
homophobia, for those who are victimized because of their sexual orientation,
whether they are in or out of the closet.
That is why we need one another, why we need community. Being together
week in and week out, we can hammer out these kinks in our souls. At Dumbarton
I have had the privilege of hearing gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered
persons tell their stories, openly, without apology and with pride. I
have also joined with others in confessing our homophobic hang-ups, and
some folks with different sexual orientations have accepted us and encouraged
us in our desire to love without prejudice.
I was pastor of Dumbarton from 1968 to 1975, and back then we skirted
the GLBT issue. After I retired in 1997, Arlene and I, at Mary Kraus'
invitation, returned to Dumbarton and have been active members since then.
I wish I could tell you what a difference becoming a Reconciling Church
has made in the life of that church. The sense of camaraderie and mutual
acceptance is contagious. People share their joys and sorrows openly in
worship. We laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. We
have a number of gifted people we would not have had. By being more open
and affirming than we were before, we have enriched the church as a whole
and ourselves individually. And those whom parts of the church would cast
out, have become a serendipitous blessing in the life of our church.
About a year after Arlene and I had started attending Dumbarton again,
an announcement was made that surprised us with joy. Floyd Starnes and
Carlos Gomez, a gay couple living in a committed relationship, stood up
in worship and announced that they had officially adopted young Keott,
and the congregation burst into applause. I was startled because I did
not know such a thing could be done legally. But, as the applause went
on and on, Arlene and I were busy drying our tears. Of course this should
happen here-we are the church, the body of Christ. Since then Carlos and
Floyd have adopted a second son, Dylan. Both of these boys came from very
poor backgrounds, but living in the constant care and love of Floyd and
Carlos, Keott and Dylan have slowly blossomed like roses.
I want to relate the remarkable story of Mamie Mobley, the mother of Emmett
Till. You will remember that in 1955 Emmett Till, a youth living in Chicago,
went to a southern state to visit some relatives. Knowing that life for
African Americans was considerably more dangerous in the south than in
the northern cities, Emmett's family sternly cautioned him to be very
careful in the way he talked and acted around white folks. But, typical
of a youth, he disregarded this wise counsel and one day, coming out of
a store, he whistled at a white woman. He had crossed the line. That night,
two men went into the home where Emmett was staying, took him away, beat
him savagely, wrapped a heavy chain around him, and threw him into a pond
where he drowned. When the body was found, it was shipped back to Chicago
for burial. The incident got worldwide exposure in the media, and thousands
lined up to attend the viewing at Emmett's funeral. Everyone assumed that,
considering the terrible state the body was in, the casket would remain
closed.
But Mamie Mobley had other ideas. She insisted on keeping the casket open,
while the long lines filed past to view the remains of Emmett Till. "I
want everyone to see what they did to my boy," said Mrs. Mobley.
The event attracted worldwide attention.
However, something happened later that did not get the kind of news coverage
the death and funeral did. Some years after Emmett's death, someone asked
Mrs. Mobley if she harbored bitterness toward the two white men, or toward
whites generally, for the brutal murder of her son. This is what she said:
It certainly would be unnatural not to hate them, yet I'd have to say
I'm unnatural…The Lord gave me a shield, I don't know how to describe
it myself…I did not wish them dead. I did not wish them in jail.
If I had to, I could take their four little children-they each had two-and
I could raise those children as if they were my own and I could have loved
them…I believe the Lord meant what he said, and try to live according
to the way I've been taught.
I can't think of a better example of reconciliation as miracle.
III. RECONCILIATION AS MISSION
God was
in Christ reconciling the world to God's self and giving us the ministry
of reconciliation.
On this special occasion of celebrating Capitol Hill Church's first anniversary
as a Reconciling Congregation, I take it for granted that many of us here
today have come out of our closets. For our Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender
sisters and brothers your celebration today must be rooted in the fact
that you have been empowered to claim your true identity and to do so
with pride and joy. By the same token many of us who have harbored a lifetime
of homophobia-confident that we were on God's side-have been enabled to
face up to our prejudice and ignorance, and to begin living differently
than before. All of us-gay, straight, bisexual, and transgendered-have
been led into reconciliation with God, with ourselves, and finally with
one another. So we could say that for us, "God was in Christ, reconciling
the world to God's self," and now we are commissioned to become instruments
of reconciliation in the daily world in which we live: God is "giving
us the ministry of reconciliation." That's the nature of faith: we
have received the gift of reconciliation, so now we keep that gift alive
in us by passing it on. If we opt out of the ministry of reconciliation,
we shall revert to our old ways and find ourselves living again in spiritual
darkness. But if we remain together through controversy, rejection, and
persecution, we will be empowered to persist in faith, and we shall be
surprised by the joy that comes in the midst of our common pain.
You may have noticed that most of the injustice in the world is healed
more by the redemptive action of its victims than by those in power. The
dominating powers always want to keep things as they are. So it was that
the movement to bring about racial justice in America was born in the
neighborhoods and ghettoes of black folks, not in the halls of the white-dominated
Congress. The movement to make our society more just for women was and
is being led by women, and only recently have the male-dominated power
structures begun to get on board. Attempts to establish migrants as full
citizens have been initiated by immigrants who are simply asking to be
included as if the message on the Statue of Liberty were really about
them.
Gays and lesbians, at considerable personal risk, have led the rest of
us into the great mystery of full inclusiveness. Transgender persons may
have suffered the most in their quest for full acceptance, but we can
see that their train is now coming down the track. And for those of us
who have tagged along (or should I say "been dragged along"?)
in the civil rights movement, women's liberation, and the GLBT movement,
we have been blessed to be included in these glorious events of slow but
sure reconciliation.
Let us remember that this mission to the world has been God's gift to
us, it is not our idea. Ever since Moses led the Israelites out of slavery,
we have known that freedom was God's dream before it was ours. We cling
to the faith that God is working to redeem the homophobia that bedevils
our society, including parts of the United Methodist Church, and that
God will stand by us steadfastly when we remain faithful to this ministry
to which he calls us. That does not mean victory will be easy nor that
we shall escape the retribution of rejection and lies. It rather means
that God will always stand by us, that we are never alone, and that ultimately
justice will prevail. "Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God
is the ruler yet."
So, rejoice, my friends! Today is a great day in the life of this church,
and you have helped to make it happen. You have lived in the mystery,
believed in the miracle, and been faithful to your mission. Thank you
for your faithfulness in pursuing this goal over the years and through
the tough times that must have included plenty of disagreements and a
great deal of praying. But this happened because God wanted it to happen,
and you were faithful to God's dream. Thank you for sharing God's blessing
with us.
Rev.
Harry C. Kiely
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Sermons
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2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
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