Church - The New Grindhouse

Luke 12:49-56

It is pretty easy to be a good and faithful Christian when our lives are all in order and everything is moving ahead just the way we want it.  When everything around us seems to be in harmony, coming to church is easy, affirming, and it even feels good.  We begin to attribute our success and joy to our faithfulness.  And maybe this is where you are today.  Content.  At ease.  Peaceful.  And if you are, we can give great thanks.  Enjoy. 

Our lectionary however reminds us of the limitations of this worldview.  And undoubtedly this is our experience at times, but it is not the only experience we will have.  The cost of discipleship can be unnerving, unsettling, pushing us out of comfort zones, and placing us smack down in the middle of conflict. 

This past Wednesday, the church celebrated the feast of Jonathan Daniels.  Daniels was born into a pretty affluent life in New Hampshire in 1939.  Post the Great Depression, I suspect his life appeared to be somewhat in harmony.  He attended Harvard and began to wrestle with life, death, and calling.  On Easter Day, 1962 he had a profound conversion at Church of the Advent and entered seminary at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. 

In 1965, he watched Martin Luther King, Jr. on television and asked to leave seminary to visit Selma, Alabama.  He believed he should join the fight for voter’s rights.  He was singing the Magnificat at Evening Prayer, “He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.  He hath filled the hungry with good things” and he knew his calling.  The voice was loud, unsettling, and unnerving.  He left, followed the voice, and ended up in Selma. 

On August 14th he was jailed with others for joining a picket line, and when unexpectedly released they all walked to a small store, knowing they were in danger.   A sixteen year named Ruby sales was entering the store when a man with a gun appeared cursing her.  Jonathan pulled her to one side to shield her from the barrage of the threats.  He was killed by a blast from a 12-guage gun. 

In one of Jonathan’s letters where he was justifying his move to Alabama, he writes, “The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments, were the essential preconditions of the experience itself.  The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown... I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection… with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout… We are indelibly and unspeakably one.” 

And Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled…Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.”  I am a little scared because I believe that being a person of conviction and faith does not make it easier to be in this world.  It does not make life more comfortable.  It does not alleviate controversy. It does not justify our gains.  Instead our faith, is at first a small voice that calls us deeper and deeper into the mystery of God.   It pulls at us, challenging us, making us restless, discontent with the reality of the world because we have faith that God wants a better world, and we are uneasy with the reality of not yet.  As Jonathan Daniels says, our faith seeps into our bones and sinews.   It shakes us up.  It makes us uneasy.  The Holy Spirit has the power to move us from serving meals in soup kitchens to hearing the stories of those there and building relationship to then beginning to wrestle with the structures that get at the root of the stories.   The Holy Spirit dancing in the world, drawing us out of comfort, compelling us into radical faith. 

The Canon in the diocese of Georgia said last week in his trending Sharknado sermon, “there is nothing approachable about following Jesus.  Go sell all that you have.  Sin no more.  Take up your cross.  Give up your life.”  How is that for an Episcopal Church welcomes you sign?  This stuff is really really hard.  It is really scary.  Transformative faith means our life will never look the same.  Following Jesus sure ain’t easy. 

I think we need to pause for just a second.  This is heavy stuff.  Division.  Fire.  Mother against daughter.  Father against son.  Daughter-in-law against mother-in law.  (My wife might be like, no that’s not that big of deal).  Life turned upside down. 

It’s ok.  Everything is alright.  Smile.  It is not all doom and gloom.  We believe in Grace.  We recognize our need for it.  This is our uniquely Christian worldview. A completely free unconditional gift that reaches us regardless of where we are on our journey.  You can all breathe a sigh of relief.   God’s love reaches all.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  It gets there.  It is not about our actions or our work, what we can accomplish, or how many good actions and Karma we can achieve.  The very act of being born is good enough.  And our baptism initiates us into the fold.  Done.  Sign. Sealed. Delivered. 

But we do have to think.  We do have to wonder.  We have to ask ourselves, are we too comfortable.  Are we afraid of controversy?  Are we afraid of speaking up for the sake of the Truth of the Gospel?  Are we scared of taking risks that demand us to really get dirty and do some hard, grueling, grinding work? 

I think that what stuck with me the most from the book we studied last week was the concept of Ruach or as we understand it as Holy Spirit, drawing us forward in life, pulling us along, and our job in life is to be aware of the spirit and to be in harmony living it out.  It is a beautiful sentiment and I believe it to be true. 

Luke however reminds us today, that part harmony with God can be unsettling.   It can cause tension in relationships.  Mother against daughter, Father against son.  Daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.  It means that sometimes we put in some grit and grind.  Stir up the pot.  We can’t always be worried about the controversy that arrives from our convictions.  We’ve got to grind it out. We live in a city that is famous for its Grit and Grind.   Maybe the church is supposed to be the new GrindHouse.  This nickname has revitalized Memphis’ image and a tough as nails basketball city, that won’t talk smack from anyone.  What if it’s not the Fedex Forum, but church… the new GrindHouse.

This is where we come to be stirred up, shaken up, and compelled to go out.  And if we find ourselves butting up against controversy and in dangerous territory, then maybe today’s Gospel can remind us that we might just be in the right place.  

When we run into a little conflict, we might just be right where we need to be.  If our prayers causes us to be restless as night wanting to more deeply care for all of God’s creation, and we don’t know how to respond, but it scares the daylights out of us.  Maybe we are in the right place.  If the words of our prayers, and Collects, the Gloria, the Magnicat, and the ancient hymns we sing each day are seeping into our bones and sinews, and it is cause not peace, but unrest.  Maybe we are in the right place.  And if each week when we take the body of Christ, broken for the entire world, and place it on our tongues, and we give thanks for a gift we are not worthy by any merit of our own to receive, and it draws us forward, pulling us to a harmony that unsettles our entire being.  Maybe we are in the right place.  Amen.