Scripture: Luke 14: 25-33; Matthew 18:21-22
I knew, of course, that I would be speaking today just a few hours after the end of our workshop on dismantling racism. I have also known that although the workshop would certainly be fresh and foremost in my mind this morning, that it would not be the subject of my preaching…for several reasons. First, whatever happened at the workshop (and you never know what might happen at one of these events), I was not going to have enough time between dinnertime yesterday and 9:30 this morning to process it in my own mind, much less come up with something worthwhile to say about it. Secondly, as a matter of principle I figured I shouldn’t have the last word, even a temporary last word, as to what was helpful or not helpful, what was gained, what was learned, and so forth. The fact that I have the floor on Sunday mornings should not mean that on something like this I get to make the concluding statement after it’s all over. One way or another, formally or informally, we’ll do that together.
But having said that, I have to admit that the idea for this sermon came partly from the fact that we were about to have this workshop. I have been to a number of such workshops, enough to know that you never know what is going to take place at them, but also enough to know that some of my reactions are pretty predictable. For instance, no matter what happens at such an event, I will almost certainly be forced, one more time, to ask myself what it would mean for me to be serious, really serious about this dismantling racism “stuff”. To what degree am I serious about it now? What would it take for me to get more serious? Am I willing? All those kinds of questions I pretty much knew would just rise up and stare me in the face. They always have in the past in such situations. And so I was thinking about that even before the workshop started.
Some other things fed into this kind of concern as well. As you know, Karen Wilcox and Archie Thornton and I were in Newark, Delaware last weekend for the annual meeting of the Central Atlantic Conference. These gatherings too, whether they are in Delaware or in Illinois, provoke certain pretty predictable reactions in me. Before I tell you what they are, I need to make clear that I am a proud member of the United Church of Christ. I am not interested in complaining about my denomination, and I don’t make a practice of it. I don’t have a fierce loyalty to it because I don’t think denominations deserve deep loyalty, but I do think churches should be part of some larger community, and if I am going to be part of some denomination, the United Church of Christ is, for me, a clear choice. I am glad and proud to be part of the UCC and I am happy to go to the annual conference to network with a few people and to contribute in some way to its life. But…
There is almost always something that bothers me about these meetings and I was bothered this time. I think of it as a kind of lack of seriousness about what the church should be about. Sometimes the business of such a conference includes resolutions about any number of public policy or social justice issues. Sometimes there is heated debate over these resolutions. Almost never does it make any real difference what the resolution says or whether it passes. There is no program of action that follows from it, no commitment on the part of any one to do anything about whatever the issue is. But it does make some people, maybe, feel good that we have “spoken up”, that we have taken a stand on this or that. (This is my cynical self speaking now, I admit.) The Central Atlantic Conference has officially committed itself to being what the national UCC says it wants the church to be—multi-racial and multi-cultural and open and affirming. The CAC has voted to be and has been recognized as an open and affirming Conference in the U.C.C. Was there any evidence of either of these basic commitments last weekend? Precious little. The parade of people who came to the microphone to speak, to pray, to conduct business, to give reports were almost exclusively white—just a few brief exceptions toward the end. As far as any evidence of being open and affirming, there was none. None. No evidence of being concerned with issues affecting lgbt people. No acknowledgment of the presence of gay and lesbian people in any way. Not even an inclusion in the communion liturgy where in the process of saying that all are welcome at the table it was stated that men and women, old and young are welcome—but not stated that people of all races or sexual orientations and identities. It seemed, frankly, to me like a glaring omission, and quite possibly an intentional one.
All this is disturbing to me. Not because I expect some specific thing to happen or some specific word to be said, but because it gives me the impression that we aren’t serious about who we say we are. And I am sad to say that because I do think the UCC is way out ahead on many issues that I care about. But then, to continue in my cynical vein, maybe in some ways that’s not such a good thing, since it gives a greater opportunity for us to pat ourselves on the back for the stands we have taken without taking seriously the question of what it would mean for us to get serious about the commitments we have made to ourselves.
One other thought occurred to me as I was thinking about these things over the last week. It’s a memory actually, from a long time ago. I was out of college but not real clear about what I wanted to do next, so I took a year to think about it and what I chose to do during that year was to work as a community organizer in a couple of projects in Philadelphia and Chicago. These efforts depended a lot on people like me, people who were in or just out of college with some energy and idealism. We did things like voter registration, tutoring projects, an occasional march or sit-in over one issue or another. We thought we were bringing about “social change”. We thought we were working to change the system, though we didn’t think too hard as I recall about what we really meant by that.
