Proper 21B, September 27, 2015
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Ps. 19: 7-14; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor. She is the founder of a church in Denver called “House for All Sinners and Saints” and many consider her to be one of today’s most important religious voices. She’s been featured on CNN, the BBC World Service, and NPR. Her memoir, Pastrix, was a New York Times best seller a couple of years ago. And her new book, Accidental Saints: Finding God in all the Wrong People, is getting a great deal of attention.
If you’ve ever seen or heard Pastor Bolz-Weber, you will not forget her. She is very tall and as a former standup comic she commands a very large presence when she enters a room. What’s instantly noticeable are her tattoos—not just a Celtic cross here or a butterfly there but lots of graphic tattoos all over her bare arms, including the entire liturgical year inked on her left arm from Advent to Pentecost. She’s not shy sharing about her shady past either. Some of the things she says are hilarious and make you laugh out loud. Others are shocking and disturbing and make you want to get up and leave the room.
Recently I heard Nadia Bolz-Weber speak at Joe’s church, Calvary Baptist in D.C. and afterwards I drove home wondering how in the world we could both be followers of Jesus, much less both be religious leaders in the church today. Surely Jesus would not approve of her foul language, she swears a lot. What every church needs, according to Pastor Bolz-Weber, is a drag-queen. I don’t think so. Surely she is being blasphemous when she talks about Mary “being knocked up by God.” And yet, Nadia Bolz-Weber knows a whole lot more about God’s big tent of grace and mercy and love and forgiveness and inclusion than most, if not all, of us sitting in the pews and standing in the pulpit of this church today. So why bring her up? Because I think she is a modern-day Eldad and Medad prophesying outside of the tent.
From our reading, it’s obvious that Moses is overwhelmed and weary. And God is not unsympathetic. God responds by proposing to take some of the burden off Moses and seeking others to share the load. Now, all this seems like a fine idea but when God takes some of Moses’ spirit and places it on the chosen elders, some of it spills over on two other men, Eldad and Medad. And when Eldad and Medad begin to prophesy, a jealous outburst occurs. Seemingly saying “Who let them into our club?” Joshua begs Moses to stop Eldad and Medad. But rather than stop them, Moses says with certainty he wishes all God’s people would be filled with God’s Spirit.
Our Gospel reading starts out much like the story of Eldad and Medad ends with John rushing up to Jesus in a panic and all out of breath. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him—because he’s not one of us.” People are in crisis, there’s much to be done, and help is needed. But when help comes, people complain because the help is not “the right help,” you know—people we know and trust, properly authorized, credentialed, looking like us. They complain because the Spirit has broken out and now they can’t control it. Someone of the “inner circle”, the “club”, is put out because someone outside that circle is also able to use one of God’s gifts, and evidently without the “right” credentials. And because this unnamed exorcist isn’t one of them, regardless of the good he might be doing, the disciples believe he must be stopped.
Jesus must feel the irony of the situation. Here is exactly the same charge the religious powers level at him—“he’s not one of us.” Uneducated and without status—he’s just a carpenter’s son—he lacks official approval. No, he isn’t one of them, and they can’t control him. So, Jesus, never one to be impressed with titles or credentials says, ineffect, “Look, leave him alone, we need all the help we can get. I don’t care if he is a part of our little group or not. Look at what he is doing, not the color of his skin, the language he is speaking, his sexual preference, his politics. Is he doing good? Is he living a kind and helpful life? That’s all I want. We need more people like that.”
If ever the Church needs more Eldads and Medads and outsiders it is now. Those of us clinging to “the way things have always been done” are killing the Church.
While on sabbatical I took advantage of being with millennials—young adults born between 1980 and 2000—to talk with them about the Church. The vast majority of you are not this age and so it was fun to hear what they had to say. The first such conversation occurs while sitting out by the hotel pool, enjoying Happy Hour at my niece’s 21st birthday party. Somehow the conversation shifts to the church. Well, maybe, I helped steer it a little in this direction. At any rate, with this captive audience of six young women, ages 21-25, who I know went to church as children but don’t attend now, I ask the simple question, “What would the church need to do so that you would want to come back to church?” These young women are not shy about answering. “Be more inclusive!” “Be more relevant.” “Stop being judgmental.” “Accept and love us for who we are as a married lesbian couple with a child.” “Don’t stare at me like I’m weird when I do come to church.”
