|
Every
fall I ask the same question as many of you: how is summer already
over? I’ve decided this year that I’m going to go with the official
last day of summer, September 21st, as the end of this season. In part,
this is because I owe my publisher another chapter and a half before the
end of summer, so the official date of September 21st benefits me the most!
This reminds me of something I jokingly said last week: “I don’t approve of
sexism unless it benefits me!”
Now,
don’t get me wrong, I know the kids have started school so it must be fall
and that sexism really isn’t good - even if it does sometimes benefit me. I
find it fascinating how often the things we feel passionate about are the
things that most impact ourselves. Passion and self-investment are good, of
course, but what about when the things that need passionate individuals
don’t touch the hearts of those who can most help?
Let’s
go back in time a few years to 1927, the year that PMBC voted against
allowing the local theaters to play movies on Sundays. In a statement
adopted after its unanimous approval, we read that,
“The
Phillips Memorial Baptist Church, Eden Park, wishes to reaffirm its
longtime belief in a sane and suitable observance of one day in seven as a
period of rest, worship, and service. We believe that anything that tends
to secularize the day is certain to have an injurious effect on the moral
life of the nation, and while we, as a church, have no desire to compel the
observance of the Sabbath by those who do not recognize the claims of
Christ, yet as citizens concerned for the best and truest welfare of the
country, we believe that all citizens should do whatever is in their power
to see that everyone has a proper opportunity of sharing its inestimable
privileges.”
I
wonder how heated those conversations were when the church decided to take
a stance against Sunday movies and what they meant by giving everyone the
“proper opportunity of sharing its inestimable privileges”? I can’t imagine
us making this same statement against movies today, but I do hope we might
have the similar courage to make public stances against the forms of
injustices we see now.
Jesus
himself made a few public stances, the most notable being the time he
strolled into his home synagogue and told those folks that he, the boy they
had taught in Scripture class, was the one the LORD had appointed to “bring
good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 3:18-19). Then he
kept making public statements by doing things like dining with the outcast
tax collectors, healing ceremonially unclean women, talking to socially
outcast women and Samaritans, prioritizing children, and rethinking Sabbath
observance to include healing.
I
suspect that talking about public stances might have you a bit worried, as
it certainly does me! After all, some branches of Christianity have gone
VERY public on issues that seem to contradict the good news or using
methods that do not reflect Jesus as the Prince of Peace. Perhaps this has
soured the thought of public stances for many of us - after all, we don’t
want to be crazy like them.
But,
the good news was meant to be shouted out from the rooftops! Proclaimed
from the heavens with a host of angels! Sung out from a prison cell! If we
reclaim the public proclamation of God’s salvific grace for the injustices
of today, what might we say? I suspect it won’t be about watching movies on
Sunday. It might be about all persons being created in God’s image and made
equal by the cross. There are so many dehumanizing injustices that need our
public proclamation: gross economic inequalities; for example, social,
religious, political, and familial exclusion based on race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, etc., etc., etc.
In
Matthew 25 we read the story of Jesus separating the sheep and the goats
(poor goats, they always get the short end of the stick), telling folks
that when they stood up for the needs of others by serving them that they
had served him. “But,” they asked, “when did we even do this?” “Just as you
did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did
it to me” (Matthew 25:31-46). Even when our heart is not passionate about
standing up for an injustice, let us remember that Jesus’ heart is.
Our
foremothers and fathers stood up for the Sabbath by rejecting Sunday
movies. Lord, grant us each apart and together the courage and passion to
stand up against today’s injustices and to help create a world where you
are all in all.
Blessings,
Rev.
Dr. Amy Chilton
|
