What We Have Been Hoping For February 1, 2009 by Mahan Siler

Mahan Siler
Texts: Micah 6:6-8, Mark 10:35-45

Janice and I were watching the Inauguration of President Obama with our granddaughter, ten-year old Joy. Over lunch I asked, “What do you think you will remember most about this event?” Joy’s quick answer: “I will never forget the picture of all those people who came.” She, in one sentence, jerked me away from my preoccupation on the president and other up-front leaders.

Joy reminded me of what I want to remind you. In anniversaries like this, we are prone to focus on the up-front leaders. And indeed, what an array of strong leaders on whose shoulders we stand – John Pullen, Jack Ellis, Edwin McNeil Poteat, Geraldine Cate, Lee Shepherd, W.W. Finlator, and others.

But it is “all those people” of 125 years, I want us to imagine. Pullen members mostly unnamed, seldom recognized: the nominating committee member on her tenth call trying to find a Sunday school teacher for the junior class of hellions; or the building committee member once again climbing on this roof exploring yet another leak over the sanctuary; or the treasurer whose Advent season is saturated with anxiety – will enough pledges come in? will we end of the year in the black or red?; the usher at the door with a welcome smile and bulletin; the member who leaves a casserole at the door of the recently bereaved; the one who stays behind to take down the tables; the member who writes the short note of encouragement just when all courage is depleted. Let’s keep before us this picture – all those people behind us whose devotion and passion for this church has brought us to this place.

One of the many striking features in Roger Crook’s two histories of Pullen is this: each period of Pullen history is set in historical context. The assumption, so characteristic of Pullen, is that Pullen is shaped by its time in history, just as Pullen has influenced the history of its time. Our church has never been only for itself; we have always been a church for others, a witness in the world that God so loved and loves.

So we celebrate our history today in what kind of time? Is it not an apocalyptic time? Apocalyptic means “unveiling.” We are experiencing an unveiling, a “pulling back of the curtains,” leaving us face-to-face with paradoxical realities – on one hand, such hope from new leadership that is rippling around the world, and yet such anxiety over instability and inequity. Foundations are shaking: big banks failing, foreclosures continuing, jobs disappearing, climate warming unrelenting, retirement investments diminishing, and countless homeless refugees, mostly innocent victims of war, terror and tyranny. We all are affected. There’s the sense that Humpty Dumpty will not be put back together the way he was — or even should be.

Tom Friedman in his latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, writes: “We are all pilgrims again, sailing on the Mayflower anew. We have not been to this shore before. If we fail to recognize that, we will, indeed become just one more endangered species.”

So, on this day of memory, what from our past can direct our pilgrim ship toward a shore we have not known before?

The best advice given to me when I came to Pullen was from a friend, “Mahan, your challenge at Pullen will be how to lead from the past.” So how will you lead from the past? What intimations from our heritage guide our landing on an unfamiliar shore?

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, Animal Dreams,  Hallie, a volunteer working with the freedom movement in Nicaragua, writes her sister: “Codi, here’s what I’ve decided: the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” 

What have we been hoping for in our 125 years of history? What kind of hope for ourselves and the world have we been trying to figure out? What hope have we been living inside, under its roof? From my balcony perch in retirement, I offer what patterns I see on the dance floor of Pullen’s history. Let my words stimulate what you see.

Let’s revisit some of the defining moments. These nodal events look all cleaned up in retrospect. But each one was risky, full of not-knowing, always messy with differences and hurt and loss and promise. Most required years of adjustment, some years of healing.

John Pullen led a group in 1884 from First Baptist Church to start the third Raleigh Baptist congregation in a poor part of town. The privileged came alongside the underprivileged. At Pullen’s death 27 years later the front page article in the N&O read: “The poor of Raleigh were never so poor as they are today.” . . . Hmmn

Five days later, Fayettetville Street Baptist Church renamed itself Pullen Memorial Baptist Church. Do you know of a congregation named in memory of a lay person? . . . Hmmn.

In my first conversation with Jack McKinney when he was considering the call to become pastor, he said: “Mahan, as I read over the materials about the church, I see two contradictory convictions: they see themselves as a lay-led church; yet they want a pastoral leader who will stand up for what he sees and believes. Which is true?” “Both are true,” I responded. And now I see even more clearly that, through the years, strong leaders, lay and clergy together, are the DNA of this congregation.

What kind of hope were we figuring out to live in and live from?

Then the move to Cameron Park in 1923. Why? To position the life of the church alongside academia with institutions of higher learning blossoming in the area. . . Hmmn.

Women in leadership: Bess Mitchener and other Suffragettes in the movement for women’s voting rights; women deacons first in 1927; later ordaining and calling women clergy; adoption of inclusive language in worship; co-pastors, male and female. Each step not without conflict and cost and celebration. . . . Hmmn.