My second interaction is with a family member I’ll call “Sam”. Sam’s initial response to my question, “What would the church need to do so that you would want to come back to church?” is “Nothing!” “There is absolutely nothing the church can do to make me want to come back.” He continues, “I was really hurt in my youth by the harsh judgmental attitude of my church and I can’t see that anything about the church has changed in the last ten to fifteen years. I did try going back to church, a different church, a more progressive church, but when I walked in they all had grey hair and were stuck in the 1970’s.” In lots of ways I think Sam’s right; I know he’s right. Speaking on behalf of the larger Church, I say to Sam I am sorry he was so hurt but don’t push our conversation further, primarily because I don’t know what to say that isn’t defensive or patronizing.
The next morning at breakfast, Sam tells me he has been thinking about my question and he has an answer. He prefaces it by saying it’s probably ridiculous but “football” is what the church could do to make him want to come back. “Football?” I repeat. “Yes, if I could come to church, hang-out, watch a football game, maybe drink a beer, and after the game talk about something religious that is relevant to my life, I think I’d come back.”
The last conversation takes place with two young men who are college students at Christian College in Oklahoma. Like me, they are retreatants at Christ in the Desert Monastery in Abiqu, New Mexico. Because silence is strictly enforced most of the time, there is little opportunity for talking but one morning during our work assignment of stuffing envelopes, and being more prone to break the rules than I am, one of the young men starts talking to the other. I listen for a few minutes, then introduce myself telling them I am an Episcopal priest and wonder if can ask them a question. “Do they go to church?” I want to know. As I expect, the answer is “no” but they both say their parents took them to church as children. So I ask my real question, “What would the Church need to do so that you would want to come back to church?” They are surprised I am asking them. No one has ever asked them this question before and they don’t know how to answer. What they do say is the fact that I care and genuinely want to know is what matters to them. My interest in them led to another conversation about faith later in the week while we were weeding the lettuce patch that was truly amazing.
All of which tells me that millennials, like the rest of us, want to be known, loved and accepted for who they are and many are looking for a place to belong. So while you all did a fantastic job being St. Andrew’s Church while I was on sabbatical—a really great job of caring for one another, doing fun things together, trying out one worship service and, faithfully coming to church—you and I have some serious thinking to do about moving forward and being the church of the 21st Century. You’d think after all these centuries of being the Church Jesus would make it easy for us. He doesn’t. His dire warnings continue to call for radical re-visioning of our mission and ministries. In light of his warning about erecting stumbling blocks, we need to ask, about everything we are doing in this church, if we are enhancing faith or being a stumbling block to faith. What does our website say about who we are as followers of Christ? How could our worship become more inclusive, expansive, multi-cultural? What are we doing as St. Andrew’s to address issues of racial injustice? Do black lives matter to us? Who out there is an outrageous child of God, longing to be invited in? Who out there, is being pushed aside just because they don’t fit our ideal, but by their actions show that they, too, are a friend of Jesus? Who is out there, on the outside, whom we need to welcome inside with open arms?
From what Jesus is saying to his disciples, it becomes clear that their saltiness and ours, involves being humble in our relationship with each other and reaching out and accepting all people around us. Pope Francis told our elected leaders this week that the ways in which we tolerate, even celebrate divisiveness, dividing ourselves into camps of “them and us” is tearing us apart. “Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice,” he told Congress. The Pope’s words are the words of Jesus and they are also meant for the Church. What would we, as St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, look like if we took these words to heart and really lived them out in mission and ministry here in Arlington? Hope. Healing. Peace. Justice.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, for one, knows a lot about these words because she is living them in radical ways by breaking down barriers, expanding the tent, reaching out to all, taking bold stands in the name of Jesus. And although it makes me a little nervous to say it, I think our church needs people like her. We’re too safe, too white, and too complacent. At least that’s what I think. What do you think? I’d love to get the conversation going!