Call To Worship
Sermon
Where Once We Feared Enemies
Inclusive Membership, Prophetic Vision, And The American Church
Twice a year, on Visitors' Sunday and on Oak-hurst's anniversary, Stroupe takes the opportunity to retell a bit of the Oakhurst story in the context of a biblical passage. The following reflection upon Mary's encounter with the risen Jesus, and how that story continues to shape and give meaning to the story of Oakhurst, was given on just such an occasion. It is an opportunity for visitors and members alike to walk again the rich narrative ground from which the recurring themes of Stroupe's homiletic voice have grown and from which they continue to receive nourishment. These themes serve as the headings for the various groupings of sermons collected here. As the frontispiece of this collection, this sermon about Mary's, and Oakhurst's, encounter with the risen Jesus amidst the power of death offers the reader a glimpse of the local context in which all of these sermons are given and heard.
Walking Through The Graveyard
John 20:1-18
Visitors' Sunday, May 16, 1999
This is the last Sunday of Eastertide. Next Sunday is Pentecost, when we celebrate the birth of the church. Jesus didn't rise from the dead just so individuals could be saved but rather to build a community of believers who serve God and who serve the world. The church is called to be this community. We will celebrate that gift and call next Sunday Pentecost. Today we will finish out Eastertide with one more encounter with the Resurrection, the account of Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb but not being able to recognize the risen Jesus.
Mary Magdalene is important in the history of the church and in the life and ministry of Jesus. Luke's Gospel tells us that Jesus healed Mary of seven demons. In gratitude and response, Mary Magdalene follows Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem and joins in a group of women who provide money for the ministry of Jesus. According to Luke, it's not the men who are putting up the money to support Jesus. It's the women. The church hasn't changed much in that regard. It's women who support the church.
Mary Magdalene is the only person mentioned in all four gospel accounts of the Resurrection. In the midst of all the conflicting details about what went on where and who saw what, Mary Magdalene's presence at the tomb is the only constant in all four of the gospels. There are a lot of books about Jesus that did not make it into the Bible, and Mary Magdalene figures prominently in some of these. In one she is a rival to Peter in leadership; it's not clear who is the most important. In another book, she is the central figure who replaces Jesus in the circle of disciples. In yet another, which was made popular in Jesus Christ, Superstar, she is the lover of Jesus. Whatever the interpretation, Mary Magdalene was clearly a powerful force in the life of Jesus and in the life of the early church.
Given this background, why in the world doesn't Mary recognize the risen Jesus when she sees him at the tomb? Why is it that she can't see who he is? She can't recognize him when she sees him, and she doesn't recognize him when she hears him. She thinks that he is the groundskeeper for the cemetery. Doesn't it seem unbelievable that she doesn't recognize him? It does to me. I believe that I would recognize the risen Jesus if he was standing before me. It is unbelievable that Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize him. What's going on?
This is what's going on: the power of death. The power of death prevents Mary Magdalene and the other disciples from recognizing the risen Jesus. It's the same power of death that prevents disciples in every age from recognizing the risen Jesus. The biblical witness wants to make it clear -- to disciples in every generation -- that the first disciples of Jesus, that first generation of women and men who followed Jesus, had a very difficult time recognizing the risen Jesus. The biblical witness emphasizes that it's not just Mary Magdalene who has a difficult time. Cleopas and another disciple walk with the risen Jesus for seven miles on the road to Emmaus, but they do not recognize him. Peter doesn't recognize him when Jesus is fixing breakfast for him. Thomas won't believe any of it until he puts his hands right into the wounds. Others also fail to recognize him. They simply do not believe that Jesus is risen from the dead.
