2/27/22 “Our Pullen Text Read Backwards” by Mahan Siler
This sermon is like a piece of burning wood taken from the fire. The “fire” is the context — a congregation celebrating the 30th anniversary of its full bodied welcome of LGBTq+ persons (current language) and same-gender unions (gay marriage).
Micah 6:8
When Nancy called a few months ago and invited me to preach today, my “yes” was immediate. I went on to tell her, “I know what I want to say.”
So let’s put it up front. This is what I want to say: We celebrate today, not individuals primarily, but a congregation. Yes, at the time, 1992, there were a few clergy officiating gay union ceremonies, but no congregation of my knowledge took up the challenge of discerning whether or not to add this ritual to their ministry. We did. Pullen did. Members who gasped at the very word “homosexual” rose to the challenge of listening, reading, learning and deciding in the midst of a firestorm of local reactivity along with the anger, fear and finally rejection from our larger Baptist network. In 1992 we knew of no other congregation exploring this controversial possibility. There was no one to learn from. We were alone, often feeling alone. We activated our Baptist polity, claiming the freedom as a congregation to discern, as best as we could, what the Spirit of justice-love would have us do. We celebrate today the courage, love and faith of a congregation and a lay-led open, fair process.This is a congregational story we are lifting up today. This congregational story is lifting us today.
This is our thank-offering we offer up to God in worship this morning.
Now, the sermon.
The text today is the text or mission statement of Pullen through at least seven decades: Micah 6:8, “What does God require of you? To do justice, show mercy and walk humbly with God.” To challenge it’s familiarity, let's experience this text backwards this morning: God . . . walking with humility . . . mercy . . . and doing justice.
We start with God.
My first pastoral visit as Pullen’s new minister was to parents challenged by the behavior of their adolescent son. After our conversation, I said, “Would it be okay if I gathered some of these concerns into prayer?” “Well,” one parent responded, “that depends how you are going to pray!” So, a bit taken back, I explained what I had in mind. Then I was granted permission, “Okay then.”
Driving home that night I reflected on this visit. This couple was reacting to some abusive use of prayer, likely with a pastor. Their “no” was clear. They had long rejected a fix-it God up there, out there, who intervenes from time to time when asked nicely.
In some sense that pastoral visit set the course of my ministry with you. I knew I would be a willing companion among a people of seekers who were asking the big questions: Who is God? Where is God? If there is a God, what is God about? And how about Jesus? Where does he fit in? And the Spirit? What do we mean by the sacred Spirit active in the world?
So, as we reflect on those months thirty years ago, let’s ask, “Was God in this process? Was this a Jesus thing? Was this a movement of the Spirit in our amazing history?”
You know I cannot answer these questions this morning or any morning, in fact.This Mystery of love and life defies any exact naming. But while we maintain the Hebrew caution of naming the Sacred precisely, we cannot just stop with Mystery. We have to say something about this experience of the Sacred. We must reach for metaphors and stories, as Jesus did.
Here is a story I live by. Some years ago Kristi Tippett, in her program On Being, was interviewing John Lewis, known to us as a beloved prophetic leader of past decades. They were reviewing the massacre on Edmund-Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on what’s called “Bloody Sunday.” Lewis was one of the first to be beaten unconscious. She asked John Lewis, “With the police threatening your very life, how could you love them?” How could you love them? “Oh, you need to understand,” he said. “The Love was already there, I just joined it.”
His words sound like Jesus to me. Jesus kept saying, “Don’t look for the reign or presence of God out there but look within and between us. He kept telling stories about the nature of this reality of God. “It's like a father with two sons.. . . “It’s like the joy of a woman finding a lost coin”. . ..” “It’s like a hated Samaritan stopping to help a robbed and injured Jew.” Jesus said, as did Lewis “This radical love even of the enemy is present. We get to join it, participate in this unconditional love, partner with this Spirit, yield to this force, align with it’s healing power. It’s like lifting our sails to catch the Wind. We don’t will this love or generate it. We connect and surrender to this energy.
