May 23, 2010 ~ Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2 and Acts 10 (selections)
“Part And Partiality”

Franklin Circle Christian Church

Rev. Allen V. Harris
 

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Raise your hand or say “Amen!” if anything I say describes you and how you see yourself:

Hair color: blonde, black, brunette, gray, silver, red, curly, straight, wavey...

Height: tall, short, in-between, just right, never right...

Family: close, distant, dysfunctional, happy, scattered...

Class: middle, working, blue collar, white collar, no collar, poor, impoverished, rich...

Theology: liberal, conservative, Pentacostal, Mainline, Sidelined, middle-of-the-road, Seeker, Recovering ______....

Sexual Orientation: gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, queer, affirming, confused, questioning...

Politics: Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green Party, Socialist, Libertarian, Anarchist...

As I asked you to raise your hands or say “Amen” and you felt, at any moment, hesitant, unsure, uncertain, or concerned that someone around you might judge you, look askance at you, think less of you because of your identity, wonder what the heck you are doing here at this church, then today’s sermon is for you!

Let’s make it plain: It is part and parcel of the Christian faith for ALL of us to have a part in the community and to acknowledge that God shows no partiality in who may participate in the community. And when God models it, we should seek to imitate, mimic, copy, reproduce, duplicate, replicate and otherwise do the same thing. Therefore, it is part and parcel of Christianity for all to be a part and no one be shown partiality.

The Acts Of The Apostles, the story of the birth of the church and the formation of its initial identity, shows a wonderful and all-too-often wildly different picture than that of the church of the 21st century. In the beginning, everyone is charged with spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and all are commissioned to go and teach all nations. Resources are held in common and shared, and no one had need for any basic human necessity. Entrenched definitions of who should be in the community and who should be excluded from the community were breaking down, blowing apart, melting, disappearing, cracking up, left and right, and no longer did race nor class, language nor nationality nor sex, family heritage nor family inclinations were being used to determine your worthiness to participate. Do you believe in Jesus and do you want to follow him? WELCOME!

It is long overdue for the church to reclaim, recapture, restore, renew, recommit to these original, foundational, initial, primary, fundamental values. In the words of Mark Rollenhagen in the Plain Dealer article you have in your bulletin, “If historic Protestants are to have a future, they must return to the Pentecost idea of a faith that jumps cultural boundaries and reclaim an identity of a church in which diverse people worshiping together hear – and share – a fuller gospel.”(1) You got it right, Mark, and so do all the other congregations and communities of faith across the globe who are realizing that we’ve listened to our worst fears and we’ve followed our most vile fear-mongers down a twisted path far too long. By whatever names you call it, it is high time for the church to be what the Holy Spirit intended for it to be on that original day of Pentecost: Joyfully Accessible to ALL God’s People, Unapologetically Anti-Racist and Passionately Pro-Reconciling, and Thoroughly and Confidently Open & Affirming of ALL God’s Children!

But, of course, no one said it would be easy! Peter, in his magnificent dream in Acts Chapter 10, was confronted with and confounded by the realization that something he had been taught from the time he was able to sit on his father’s lap and be held close to his mother’s bosom was no longer valid, was kaput, invalid, null and void, cancelled, to be thrown out. Strict food laws – OUT! Circumcision – GONE! Racial Exclusivity – NADA! It’s important to remember, however, that this difficult journey took place for Cornelius, also. He had likewise grown up from childhood with many of the same principles, standards, customs, rules, and perhaps even laws saying who was IN and who was OUT. It’s not easy for anyone, really, to go against time-honored, tradition-bound, culturally-steeped ways of being in the world.

But we must. If we are to be faithful to what God is calling us to, and if this planet is going to survive the human race, then we must figure out ways to get along better, create and sustain community more fully, live like the sisters and brothers we were created to be.

And we have to do this by widening all of our circles for ALL of God’s children. We can do this by creating larger Grace Margins, to use the wonderful imagery of the Rev. Eric F. H. Law, and Episcopalian Clergy person who is American, but with Chinese heritage and who is gay. I had the privilege of working with Dr. Law a year ago on my Sabbatical in New York City. (2) [Me with Dr. Law right -->]

The concept of the Grace Margin is really an extension of the boundary zone all communities and individuals have between who is IN and who is OUT. We naturally create buffer zones between people who are part of our family and those who are not, people who are part of our school and those who are not, people who are part of our workplace and those who are not, people who are part of our class, or race, or culture, our primary language, and those who are not. Boundaries and buffer zones are natural and perfectly legitimate.

But (and that is a BIG “BUT”) the buffer zone for most of our communities are thin, and hard, impenetrable, and are more often than not simply used for protection, to reinforce who is “like us” and who is “different from us.” Eric describes the “Safe Zone” as the area close to us where we know who belongs, and the “Fear Zone” as the area beyond the buffer where we know who doesn’t belong. Think about the DMZ between North and South Korea or the Mason Dixon Line between the Northern Union States and the Southern Confederate States. Talk about a line in the sand! How about a line in the CONCRETE!

Most communities are naturally, and really impulsively, exclusive and keep that buffer zone thin, rigid, and clear. But we are called to a different way. Communities, like the one Franklin Circle Christian Church aspires to be, have to be intentionally inclusive, which means we don’t just sit around “being inclusive.” We have to prepare ourselves, educate ourselves, nurture the possibilities for, and otherwise simply be ready when our boundaries are challenged in order for us to act inclusively.

Inclusive communities, therefore, make that thin, inflexible, hardened buffer zone wider, and softer, more pliable and more inviting. But we can’t do this by pushing the outsiders further out and expecting them to become more open, them to be more compatible and them to be friendlier. No, no, no! We have to shrink our Safety Zone and allow ourselves to move into that big ‘ol wide open Grace Margin where we give up some of our comfort, our familiarity, our security, and even our treasured identity in order to step into “the zone” and seek something mutual, something common, something viable, something exciting, something new. It’s where the sinews of the Body of Christ are knit together, the edges of the quilt of community are stitched together, the stanzas of the poem of life are joined into one ballad.

The Grace Margin is where people from the outside, our “Fear Zone,” are invited in to be included and people from within, our “Safe Zone” venture out to be challenged. It is HERE that the magic, the phenomenon the miracle, of a fully inclusive, fully multicultural, fully multiracial, fully accessible, fully open and welcoming and affirming church becomes a reality – not just a flash-in-the-pan fad or passing good idea. In the Grace Margins is where disciples become church.

Why do we do this? Because it is what we are called to do, in Acts 2, Acts 10, and by almost every word that came out of Jesus’ mouth. We do this because THIS is what is modeled in the New Testament Church. We do this because THIS is what the Holy Spirit commissioned us to be and to do on the day of Pentecost. We do this because it is part and parcel of Christianity for all to be a part and no one be shown partiality.

Amen.

(1) Messages of Faith: Multicultural Congregations Better Able To Hear Full Gospel, by Mark Rollenhagen, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) Saturday, May 15, 2010, Arts & Life Section.
(2) Inclusion: Making Room for Grace, Eric H. F. Law St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 2000, 130pp
 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2010 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096