The Bible is realistic about what it means to be a human being and about the power of death in our lives. Death shuts down our hearts, blunts our vision, and closes our ears to God's voice. Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize the risen Jesus because she is held in the grip of death. She sees no possibilities for life. After all, she is not going to the hospital to visit a sick Jesus, praying for him to live. She is going to a graveyard to anoint a dead body. As Mary comes to the graveyard, she knows how it works. Jesus is dead. The Jesus movement that had inspired her so much is over. Mary comes to the tomb of Jesus out of loyalty to him, to be sure, but it is his dead body that she is coming to anoint. She is not looking for a risen Lord.
When she sees that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, she does not think, "Hallelujah! Jesus is risen from the dead!" She is unable to imagine that possibility. Rather, she thinks that someone has stolen the body. She goes to get some of the male disciples to help her find the body. She is held in the icy grip of death. Her senses, her imagination, her heart are all captured by death. Even when the risen Jesus stands in front of her, she does not recognize him, so strong is the grip of death.
This biblical story wants us to consider the power of death in our lives, also. Most of the time we don't recognize the risen Jesus in our midst. This story asks us to think about the deals that we make with death, about how we accept the world's definitions of ourselves and of all of life. This is how it works: If there are homeless people in the United States, it must be because they are lazy or drug addicts. That's why they are homeless. That's the world's definition of this situation, the definition that's rooted in death. If there are poor people in the United States, it's because they don't want to work. Those are the definitions of death. Why go and demonstrate against Grady Hospital's raising prescription prices for the poor?1 You can't do anything about it. And, even if Grady gets more county funding, the county will simply take that money from another part of the budget that serves the poor. So, don't try to do anything. Just let death have its dominion. That's how death works in our lives. It asks us to dismiss the story of the risen Jesus in our midst. And, it often works. We do indeed fail to recognize the risen Jesus in our midst.
This story reminds us of our own encounter with the resurrection of Jesus. It's a nice story. It's wonderful to come to church and celebrate Easter. It's a comforting thought, and we hope that it says something about life after death. But, what does it have to do with the real world, the world in which we are living right now? What does it have to do with the bombs falling in Kosovo at this moment? What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the ethnic cleansing in Serbia? What does it have to do with teenagers killing their peers in Colorado and both Cobb County and Cherokee County in Georgia?2 What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the fact that it seems rich people are always getting their way in this country? What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the prescription prices being raised at Grady Hospital? What does it have to do with the budget cuts for human services in Fulton County? What does the resurrection have to do with men dominating women? What does it have to do with a pace of life so frenetic and so frantic that we can hardly catch our breath? What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with that sense of emptiness and hunger that we sometimes allow ourselves to glimpse in our own lives? What does the resurrection have to do with these things in the world where we live?
The biblical witness tells us that the resurrection of Jesus has everything to do with this kind of world. Indeed, it is in this kind of world that Jesus was born, had his ministry, upset folk, was executed as a revolutionary, and was raised from the dead. It is in this kind of world, the world in which we live, the world that we know, that the risen Jesus now moves and lives. Not in a perfect world where everyone is nice and loving and wonderful, but in a world gripped by death. The biblical witness asks us to look for Jesus in a world where everything is not wonderful, in a world where we have trouble recognizing the risen Jesus: "if we could just see you, Jesus!" This story tells us that the risen Jesus often stands in front of us, but death is so powerful and pervasive that we cannot recognize him.
The biblical witness is nothing if it is not realistic about the world and about who we are. It presents a realistic view of the world and of the first disciples, and it notes the continuing power of death in their lives, and in ours. It seems grim on that level because it wants disciples in every age to take seriously a promise that it proclaims, a promise that is real and true in our world, this day, this moment. That promise is the other experience that Mary Magdalene had in that graveyard on that first Easter morning. Surrounded by death, gripped by death, she could not recognize the risen Jesus. And yet, she is given life. She's offered new life. The scales fall from her eyes and her heart, and she recognizes the risen Jesus.
