Home Page > Sermon Index > June 3, 2007

06/03/07 A PEOPLE CHURCH

W. Stewart MacColl

Mark 7:24-30; 5:1-15

It is good to be here. Although it is strange to be speaking from this pulpit - and to folks not sitting in blue chairs. I tell you six stories, two some of you have read before in that little pamphlet of mine, four do not appear there.

Forty-six years ago Jane and I came to Wilton with three small children to help start a Presbyterian community. The next Sunday the children were surprised to learn that they we were going to the local high school to Sunday school and worship. Barbara, aged seven, complained to her mother, “It was mean of these people to ask Father to come here when they didn’t even have a church.”

So began the conversation in the our home about a church not being a building but group of people who gather together to worship and make a difference. During the summer the school was unavailable, and Zion Hill Methodist graciously invited the small Presbyterian group to worship with it. In the fall Edward, our five old, asked one Sunday, “Are we going to the building church, or the people church.?”

The people church - that’s what you have always been for me, and it is through the people here that God often spoke to me in many ways. I simply share some of those ways this morning. But first one of the scripture stories just read to you.

If you insist that Jesus could never be grumpy or mean; then you will reject my interpretation. Of course, that’s all right. We can agree to disagree.

Someone asked me a year ago if I thought that Jesus was prejudiced. I instantly responded - no, no he couldn’t have been. But then I got to thinking, he was raised in a culture and shaped by it, as is every person. So probably he was molded by that culture’s prejudices, as are we by ours. A story that was read this morning proves it. Jesus seems to be tired, perhaps he had a headache. He has given orders not to be disturbed. But a Gentile mother has a sick child. So she goes to where this Jewish healer is staying. His followers tell her he’s unavailable. But she pushes by them. You can almost hear them muttering, “Those damn pushy Gentiles.” She confronts Jesus and pleads for her child’s healing. Now Jesus has been raised in a culture that told him again and again quoting Scripture that Gentiles are outside of God’s concern. He was shaped by that culture, as we are shaped by ours. She has burst in upon Jesus, and I said, perhaps he had a headache. He had asked to be left alone. When we are at low energy, our irritability rises, our innate prejudices are more apt to show. So he says to her: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Meaning, of course, the healing I offer is reserved for Jews not Gentile dogs. He actually calls this pleading mother a dog. A dog.

But she is so focused on her daughter’s need that she shoves aside the insult. With great wit she responds. “Even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs the children drop.” Suddenly the tired, irritable Jesus pauses, then bursting into laughter says, “You have me there and rightly so, such faith, such determination, your child is healed.” Something is happening to Jesus in that moment. Trained by his culture to view that woman as Gentile dog, he suddenly sees her as fellow human being, a mother who loves her child like his mother loves him. All the cultural conditioning, all the right rules and Biblical verses learned since childhood are as ashes. She is a fellow human being, loved by God, worthy of God’s healing. Months later when someone asks Jesus about the commandment to love neighbor, wanting to know who is neighbor. Jesus doesn’t answer the question, because he now knows you can’t draw a line and say these are neighbors and these aren’t no matter what a verse here or there says. He just tells a story about a foreigner, a Samaritan, who helps a Jew who gets mugged and then asks: “who acted in a neighborly way.” It is as if Jesus had learned from that experience with the mother that his culture was wrong, that some Biblical texts were wrong, that there are no outsiders from God’s love. That you can’t draw a line and say these are not neighbors. The mother who changed Jesus. It is in the Bible.

None of us can escape the shaping of culture and the prejudices that happened because of that shaping, secular or religious. The issue in our lives is whether we will allow God to use experiences to challenge our prejudices.

Fascinating when that happens to people - when the cultural walls come tumbling down. When God cracks through. I watched it happen here in the early seventies. We were visited by a young black theologian from South Africa name Takatso Mofokeng - wonderful man. At that time he was struggling against the apartheid in his own nation. At the end of his stay one of our elders, Jack Kraushaar, said suddenly, “Takatso, I almost wish you had never come.” The rest of us at the gathering were shocked. But Jack went on. “Because you are the first black man I ever loved, and I now I have to do something about it.” Takatso replied, “Jack, do it your land, while I fight apartheid in mine.” Jack worked for an advertising firm, had the Pepsi account. Months later he came to the church office with TV commercial. Bunch of kids playing baseball. One girl on the sidelines, man comes along, asks why aren’t you playing, she says they won’t let me, cause I’m a girl. He insists, and she’s a superstar. I said, “Jack, that’s a cute add, but why show it to me.” He said, “It is my gift to Takatso. Maybe you didn’t notice, but there is more than a token black in that commercial, and it will be first time for Pepsi and the bottlers who pay for those adds, many of them are red necks; and they’re not going to like it, but I’m going to make ‘em buy it. Oh, I threw the women’s lib bit in, because I have daughters.” It ran - that add, all across the nation. A small crack for civil rights against American cultural prejudice. But behind it was a life changed because a black man from South Africa helped a Wilton elder see past his cultural conditioning. You’re the first black man I ever loved, and now I have to do something about it. It happened in this people church.