If I had the chance to sit down with everyone present in those events thirty years ago, I would ask: “Were we, at any point, joining a Love active in our discerning? Were there moments when it felt like participating in a force that we might call Spirit or God? Were there times when you sensed a strength of something more than your energy, something larger than yourself?
I did. Not often, but occasionally . . . and enough. I’ll mention one of mine.
After weeks of small discussion groups that were offered at every time of day and night, we came together in a congregational meeting to gauge where we were in the process. For me the unexpected happened. At the beginning of the meeting the voices against the ritual were strong and persuasive. Then, I experienced a shift. A few things I remember. Miriam Pritchard, an elder among us, framed the discussion with the question, “What would Jesus do?” Parents began to speak for a church of radical acceptance, the atmosphere they wanted for their children. At great risk, including employment, some gay men and lesbians “came out of their closets” during that meeting. The trust, the vulnerability, the risking, the yearning kept deepening. I left that meeting saying to a friend, “If I never experience it again, I will be content. I experienced It — the Spirit — this afternoon.”
I’m assuming that those of you who were a part of that process also felt, at times, this Something More in your hearts from the conversations and in the silence and in the worship.
We walked together in that season, and, at times, we didn’t walk together. But as we walk together today rehearsing this experience, now thirty years later, let’s“ walk humbly with God” — the next portion of our text living it backwards.
Let’s walk humbly, my friends,.today. I am tempted, perhaps you as well, to feel how unique we are. Aren’t we proud of ourselves with this history? And we should. But we move into dangerous territory when we feel special today. Looking back, it can all look so neat. We humans typically celebrate only a cleaned up history. Let’s not do this today.
I remind us, along with those of you here at that time, this was a messy process we are celebrating. More than that, we hurt people. People were hurt. The process, remarkably open and well led, was nevertheless flawed. At one point it seemed we were a train that had jumped its tracks. Or, another metaphor: it was as if we had backed into a whirlwind. For months we were almost daily on the editorial page, “letters” equally for and against. Hundreds of letters came in from around the nation condemning even raising the possibility of a gay union. We became the poster child for the conservative wing of Southern Baptists, announcing this is what happens to liberal churches. We even helped to spark a separate Southern Baptist amendment on the exclusion of churches who welcome such decadent persons.
Of course, there are questions: Should we have taken more time? Were we too pushed to respond to this request for a ritual? Should the couple, Stephen and Kevin, have been more established and known in the congregation? Should we have sought options to voting? Should I have waited for a lesbian couple to be first? Questions. Questions. Monday morning quarterbacking “what ifs?” This was not a perfect process.
But the most humbling, painful part were members who left the church, an estimated 20% of the active members. We splintered. We did not split, though splitting was my greatest fear. A few left saying, “This has been a fair process. You have decided and so have we.” Others, many long time devoted members, including the architect of this beautiful sanctuary, members whose children were formed in this church, said, as they left,”You, and you all, have taken from me my church? Some who left became strong members of other congregations. Some did not.
When a family splits or splinters, oh, the pain. Oh, the pain. Oh, the pain. We are a family that divided. Some of the hurt has never healed. Some relationships remain broken. We are humbled by it all. Today, we walk humbly. Today we walk humbly with God and with each other.
But there’s mercy! Thank God, here comes mercy in our backward journey through this Micah text of Pullen. Show mercy. Receive mercy.
Mercy is a powerful word. A word difficult to define. But just to say it gives strength. Mercy. Mercy interrupts the cycle of judgment and retaliation and blame and shame. Mercy is a rich word. Mercy is unearned, undeserved grace. It’s a feeling word. Let’s feel it in our bones today.
I worship with a congregation called the Circle of Mercy. I’ve told the founders many times, “The best thing about this church is the name. We circle up weekly around the gift of Mercy. It’s the first word; it’s the last word.
It’s the first word. Knowing Mercy up front, at the beginning, emboldens us to risk doing justice. Mercy declares your risk-taking doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, It won’t be perfect. Mercy says, “It’s okay, you will stumble but I’m a force that will keep you going and grant you freedom from endless judgment of self or others. It’s good news. In the end we will know mercy. Mercy will know us.