When Jesus saw that she did not recognize him, he didn't scold her. "Mary, don't you know anything? Don't you remember what I said? Don't you know who I am? Can't you be faithful for just one moment?" Rather, he calls her name, "Mary." Her eyes and her ears and her heart are opened! She sees and hears that the risen Jesus is loving her and calling her, not when she's got all the answers, not when she's perfect, but when she's struggling, when she's gripped by death and sees no possibilities. And then, Mary Magdalene does recognize him, and she comes alive! She touches that passion again, that passion that Jesus had awakened in her when he healed her. She runs to hug him, and she runs to tell the other disciples, "I have seen the Lord!" She shares the great news, but many of the other disciples don't believe it. Luke's Gospel tells us that the men dismiss the witness of the women -- they are just hysterical women who can't deal with the realities of life and death. But the men, too, will come to believe.
The biblical witness wants us to understand that this kind of possibility is in the world now, that the risen Jesus is not just something that happened 2,000 years ago on Easter morning. The risen Jesus is in our midst now, loving us and calling us. Not when we're perfect, not when we get our lives together, but when we're struggling; when we, too, are gripped by death and don't see any possibilities for life. The biblical witness tells us that we have the opportunity to experience what Mary Magdalene experienced in that graveyard. To hear our names called, to hear that we are somebody, to hear that we matter in a crazy and impersonal world. To hear that we have the opportunity to come alive like Mary, to touch our passion and to hear that we are children of God. To hear that our primary definition is not our bank account or our Social Security number, not the size of our home, not our racial classification, not our gender, not our sexual orientation, not our nationality, not any of those categories that the power of death tries to tell us are ultimate. Rather our primary definition is what Mary Magdalene heard in that graveyard when Jesus called her name, "Mary," daughter of God, defined by the love of God that she knew in Jesus Christ. This is the same Jesus who calls our names as daughters and sons of God.
Walking through the graveyard, that's what Mary was doing, looking for death, expecting death. This church has known that journey through the graveyard, that struggle with the power of death. We used to be all of one kind. We had almost 900 white members in the early 1960s. Then black folk began to move into the neighborhood, and many white folk in this church discovered that they believed more in the power of race than they believed in the power of the gospel. Many of the white folk fled from this neighborhood, and this church. Over a twenty-year period, this church's membership dropped from 900 to eighty. It was a time of depression here, knowing the power of death. It was a time of looking at the death of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.
Yet, some white folks stayed here because they heard their names called. They began to hear a new definition of themselves. They stayed and began to come alive, to come out of the tomb of racism where the power of death rules. They began to come alive, to hear that racial classification is not the final word. They began to live out of a new definition. And some black folks came here, recognizing the need to build a community of faith that welcomed all people, a community that began to rejoice in diversity rather than seeing it as a problem.
So here we are. We have survived. We are beginning to thrive. We've had to confront many categories of the world in our journey together. We thought that affirming diversity meant only welcoming people of different colors, but we've learned that it means welcoming women as equal partners with men. We've learned that it means trying to put people who are poor with people who are comfortable. We've learned that it means putting people with Ph.D.s with people who cannot read. We've learned that it means coming together with people whom we thought were strange and maybe even our enemies -- straight folk with gay and lesbian folk. We've had many struggles here as we've sought to come alive, and we continue to have struggles. But, we are coming alive here. We are finding hope and possibility and courage here, that we can be witnesses in a crazy world. We're hearing our names called, and like Mary, we are beginning to recognize the risen Jesus in our midst.
We're not quite perfect here. (You don't have to laugh so loudly about that, and I don't need that many "Amen" choruses from you!) We are not perfect here. We make many mistakes. We disappoint one another, and we hurt one another. We anger one another. And yet, we believe that this journey is what the biblical witness is about. Being able to hear those kinds of feelings and emotions, being able to challenge and confront one another, and being able to go to a deeper level with one another in order to grow in the faith. We are discovering that black folk and white folk can listen to one another, that we can cross the great racial divide that is so pervasive in our culture. We are discovering that we need one another here, in all our diversity; that we need gay and lesbian folk to tell us straight folk what life is like; that we need poor folk to tell us comfortable folk what life is like.