Strange how the walls of culture tumble down. Strange how God works. The churches and our society are arguing about homosexuality. We will disagree on the issue for decades I suppose. Fling Biblical texts back and forth at each other. Split denominations apart. I was raised in a culture that told me homosexuality was wrong. To be called a fag when I was a teenager was cause for fighting, even though I wasn’t sure what the word meant. By the time I was an adult I knew it was wrong, and without realizing it I was homophobic. Then thirty some years ago one Tuesday morning sitting in that office down the hall way I was planning the Sunday service with Jim Wetherald, our music director, a wonderful young man, close friend. I suddenly asked him, “Jim, when are you going to get married.” He looked at me with surprise and said, “I thought you knew, I am homosexual.” For me it was like that moment with Jesus and the Gentile mother. Walls and cultural training, and subconscious fears, all came tumbling down - this was a friend, a trusted servant of the Lord, a gifted human being. He pushed me that day without even knowing it into a new way of seeing and accepting. We are still friends. I mentioned that day to him a few years ago. He doesn’t remember it. Why should he, for him it was just another worship planning session? But for me it was a moment of transformation. A new way of seeing and understanding the breadth God’s love. You have had such moments. Treasure them. Thank God for them.

One day in ninth grade confirmation class the youth were kidding Scot Cowper, or maybe, kind of praising him - they said - we speak to everyone here- - but not in school. There we stick to our own group. You get laughed at if you don’t, and you don’t feel safe. But, Scot, even in school you speak to everyone. Even the odd balls. How come? Scot replied, “Every Sunday I pray that prayer that starts “Our Father - “ the pronoun means that every kid is a member of my family - a brother - sister - so I speak to them.” I sat there in wonderment - strange the people who prod us. Our Father - yes, who does the pronoun demand you sweep into your concern in prayer, in life? Tell the truth, I’m finding it hard right now to include the president, but I’m working on it.

Mention of the confirmation class - reminds me - back in the seventies when the high school students planned a worship service they asked me why there was always prayer of confession at the beginning or worship. They said, its such a downer to start with a with a guilt trip every Sunday. Why not put it at the end so we can leave our guilt and regrets behind with the crumpled bulletins? That’s when we began to start worship with thanksgiving prayers instead - many a Sunday - one we used often had a phrase in it - we thank thee for the means of grace the hope of glory. Means of grace. I suppose I associated that with the sacrament - if I thought about it at all - until Meredith Thompson came into the office one day. What she told me she gave me permission later to share in other churches, but she’s dead now. I think she’d like me to share it here.

Meredith was a brilliant young woman, but like that man in other gospel story read this morning who dwelt among the tombs she was deeply troubled. That man said his name was legion because he had many voices inside of him. So did Meredith. The therapists had worked with her, quieting the voices, but she would still become deeply depressed, and like the man, legion, who cut himself with stones, the only way Meredith could feel alive when she was so depressed was to cut herself and feel the blood flow across her flesh. She came to the office one afternoon to tell me that she had felt desperate that week. She had searched for a razor, found one in a closet where her family had hid it, held it in her hands, about to cut herself, to feel the blood, to feel alive, and suddenly the words of the thanksgiving prayer we had said the Sunday before came into her mind and she found herself looking at the razor, saying: “this is not a means of grace.” She put the razor down.

We sat for along time she and I in silence after she told me her story. What was there to say? Later, thinking about Meredith and my own life, I realized how important it is to know what really is a means of grace - and what is not.

Means of grace - the ways we choose to feel alive, OK, in love with ourselves, life, others - those are our means of grace. Sometimes it is booze and drugs, or money and mansions, or promotions or putdowns, sex or stocks, arrogant denials or self-righteousness- Oh, the ways we choose to make ourselves feel OK, alive, in love with ourselves, life. Some of us even dwell on our guilt and regret for the failures of life - and they do mount up over the years - but dwelling on them I discover is only the way I cut myself with that razor of regret? Oh, the ways we choose to feel alive, OK.

And Meredith put down the razor, saying, this is not a means of grace.

His name was legion. So many voices shouting in his brain. The townsfolk had tried to bind him with shackles and chains, but he had broken loose and so among the tombs he was howling and cutting himself with stones that he might feel life from his blood. No one dared approach him.

Jesus suddenly stood before him. I wonder what it was about that calm, dignified presence that quieted the outward howling, the inward voices, that made the man know that he was somebody, that God don’t make no junk, somebody sane, and alive, and free. So he tossed away the stone by which he cut himself that was not a means of grace, and he found through Jesus true amazing grace.

But I come each week with my private insanities to this or other sanctuaries and maybe you do too; with the razor sharp edges of the ways we wound ourselves

And it is as if Jesus walks among us, particularly at communion time

looks us in the face as of old he looked at that man

says to each of us

be still

See yourself as you really are

affirmed, sacred

‘cause God don’t make no junk.

Oh, my friends,

can we turn from the voices within ourselves

to listen instead to the Voice

that whispers

You are

accepted

treasured

forgiven

honored

That is the Voice that again and again I heard in the midst of this people church. For that I am deeply grateful. Amen, Alleluia. Amen.