While I was doing this kind of thing in Chicago I encountered a small group of Catholic nuns who belonged to an order called the Glenmary Sisters, or at least that’s how we referred to them. There was a household of Glenmary Sisters living in the neighborhood where we were working, and we got to know them a little because they sometimes came to meetings we organized or joined us on a march to city hall. They also believed in social change, maybe even recognized the need to change the system. But they also spent their time accompanying people to the clinic, or the court, or the welfare office, sitting with sick children in the middle of the night, bringing in food when someone died, and so forth. There was, in my mind, a seriousness about what they were up to that was—no surprise—different from what we were about. I sensed that the seriousness I sensed in them had something, had a lot to do with their faith. And I went to seminary the next year with that issue on my mind—the question of what it means to be serious about your ideals and whether that needs to be grounded in some kind of faith. I went to seminary in part because of that question. It had been one of my options, but I chose that option partly because of the Glenmary sisters.
And I’ve been thinking about that question, in one way or another, ever since. Since I’ve chosen to earn my living and spend much of my life in and around the church, I can hardly avoid asking the question: What would it mean for the church to get serious about being the church? What would it mean for the Illinois Conference or the Central Atlantic Conference to get serious about being communities of faith? What would it mean for the church at any level to take seriously its commitment to combat racism or to be open and affirming with all that implies?
There is frustration built in to all such questions, because in my experience churches inevitably fall short in being intentional and focused and unified and dedicated to a task. In my experience, it’s hard enough for churches to get focused on getting a faucet fixed, much less on dismantling racism. Churches just aren’t that way, for all sorts of reasons. And, in my experience, when you occasionally find a church that does seem to be serious about getting serious, sometimes that church turns out to be just a little too serious—a little too impressed with itself and not much fun.
So maybe it’s unfair to expect that of conferences or even of congregations. Maybe there are just too many different people involved in such bodies who are here for too many different reasons to expect that we will be able to get ourselves together enough to be really serious about any one or two things. Maybe.
But the question still lingers for me. What would it mean for us, for me in any case, to be serious about whatever it is that we, or I, need to be serious about. I don’t have any great answers to propose to you this morning in answer to that question. I don’t really have any answers at all. All I really wanted to do in this, what I’m thinking of as a very modest, small sermon, is put that question on the table, and let it just lie there. Several questions actually, I guess. What is it that we together, or each of us individually, wants or needs to take seriously, and then what would it mean to do that?
I do believe it is a scriptural question as well, one which Jesus puts on the table before us, if you will. I read his words about “counting the cost” in this light. Which of you, he says, will enter into a building project without being sure that you have what it will take to finish the project. Or what king would go out and wage war without thinking long and hard about whether he had everything it would take to fight that war successfully? There are some things you just don’t play around with. Waging war. Major construction projects. Major de-construction projects like dismantling racism or heterosexism, prayer, spiritual journeying. Some things need to be taken seriously if they’re going to be taken at all. Forgiveness falls in that category too. The verses we heard basically say, in my hearing of them, that forgiveness is not something we do occasionally and light-heartedly, not something we do seven times, like when we’re in the mood and our ego’s in pretty good shape and it’s not raining out and someone is around to recognize our saintly act and the person we’re forgiving hasn’t done anything too bad and has said I’m sorry convincingly and has begged out loud for our forgiveness. If forgiveness has meaning, I think Jesus is saying, it needs to be taken seriously enough that it is done often enough to become a habit, maybe even a way of life, that it is something that we work on when it is not easy and that we struggle over and struggle through so that it becomes a possibility not just those seven easy times but the seventy other times, the seventy times seventy other times as well.
As I say, this is not a question I mean to provide answers for today, just to place it before us and let it be. But there is one thought I need to say before I stop. I do not see this as a harsh or joyless question. I don’t see it as a question that accuses us or me of being a miserable sinner for not taking my faith, my beliefs, or my commitments more seriously. Getting serious is not a solemn burden imposed on us by a severe faith. It is more like a kind of taking control of our lives, more like the freedom of discovering something that is worth giving ourselves to and losing ourselves in. Getting serious may be in some ways a challenge we are confronted with, but it is also a potential source of healing and of joy. Amen.
Jim Bundy
June 22, 2003