This is a difficult and, at times, disturbing journey. That's often the way that God works in our lives. It might have been that a white person came up and shook your hand this morning. Or, it may be that a black person came up and hugged you. It might be our emphasis that women are equal partners here. It might be that we emphasize that gay and lesbian folk are called to be leaders here. Or, it might be that you feel uncomfortable as folks lift up our vulnerabilities when we share concerns and joys for prayers. There are all kinds of places where we find some disturbing things here. We don't do them to be disturbing, but we know that the categories by which death grips us do not give up easily. We need to practice life together in all our diversity, and that practice is sometimes disturbing.
It is a struggle here, but it is also life-giving here. We find life here because we are enabled to go deeper into ourselves and touch that passion that calls out to God, to find our true definition as children of God. We are not finally defined by our bank account or gender or sexual orientation or racial classification. We are defined as daughters and sons of God. We find life here because we are empowered to reach out to others to discover not the enemies we feared but the brothers and sisters for whom our hearts long.
That is what brings me back here. That's what brings most of us back here -- the power of gospel, the life-giving power of the risen Jesus. It is the power that enables us to come alive in a world where death tells us to give up and give in. It's the power that enables us to see God in places where no one believes that God can be. It enables us to reach out and touch those whom the world tells us are enemies and instead find friends. It is the power that enables us to come alive in the graveyards of our lives. It's the power that speaks to us and calls our names. It's the power that helps us to recognize our true calling. Our true calling is not to be consumers. It is not to be racists. It is not to be sexists. It is not to be dominators. It is to be brothers and sisters in a community of faith that upholds one another and that seeks justice. That is our true calling, and that is the power that fills us up and goes down into us and sends us out into the world, proclaiming as Mary did, "I have seen the Lord!" Amen? Amen.
____________
1.�In 1892, Grady Memorial Hospital was chartered to provide health care for the poor and the sick of Atlanta, Georgia. On March 15, 1999, Grady implemented a policy that would require even the most poor to pay for clinic visits and to pay a minimum of $10 co-payment for each of their prescriptions and medical supplies. In response to this move, the Grady Coalition arose to protest this action. Oakhurst Church was part of this Coalition.
2.�This refers to teenagers killing other teenagers at Columbine High School in Colorado and in two counties in the north metropolitan Atlanta area.
Walking Through The Graveyard
John 20:1-18
Visitors' Sunday, May 16, 1999
This is the last Sunday of Eastertide. Next Sunday is Pentecost, when we celebrate the birth of the church. Jesus didn't rise from the dead just so individuals could be saved but rather to build a community of believers who serve God and who serve the world. The church is called to be this community. We will celebrate that gift and call next Sunday Pentecost. Today we will finish out Eastertide with one more encounter with the Resurrection, the account of Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb but not being able to recognize the risen Jesus.
Mary Magdalene is important in the history of the church and in the life and ministry of Jesus. Luke's Gospel tells us that Jesus healed Mary of seven demons. In gratitude and response, Mary Magdalene follows Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem and joins in a group of women who provide money for the ministry of Jesus. According to Luke, it's not the men who are putting up the money to support Jesus. It's the women. The church hasn't changed much in that regard. It's women who support the church.
Mary Magdalene is the only person mentioned in all four gospel accounts of the Resurrection. In the midst of all the conflicting details about what went on where and who saw what, Mary Magdalene's presence at the tomb is the only constant in all four of the gospels. There are a lot of books about Jesus that did not make it into the Bible, and Mary Magdalene figures prominently in some of these. In one she is a rival to Peter in leadership; it's not clear who is the most important. In another book, she is the central figure who replaces Jesus in the circle of disciples. In yet another, which was made popular in Jesus Christ, Superstar, she is the lover of Jesus. Whatever the interpretation, Mary Magdalene was clearly a powerful force in the life of Jesus and in the life of the early church.
