12/19/21 “Love’s Unlikely Path” by Nancy E. Petty
Micah 5:2-5a
Luke 1:39-55
As of this month of this year, the current world population is 7.9 billion according to the most recent United Nations estimates. The current population of the United States of America is 333,823,623 as of Thursday, December 16, 2021. With a projected population of 10.7 million, North Carolina is now the 9th most populous state in the U.S. Wake County estimated population is 1,152,740 with a growth rate of 1.81% in the past year according to the most recent United States census data. And the membership of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church hovers around 625.
The world’s primary religions fall into two categories: Abrahamic religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; and Indian religions, which include Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and others. Hinduism has approximately 1.35 billion followers worldwide. It is believed that as many as 535 million people around the world practice Buddhism, which would represent between 8-10% of the world’s total population. On the eve of the Jewish new year 5782, the number of Jews worldwide stands at approximately 15.2 million. And overall, there are about 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide and 2.3 billion Christians.
Both in terms of population and religious adherents, these are overwhelming numbers. There are a lot of people in this world, approximately 7.9 billion. Of those, four billion one hundred fifteen million two hundred thousand claim to be followers of one of the three Abrahamic religions.
Why is this significant, and what does it have to do with this fourth Sunday of Advent when we focus on Love? Stay with me here. Listen again to the prophet Micah: “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” And listen again to Mary’s words as recorded in Luke’s gospel: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of this servant…God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; and filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
When I think about how the one who is to rule in Israel comes from “one of the little clans of Judah”; and when I hear Mary sing her song of how God has looked with favor on the lowliness of servants and lifted up the lowly, I think about Love’s unlikely path in this world. Love—God—didn’t come to us from the biggest or the most powerful. Love came to us in “one of the little clans” and in the “lowliness of servants.” Love—God—didn’t come to us through a powerful king or ruler sitting in a palace surrounded by marble and gold. Love—God—came to us in the vulnerability of a baby born among the animals in a barn. Love—God—didn’t come to us in the form of a traditional family but rather by the willingness and courage of an unwed couple fleeing their country. Think about it. Love’s unlikely path.
In a world of 7.9 billion people and the over 4 billion people of the Abrahamic faith, I wonder this morning about that unlikely path. How is love—God—coming in our world today? What little clan, what lowliness of servants is birthing love today? Is God coming to the world through the masses that make up the religions of the world? Is God coming into the world today through the mega churches and the TV evangelists and the prosperity gospel preachers whose salaries rank in the millions along with their followers? In a world obsessed with the biggest and most powerful, is that were we will find Love, God? Or, is it time that we start looking for Love—for God—along the edges of society where the little clans reside and in the shelters and streets where the lowly make their beds?
My question is meant to be provocative more than a theological statement of belief. I’m not trying to suggest that the Christ figures of our religions are not found in our faith narratives or in big powerful places. In fact, I believe that there is always the possibility for the incarnate God to show up wherever space is made for Love to exist. And yet, it strikes me that our faith narrative, the Christian story, charts an unlikely path for Love entering our world in the flesh.
This thinking has raised for me the question: Is our little clan of 625 members here at Pullen Church one of those unlikely paths? Have we been one of those unlikely paths in the past? Are we being one of the unlikely paths today? And furthermore, what will it require of us to stay on Love’s unlikely path for the future?
I can’t help but think of our founder and namesake, John T. Pullen, and his commitment to traveling Love’s unlikely path. You know the story. His path didn’t start out in an unlikely place. Raised in the First Baptist Church of Raleigh, his path began among the big and the powerful. A layman and banker, his professional life was also among the big and the powerful. But as an adult, his faith and his heart lead him down another path—one less traveled. While his upbringing set him out on a likely path where elites gathered, his heart lead him to pool halls and dark alleys and poor neighborhoods where the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed huddled. He convinced his home church to let him start a mission church—a church that at least in his mind would gather in those on the edges and proclaim to them God’s radical love for them. He believed in this love so strongly that when he built the third Baptist Church of Raleigh, to be named the Fayetteville Street Baptist Church, he had designed in the tiles of the roof the message: God is Love. His unlikely path beat a path paved with such compassion that when he died on May 2, 1913 the News and Observer eulogized him writing: “The poor of Raleigh were never so poor as they are today. John Pullen is dead. The hand that was ever ready to help them in their helplessness, the voice that soothed them in their distress, the heart that beat with them in their sorrows—they are still; and those that knew him shall know him no more forever. There hath passed a glory from the earth.” Love’s Unlikely Path!
Since 1884, for 137 years, the lay people and ministers of Pullen have traveled love’s unlikely path that John Pullen cut for us. That path has not always been smooth. There have been bumps and roadblocks and sharp turns. There have been disagreements about the direction the path should take at critical intersections. But I truly believe, for Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Love has been its GPS—a radical love that seeks to put individuals over the institution, purpose over power, grace over greed, and authentic faith over artificial belief. The path we have sought to follow, not always successfully, but faithfully has been to seek justice and compassion for those whom the church and religion have rejected. It has been the desire of the lay people and the ministers to discern how we are being called to be Love—God’s justice love—in our world today. Our framework has been the Christian narrative, AND we have sought the wisdom and relationship of other faiths and other traditions believing that ultimately Love—the word made flesh—is revealed through many faiths and traditions.
In the big picture, we are one little clan. The question that Micah and Mary is asking us here at Pullen on this 4th Sunday of Advent is this: Will our small clan of 625 be one of the little clans of North Carolina, of the United States, of the world to prioritize birthing a radical Love in this age of division and violence and suffering and hate. Will we stay on Love’s unlikely path and accept the risks that are inevitable when following that love?
The incarnation of God’s love coming into the world is a story about love’s unlikely path—a path that originates with the little ones and the lowly servants. Is the future of that path dependent on Christianity or Judaism or Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism or any other religion that claims billions of followers? Not likely. Is it dependent on churches and synagogues and mosques and temples and mega faith centers that take in millions of dollars a year to promote their brand of love, which more times than not is a radically exclusive love? Not likely. Is the future of Love—God’s Love in the flesh—dependent on the 7.9 billion people in the world turning toward a universal LOVE that has the possibility to transform greed into grace, callousness into compassion, suffering into comfort, judgment into mercy, and division into unity? Yes. Yes. Yes. It will take all 7.9 little clans and lowly servants turning toward a justice love to save humanity and all of creation. AND, the story of our faith is that such a movement starts with one little clan and one lowly servant.
The Christmas story is not about a child being born to establish a religion that would have 2.3 billion followers. The Christmas story is about Love’s unlikely path being forged by a universal Christ that transcends all religions in every corner of the globe. This Christ figure, this prophet, this Buddha, this wisdom figure will always be calling us all to follow an unlikely path—a path whose only destination is Love. May our little clan of 625 here on the corner of Hillsborough St and Cox Ave, in Wake County, in North Carolina, in the United States of America, in the world continue to have the courage to hear the call and to walk Love’s unlikely path.
