Photo courtesy of NBC 2
It’s trite to say that this weekend was difficult. Watching as the hidden face of terror and hate that has been a part of our country since it founding roam the streets of Charlottesville stirred all of my emotions. I spent Friday night through Saturday reading the news with either rage, sadness, sorrow, grief, despair, or hope running and colliding through me. To have the false image of American comity and harmony fully crushed in such a dramatic fashion caused me to write a new sermon. After spending the week thinking, reading, and researching for one message, I know that another was being called into existence by the strife before my eyes. That new sermon, one that tried to confront racism and hatred directly, is posted here, if you would like to read it.
It is not the best that I have ever done. The transitions are a little ham-fisted, there are numerous spelling errors, and my delivery was haphazard due to the short time in which to put together new remarks. I left all of that in the text that you can see on purpose. Even that which we think is the most polished, the sermon, can be as dirty and raw as the life to which the preacher is attempting to respond. All of the emotions that were present in the writing of the script were present in my voice as well. Reflecting on yesterday, I am aware that I was not as composed as I usually am, nor were the thoughts as refined as I would have liked.
When it was over, I knew there would be raw emotions from the congregation, and there were. Not everyone likes it when their worship services don’t allow them to escape from a world of broken dreams. While I feel peace in having spoken what I know the Holy Spirit brought out of me, I feel uneasy that some were left so unsettled. Let me admit that while I can make bold proclamation, I want people to like. Sometimes, that means I soften my stance, but haste stripped me of nuance this time.
What has stuck with me, however, is one compliment I received. One of the teenagers I have been closely working with came up to me as we left the sanctuary. She was visibly emotional, though to try and name all those emotions would require a level of ESP that I do not have. As I started to greet her, she blurted out, “I never looked at my phone once. It’s the biggest compliment I can give you.” We both chuckled at the stereotype of a teenager on their phone, but she didn’t let it sit long before she added with deep conviction. “I just loved it so much because you actually talked about something that mattered!”
I don’t want this to sound as if I am bashing my colleagues. I am a part-time associate, and so I rarely get to spend time in the pulpit. Every week, ministers of the Gospel ascend the steps to the pulpit and give their best in trying to shepherd this congregation. I know how deeply they care for the work they do, and how much they want this church to find vibrant life in the call of Jesus. It was pure happenstance that I was on the docket for this week when such a horrible event would descend on us. But what she said, that the sermon talked about “something that mattered,” will not let go of me.
During my sermon, I reflected on how the congregation of my formation had repeatedly said that Christ’s Church was concerned with “soul matters” over social issues. Often, they were silent about what was happening in our society, unless of course it concerned itself with Islam or the LGBTQ community. While writing frantically on Saturday, as events unfolded before my eyes, I remembered Charles Finney’s use of the invitation to bring people down and sign up to support abolition. How he thought we should, “put feet to our faith,” and so I tried to call those in our church on Sunday to stand up and count themselves amongst those who would fight back against racism in our world.
I wanted to say that standing up to racism IS a “soul matter.”
Apparently for her, that mattered.
A friend who is an associate at another congregation posted about how the majority of those who were supporting the Nazi’s and white supremacists were millennials, and he wanted to make a call for the Church to do something. We have been struggling to figure out what to do in regards to reaching our generation for some time. Our old tricks don’t seem to work anymore, and the difficult road of trying to find new ways to share the love of God is an insurmountable task for those who labor under the assumption that the better times are behind us.
To try and save our Church, I would like to contend that one possible road to strengthening our faith would be to start talking about things that matter. If we are only going to talk about “soul matters,” and refuse to wrap our faith in the skin of everyday living, we might as well shut this thing down now. It’s time to realize that Jesus didn’t save us to a life of only prayer and daily Bible studies.
We must give feet to our faith, and let it learn to walk.
Now is our opportunity to give hands to the love of God and reach out for those who are hurting.
It amazed me to hear someone become so passionate about the God they love because a minister didn’t have the time to create any pretensions for their sermon. Maybe that could be our path. We could start to stand up and talk about how we see our world, and the events taking place right here and now, through the lens of the Cross of Christ.
It sure is a lot cheaper than getting a smoke machine.
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