Given this background, why in the world doesn't Mary recognize the risen Jesus when she sees him at the tomb? Why is it that she can't see who he is? She can't recognize him when she sees him, and she doesn't recognize him when she hears him. She thinks that he is the groundskeeper for the cemetery. Doesn't it seem unbelievable that she doesn't recognize him? It does to me. I believe that I would recognize the risen Jesus if he was standing before me. It is unbelievable that Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize him. What's going on?
This is what's going on: the power of death. The power of death prevents Mary Magdalene and the other disciples from recognizing the risen Jesus. It's the same power of death that prevents disciples in every age from recognizing the risen Jesus. The biblical witness wants to make it clear -- to disciples in every generation -- that the first disciples of Jesus, that first generation of women and men who followed Jesus, had a very difficult time recognizing the risen Jesus. The biblical witness emphasizes that it's not just Mary Magdalene who has a difficult time. Cleopas and another disciple walk with the risen Jesus for seven miles on the road to Emmaus, but they do not recognize him. Peter doesn't recognize him when Jesus is fixing breakfast for him. Thomas won't believe any of it until he puts his hands right into the wounds. Others also fail to recognize him. They simply do not believe that Jesus is risen from the dead.
The Bible is realistic about what it means to be a human being and about the power of death in our lives. Death shuts down our hearts, blunts our vision, and closes our ears to God's voice. Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize the risen Jesus because she is held in the grip of death. She sees no possibilities for life. After all, she is not going to the hospital to visit a sick Jesus, praying for him to live. She is going to a graveyard to anoint a dead body. As Mary comes to the graveyard, she knows how it works. Jesus is dead. The Jesus movement that had inspired her so much is over. Mary comes to the tomb of Jesus out of loyalty to him, to be sure, but it is his dead body that she is coming to anoint. She is not looking for a risen Lord.
When she sees that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, she does not think, "Hallelujah! Jesus is risen from the dead!" She is unable to imagine that possibility. Rather, she thinks that someone has stolen the body. She goes to get some of the male disciples to help her find the body. She is held in the icy grip of death. Her senses, her imagination, her heart are all captured by death. Even when the risen Jesus stands in front of her, she does not recognize him, so strong is the grip of death.
This biblical story wants us to consider the power of death in our lives, also. Most of the time we don't recognize the risen Jesus in our midst. This story asks us to think about the deals that we make with death, about how we accept the world's definitions of ourselves and of all of life. This is how it works: If there are homeless people in the United States, it must be because they are lazy or drug addicts. That's why they are homeless. That's the world's definition of this situation, the definition that's rooted in death. If there are poor people in the United States, it's because they don't want to work. Those are the definitions of death. Why go and demonstrate against Grady Hospital's raising prescription prices for the poor?1 You can't do anything about it. And, even if Grady gets more county funding, the county will simply take that money from another part of the budget that serves the poor. So, don't try to do anything. Just let death have its dominion. That's how death works in our lives. It asks us to dismiss the story of the risen Jesus in our midst. And, it often works. We do indeed fail to recognize the risen Jesus in our midst.
This story reminds us of our own encounter with the resurrection of Jesus. It's a nice story. It's wonderful to come to church and celebrate Easter. It's a comforting thought, and we hope that it says something about life after death. But, what does it have to do with the real world, the world in which we are living right now? What does it have to do with the bombs falling in Kosovo at this moment? What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the ethnic cleansing in Serbia? What does it have to do with teenagers killing their peers in Colorado and both Cobb County and Cherokee County in Georgia?2 What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the fact that it seems rich people are always getting their way in this country? What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the prescription prices being raised at Grady Hospital? What does it have to do with the budget cuts for human services in Fulton County? What does the resurrection have to do with men dominating women? What does it have to do with a pace of life so frenetic and so frantic that we can hardly catch our breath? What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with that sense of emptiness and hunger that we sometimes allow ourselves to glimpse in our own lives? What does the resurrection have to do with these things in the world where we live?
