by the Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry, Diocese of
[July 7, 2012] The following sermon was presented today at the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
This day we are commemorating the witness of Harriet Beecher
Stowe, a woman who used her words to set the captive free. I’ll say more
about her later, but right now I want to note that in 1944 her witness was
celebrated in a Broadway play titled Harriet. It was Helen Hayes who played the
part of Harriet Beecher Stowe. At the end of the play Beecher Stowe’s family
stands around Harriet and sings the words of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
affirming the Christian witness of this brave and bold woman. Part of the
hymn goes like this: [1]
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the
sea,
With a glory in his bosom, that transfigured you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
With a glory in his bosom, that transfigured you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
God's truth is marching on. [2]
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
God's truth is marching on. [2]
For a text today, I offer these words from Mark 3:19-2:
“Then [Jesus] went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could
not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for
people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’”
The King James Version of the Bible translates the concern
of Jesus’ family for him in these words: “He is beside himself.” The old J.B.
Phillips New Testament translates it, “People were saying, ‘He must be mad!’”
But my favorite is from the 1995 Contemporary English Version which says, “When
Jesus' family heard what he was doing, they thought he was crazy and went to
get him under control.”
So, forgive me for saying it this way, but Jesus was, and
is, crazy! And those who would follow him, those who would be his disciples, those
who would live as and be the people of the Way, are called and summoned and
challenged to be just as crazy as Jesus. So I want to speak on the subject, “We
Need Some Crazy Christians.”
I don’t want to be too quick to judge Jesus’ mother and the
whole family. They had good reason to be concerned. We just read from 1
Peter a teaching that reflects what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay
with a blessing” (1Peter 3:9). That's crazy. In the Gospel reading from
Matthew, read just a few moments ago, Jesus says, “The greatest among you will
be your servant” (Mt. 23:11). That's crazy.
What the world calls wretched Jesus calls blessed. Blessed
are the poor and the poor in spirit. Blessed are the merciful, the
compassionate. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst that God’s righteous
justice might prevail. Blessed are those who work for peace. Blessed are you
when you are persecuted just for trying to love and do what is good. Jesus was
crazy. He said, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those
who despitefully use you. He was crazy. He prayed while folk were killing him,
“Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” Now that’s crazy.
We need some Christians who are as crazy as the Lord. Crazy
enough to love like Jesus, to give like Jesus, to forgive like Jesus, to do
justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God -- like Jesus. Crazy enough to
dare to change the world from the nightmare it often is into something close to
the dream that God dreams for it. And for those who would follow him,
those who would be his disciples, those who would live as and be the people of
the Way? It might come as a shock, but they are called to craziness.
Let me suggest one example of such a call from the New
Testament: Mary of Magdala, Mary Magdalene. For whatever reason, Mary
often gets a bum rap.
Think back to the crucifixion of Jesus. Crucifixion was
execution by the Empire for crimes against the state. It was public
torture. It was an intentionally brutal means of capital punishment, an
execution designed to send a message that revolution and revolutionaries would
not be tolerated. If you were a supporter or follower of the person being
crucified, it was dangerous to stand too close by during the execution. The
rational and sensible thing to do was to go into hiding or exile.
Having said that, let’s call the roll of those Jesus called
to follow him, let’s take the attendance of the apostles at the crucifixion of
their Lord. Simon Peter? Absent. James? Absent. Andrew? Absent. Bartholomew?
Absent. Thomas? Absent. Judas? Definitely absent. Mary Magdalene? Present and
accounted for! That’s a disciple! When the old slaves sang, “Were you there
when they crucified my Lord?” there was a woman named Mary who could answer, “I
was there!” Now that’s crazy!
Now it may not be obvious at first, but we actually have a
day to remember crazy Christians. I think we call it All Saints’ Day. It’s not
called “All the Same Day,” it’s All Saints’ Day, because, though they were
fallible and mortal, and sinners like the rest of us, when push came to shove
the people we honor as saints marched to the beat of a different drummer.
In their lifetimes, they made a difference for the Kingdom of God
One of the people we celebrate in the book is Harriet
Beecher Stowe, a descendant of Mary Magdalene. She was born in 1811
into a devout family committed to the Gospel of Jesus and to helping transform
the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream God intends. She is
best known for a fictional work titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In this
fiction, she told the truth. She told the story of how chattel slavery
afflicted a family, afflicted real people. She told the truth of the brutality,
the injustice, the inhumanity of the institution of chattel slavery. Her book
did what YouTube videos of injustices and brutalities do today. It went
19th-century viral. It rallied abolitionists and enraged vested
interests. The influence of that book was so powerful that Abraham Lincoln is
reputed to have said, upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe for the first time,
“So this is the little lady who started this great war!” [3]
A woman of her era was supposed to write nice stories, not
stories that would disturb the conscience of a nation. She was supposed
to marry well, raise well-bred children, participate in a few charitable
activities, and be fondly remembered by all who knew her. That was the life she
was supposed to have. But she had been raised in a family that believed
that following Jesus means changing the world from the nightmare it often is into
the dream that God intends. And sometimes that means marching to the beat of a
different drummer. Sometimes that means caring when it is tempting to care
less, or standing up when others sit down. Sometimes it means speaking up when
others shut up. Sometimes it means being different – even being crazy.
When Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Inc., died
last year, an old Apple commercial from the 90's went viral on YouTube. It was
a commercial that aired in 1997 and that attempted to rebrand Apple products.
The tag line for the commercial and the company was, Think different, a phrase
that is grammatically incorrect, which is part of the point.
In the commercial they showed a collage of photographs and
film footage of people who have invented and inspired, created and sacrificed
to improve the world, to make a difference. They showed Bob Dylan, Amelia
Earhart, Frank Lloyd Wright, Maria Callas, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King,
Jim Henson, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, Pablo Casals, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert
Schweitzer, and on and on and on. As the images rolled by, a voice read this
poem:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels.
The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore.
They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
are the ones who do. [4]
The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore.
They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
are the ones who do. [4]
We need some crazy Christians. Sane, sanitized Christianity
is killing us. That may have worked once upon a time, but it won’t carry
the Gospel anymore. We need some crazy Christians like Mary Magdalene and
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Christians crazy enough to believe that God is real
and that Jesus lives. Crazy enough to follow the radical way of the Gospel.
Crazy enough to believe that the love of God is greater than all the powers of
evil and death. Crazy enough to believe, as Dr. King often said, that though
“the moral arc of the universe is long, it bends toward justice.” We need some
Christians crazy enough to believe that children don’t have to go to bed
hungry; that the world doesn’t have to be the way it often seems to be; that
there is a way to lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside; that
as the slaves used to sing, “There's plenty good room in my Father's kingdom,”
because every human being has been created in the image of God, and we are all
equally children of God and meant to be treated as such.
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom, that transfigured you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Glory, glory hallelujah,
God's truth is marching on.
[1] Susan Belasco, “Harriet Beecher Stowe in Our Time,”
www.nationalera.wordpress.com
[2] Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
[3] Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (New York
[4] Apple’s “Think Different” commercial, 1997
[2] Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
[3] Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (
[4] Apple’s “Think Different” commercial, 1997
The Episcopal Church: www.episcopalchurch.org
The General Convention: http://www.generalconvention.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/episcopalian
Twitter:#GC77
YouTube: www.youtube.com/TECtube
On the web:
General Convention July 7 Sermon: Bishop Michael Curry
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/notice/general-convention-july-7-sermon-bishop-michael-curry
No comments:
Post a Comment