There is danger in these words. I’m not declaring cheap grace, as in, whatever I do it will be forgiven, I will be granted mercy.
Nevertheless, it’s a word to digest, a healing word, a full-of grace- word. Let’s grant and experience mercy on all levels . . .
The couple Kevin and Stephen who divorced and we lost track of — Mercy.
The lay leaders, the staff and Pullen members that embraced this imperfect process — Mercy.
the Pullen members who chose to leave — Mercy.
Mercy on us all. Mercy in us all.
And then, in our backward walk through this text, there’s “justice,” as in “do justice.”
Through the years at Pullen certain words are always ringing in our ears, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24) or the words of Isaiah quoted by Jesus at his inaugural message “The Spirit of God is upon me to bring good news to the poor, release the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and proclaim liberation to the oppressed” (Luke 4:18) or the words, “Seek first God and God’s righteousness.” (Matthew 6:33).
Perhaps, like people, churches have distinctive gifts to offer the world. The charism, the call, the summoning of Pullen through the years has been to feel and embody God’s passion for justice, seek right relationships, pursue equity, cross boundaries of difference as Jesus did, to embody “justice-love,” (your current favorite phrase.)
Thirty years ago we were not engaging the issue of homosexuality or the issue of same-gender union (gay marriage). No, we were engaging the question — how will we be in relationship with those who iby nature are different in their sexually. It’s about relationships because God is relational.
In 1992, many persons, some of you here today, felt you had to choose between two core identities: either you could be Christian with church as a watering hole while denying your sexuality; or you be open as a queer person and forfeit being welcomed in a congregation..
Yet — and this is often forgotten with all the focus on the same-gender union — thirty years ago this congregational declared by a 94% vote that all “gay men and lesbians” (the language then) are fully welcomed and affirmed in our congregation. That’s amazing in 1992. And most of us, 64%, affirmed a broader understanding of marriage to include same-gender unions.
Why? How did that happen? Because, I believe, these decisions were in line with the best of our past, that is, our sense of calling to join God in doing justice. In a time when gay bars were the gathering place for relationships Pullen offered another option. To bless these relationships — both in membership and ritual — seemed the perfect place for the church to take its stand. The stand was for covenant love, for relationships rooted and grounded in promises made and promises kept.
Today, joining God’s justice-love seems more complicated. As others are naming, we live in an apocalyptic time, that is, a time of unveiling. The global COVID pandemic, global warming, our systems of white domination, our democracy in question, our colonizing history, the global movement toward totalitarian leadership are all pulling back the curtain for us to see more clearly the inequity and oppression and suffering and collapse.
But also unveiled are examples, including churches like Pullen, who are trying to discern the break-throughs in the break-downs. There are leaders, lay and clergy, who offer being both hospice workers and midwives, that is, a presence in what must die and be released and a presence in what is trying to be born. 2022 is a very different time than 1992, a more confusing and unknowing time,
But the call remains the same — discerning and joining the God movement of justice-love.
When I began as your pastor in 1983 a friend, Bob Dale, gave me this counsel: “Mahan, your challenge at Pullen will be how to lead from the past.” A wisdom I absorbed.
In my judgment this awareness made the difference between us splitting or splintering thirty years ago. Enough members, in response to the fears of losing members and losing money, reminded us, “We lost members and money when we elected women deacons many decades ago or when we integrated or when Bill Finlator was holding forth against the Vietnam War. We emerged even stronger.”
You are the current stewards of this past to lead from.
Today we celebrate the actions of thirty years ago. But see them as just another colorful bead on the string that goes back through our 136 years. There were colorful beads before the actions thirty years ago; there have been colorful beads since. And there are more beads to come.
You know the text, the thread, the calling: In all the changes and uncertainties this summons remains. Don’t let go of the thread.
May you know it forward: “What does God require of you? Do justice . . . show mercy . . .and walk humbly with God.”
May you know it backwards: With God, walk humbly, knowing mercy and doing justice.”
May it be so, Pullen. So let it be.