The biblical witness tells us that the resurrection of Jesus has everything to do with this kind of world. Indeed, it is in this kind of world that Jesus was born, had his ministry, upset folk, was executed as a revolutionary, and was raised from the dead. It is in this kind of world, the world in which we live, the world that we know, that the risen Jesus now moves and lives. Not in a perfect world where everyone is nice and loving and wonderful, but in a world gripped by death. The biblical witness asks us to look for Jesus in a world where everything is not wonderful, in a world where we have trouble recognizing the risen Jesus: "if we could just see you, Jesus!" This story tells us that the risen Jesus often stands in front of us, but death is so powerful and pervasive that we cannot recognize him.
The biblical witness is nothing if it is not realistic about the world and about who we are. It presents a realistic view of the world and of the first disciples, and it notes the continuing power of death in their lives, and in ours. It seems grim on that level because it wants disciples in every age to take seriously a promise that it proclaims, a promise that is real and true in our world, this day, this moment. That promise is the other experience that Mary Magdalene had in that graveyard on that first Easter morning. Surrounded by death, gripped by death, she could not recognize the risen Jesus. And yet, she is given life. She's offered new life. The scales fall from her eyes and her heart, and she recognizes the risen Jesus.
When Jesus saw that she did not recognize him, he didn't scold her. "Mary, don't you know anything? Don't you remember what I said? Don't you know who I am? Can't you be faithful for just one moment?" Rather, he calls her name, "Mary." Her eyes and her ears and her heart are opened! She sees and hears that the risen Jesus is loving her and calling her, not when she's got all the answers, not when she's perfect, but when she's struggling, when she's gripped by death and sees no possibilities. And then, Mary Magdalene does recognize him, and she comes alive! She touches that passion again, that passion that Jesus had awakened in her when he healed her. She runs to hug him, and she runs to tell the other disciples, "I have seen the Lord!" She shares the great news, but many of the other disciples don't believe it. Luke's Gospel tells us that the men dismiss the witness of the women -- they are just hysterical women who can't deal with the realities of life and death. But the men, too, will come to believe.
The biblical witness wants us to understand that this kind of possibility is in the world now, that the risen Jesus is not just something that happened 2,000 years ago on Easter morning. The risen Jesus is in our midst now, loving us and calling us. Not when we're perfect, not when we get our lives together, but when we're struggling; when we, too, are gripped by death and don't see any possibilities for life. The biblical witness tells us that we have the opportunity to experience what Mary Magdalene experienced in that graveyard. To hear our names called, to hear that we are somebody, to hear that we matter in a crazy and impersonal world. To hear that we have the opportunity to come alive like Mary, to touch our passion and to hear that we are children of God. To hear that our primary definition is not our bank account or our Social Security number, not the size of our home, not our racial classification, not our gender, not our sexual orientation, not our nationality, not any of those categories that the power of death tries to tell us are ultimate. Rather our primary definition is what Mary Magdalene heard in that graveyard when Jesus called her name, "Mary," daughter of God, defined by the love of God that she knew in Jesus Christ. This is the same Jesus who calls our names as daughters and sons of God.
Walking through the graveyard, that's what Mary was doing, looking for death, expecting death. This church has known that journey through the graveyard, that struggle with the power of death. We used to be all of one kind. We had almost 900 white members in the early 1960s. Then black folk began to move into the neighborhood, and many white folk in this church discovered that they believed more in the power of race than they believed in the power of the gospel. Many of the white folk fled from this neighborhood, and this church. Over a twenty-year period, this church's membership dropped from 900 to eighty. It was a time of depression here, knowing the power of death. It was a time of looking at the death of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.