What kind of hope were we figuring out to live in and live from?

Pullen membership. All those defining struggles about who is in and who is out, who is welcomed and embraced? Yes – to welcoming those not baptized by immersion who come from non-Baptist traditions. Well, first it was yes as associate members, then full membership at the near cost of our relationship with North Carolina Baptists. Yes – to welcoming those without distinction of race. Well, first it was no and no again until finally yes after McNeill Poteat’s untimely death, perhaps a final gift to his passion for racial justice. Yes – to welcoming fully gay and lesbian persons at the cost of all Southern Baptist ties at every level along with the loss of cherished members. The witness and pain still reverberates. . . .  Hmmn.

What kind of hope were we figuring out to live in and live from?

Pullen’s relationship with the world. Yes – to networking with those outside our circle, being at the beginning of the N.C. Council of Churches, at the founding of the Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, at the founding of the Alliance of Baptists, the first church to offer shelter for homeless in Finlator Hall, and later Emmaus House. Yes – to management-labor collaboration and the yes of protest on behalf of Vietnamese citizens. Yes – to reconciliation through the Cross of Nails community and with Martin Street Baptist Church and with like-spirited Baptists at Matanzas, Cuba. . . .  Hmmn.

Pullen’s body, this building. Dedicated in 1950 with esteemed guest preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick saying, “Only the church’s message can save the world.” In 1952 the unconventional stained glass windows with figures that gave a broad sense of Hebrew-Christian tradition with Christ at the center. The renovation of the education space with a place for Method Day Care serving a poorer, bi-racial population.

And now, the current additions and changes we celebrate and dedicate today; additional space for relationships around learning, around tables of fellowship, and around flexible ways to worship, an environmentally sensitive green building at the additional cost of around $100,000; and a separate ministry, the Hope Center, entirely committed to our community. There’s that word “hope”.  Hmmn.

And through it all, we have been learning how to make decisions, not just what to decide. We have been attending to process, not only content, processes invariably difficult and time-consuming because of the value placed on listening . . . listening to differing opinions . . . listening for common threads not seen before . . . and in it all, listening for our shape of faithfulness to God’s vision of justice-love.

So all along what kind of hope were we figuring out to live for and live under?

I think it is about power. We have been hoping for and trying to embody another kind of power — power with, not power over. Did you hear that in my litany of Pullen history? “Coming alongside,” “networking,” “welcoming,” “listening,” ” relationships of mutuality,” “connecting with the dis-connected,” “reconciliation.” We have made a difference for 125 years because we bear witness to a different kind of relational power.

But note: this is an alternative story, a minor narrative in human history. The primary story in human evolution has been this: you hope for power over others and over creation.. If you can dominate, win, be on top, then you will be secure and happy. Violence saves. Coercive power solves problems. Forcing your will is the way to freedom. I don’t need, nor do I have time, to pile up illustrations of this primary story that threads our human evolution

All along, at our better moments, we have been tuning into another story. It is there in the Jewish vision of being priests to the nations, in the prophets’ dream of lions lying down with lambs in a peaceful kingdom where war is not studied anymore, and specifically in Micah’s words, as close to a Pullen creed as we have: “What does the Lord require of you? Doing justice, loving mercy and walking with God humbly.” (Micah 6:8) Yes, walking with humility, not pride, because throughout our history we, especially the leaders, often felt like stumbling, bungling pilgrims not knowing for sure where we were headed. We kept falling short of our intentions. But we kept walking, “with God,” we hoped.

Then this story of redefining power gets crystal clear in Jesus. We keep watching him challenge all the “power over” arrangements of his day between men and women, adults and children, righteous and sinner, priest and peasant, friends and enemies, rich and poor, humans and the lilies of the field, Gentile and Jew, Jew and Samaritan.

The disciples didn’t get it. In their competitive drive for greatness, Jesus once again gathers them together. First, he reminds them of the prevailing pattern of history – greatness as some “lording” over others, that is, dominating power. In contrast, he says, “No, let this way not be yours.” Greatness is self-giving, serving and being served – in other words, power with. This reframing of power by word and deed, we know, cost him. It cost him his life. But his death could not contain the divine Spirit of shalom that blows to his day inspiring conversion of relationships marked by domination to relationships where the less powerful, the different “other” becomes partner and friend.

That’s the trend I detect in our history, sometimes clearly, sometime wistfully. At our better moments did we not hope for a different kind of power? Over and over again we reached out to each other and to the different “others” often beyond our comfort zone, saying, “Free me from my prideful sense of prejudice and privilege. Let’s exchange gifts. Let’s learn from each other. Let’s give body to the spirit, the mind of Christ. Let’s collaborate in co-creating justice-love in other places.” This is the hope we have figured out together.