Yet, some white folks stayed here because they heard their names called. They began to hear a new definition of themselves. They stayed and began to come alive, to come out of the tomb of racism where the power of death rules. They began to come alive, to hear that racial classification is not the final word. They began to live out of a new definition. And some black folks came here, recognizing the need to build a community of faith that welcomed all people, a community that began to rejoice in diversity rather than seeing it as a problem.
So here we are. We have survived. We are beginning to thrive. We've had to confront many categories of the world in our journey together. We thought that affirming diversity meant only welcoming people of different colors, but we've learned that it means welcoming women as equal partners with men. We've learned that it means trying to put people who are poor with people who are comfortable. We've learned that it means putting people with Ph.D.s with people who cannot read. We've learned that it means coming together with people whom we thought were strange and maybe even our enemies -- straight folk with gay and lesbian folk. We've had many struggles here as we've sought to come alive, and we continue to have struggles. But, we are coming alive here. We are finding hope and possibility and courage here, that we can be witnesses in a crazy world. We're hearing our names called, and like Mary, we are beginning to recognize the risen Jesus in our midst.
We're not quite perfect here. (You don't have to laugh so loudly about that, and I don't need that many "Amen" choruses from you!) We are not perfect here. We make many mistakes. We disappoint one another, and we hurt one another. We anger one another. And yet, we believe that this journey is what the biblical witness is about. Being able to hear those kinds of feelings and emotions, being able to challenge and confront one another, and being able to go to a deeper level with one another in order to grow in the faith. We are discovering that black folk and white folk can listen to one another, that we can cross the great racial divide that is so pervasive in our culture. We are discovering that we need one another here, in all our diversity; that we need gay and lesbian folk to tell us straight folk what life is like; that we need poor folk to tell us comfortable folk what life is like.
This is a difficult and, at times, disturbing journey. That's often the way that God works in our lives. It might have been that a white person came up and shook your hand this morning. Or, it may be that a black person came up and hugged you. It might be our emphasis that women are equal partners here. It might be that we emphasize that gay and lesbian folk are called to be leaders here. Or, it might be that you feel uncomfortable as folks lift up our vulnerabilities when we share concerns and joys for prayers. There are all kinds of places where we find some disturbing things here. We don't do them to be disturbing, but we know that the categories by which death grips us do not give up easily. We need to practice life together in all our diversity, and that practice is sometimes disturbing.
It is a struggle here, but it is also life-giving here. We find life here because we are enabled to go deeper into ourselves and touch that passion that calls out to God, to find our true definition as children of God. We are not finally defined by our bank account or gender or sexual orientation or racial classification. We are defined as daughters and sons of God. We find life here because we are empowered to reach out to others to discover not the enemies we feared but the brothers and sisters for whom our hearts long.
That is what brings me back here. That's what brings most of us back here -- the power of gospel, the life-giving power of the risen Jesus. It is the power that enables us to come alive in a world where death tells us to give up and give in. It's the power that enables us to see God in places where no one believes that God can be. It enables us to reach out and touch those whom the world tells us are enemies and instead find friends. It is the power that enables us to come alive in the graveyards of our lives. It's the power that speaks to us and calls our names. It's the power that helps us to recognize our true calling. Our true calling is not to be consumers. It is not to be racists. It is not to be sexists. It is not to be dominators. It is to be brothers and sisters in a community of faith that upholds one another and that seeks justice. That is our true calling, and that is the power that fills us up and goes down into us and sends us out into the world, proclaiming as Mary did, "I have seen the Lord!" Amen? Amen.
____________
1.�In 1892, Grady Memorial Hospital was chartered to provide health care for the poor and the sick of Atlanta, Georgia. On March 15, 1999, Grady implemented a policy that would require even the most poor to pay for clinic visits and to pay a minimum of $10 co-payment for each of their prescriptions and medical supplies. In response to this move, the Grady Coalition arose to protest this action. Oakhurst Church was part of this Coalition.
2.�This refers to teenagers killing other teenagers at Columbine High School in Colorado and in two counties in the north metropolitan Atlanta area.
