March 29, 2015
Texts: Mark 11:1-11; John 12:12-16
From the Model Minority to the Mass Movement
One of my favorite things to read over the years has been the Christian Century series “How My Mind Has Changed." These occasional pieces by well-known theologians, ethicists and faith leaders explore how their thought has transformed over the course of their life experience. Countering the tendency for intellectual work to be too abstract, they explore how inhabiting the world has led them to re-imagine the way they understand and seek to describe it. And while I don't count myself among this illustrious group, I want to take some time today to consider how my own mind has changed over the past five or so years.
In particular, and as we begin Holy Week with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, I want to reflect on how my understanding of Jesus' mission—and thus what our own might be—has been transformed. I want us to think together about why it is that so many gathered in celebration of this unlikely king, this un-king, this harbinger of the kin-dom. And I want us to consider how that infectious energy, one that drew people together from every diverse corner of life, might yet envelop us in the here and now, re-shaping and radically expanding our vision of who we are and what we are called to become as a community of faith.
In order to do so, I need to trace my own shifting understanding of the church's mission, from that of a model minority to a mass movement. I was first introduced to The Church of the Saviour ten years ago. I was on an undergrad urban ministry trip, and we visited Samaritan Inns at the invitation of Mike Little. I was amazed at all of the incredible work for healing and justice that had emerged from this small group of churches. When I moved to DC the following year for the Sojourners intern program, I soon began attending the Ecumenical Service at the old 2025 headquarters. As he had for so many others, Gordon Cosby became a spiritual guide for me, and through his encouragement I soon found myself working for one of the Church of the Saviour ministries. Situated here on Columbia Road, I would often think about how all these direct-service organizations provide a profound model for a truly caring community, and form a prophetic witness to a society that typically shows a profound disregard to those it systematically pushes to the margins.
At the time I was reading a lot of John Howard Yoder, an Anabaptist theologian most famous for writing The Politics of Jesus. Much of his work talked about the church's role in the world, and how it can best serve the world and further peace through being a distinct and different kind of ethical community. (I should say as an aside here, both because it is important for people to know and because it shapes my own shifting perceptions, that it came out recently that Yoder, made famous as a theologian of nonviolence, was a systematic abuser of women. I am still untangling all of this, both the profound disconnect between his public thought and private life, and the implications for those of us who have read and been influenced by his work.)
But, for better or worse, it was under the influence of Yoder that I headed off to Duke Divinity School six years ago, a seminary whose intellectual atmosphere emphasizes the uniqueness of the Christian tradition. What I found over time is that this emphasis on how the church is different or separate from those around it can lead to some significant problems. Chief among them is a blindness to the often deeply problematic role Christianity has played in the shaping of the modern world, including the colonization of the Americas, the Atlantic slave trade, and their active, ongoing present(s). A version of church history that occludes rather than accounts for these painful realities is quite frankly delusional, and perpetuates these harms rather than helping to heal them. Such a theology can also lead to a culture of conformity, intent on guarding the boundaries rather than seeing them broken down. Good work in the world was often dismissed if it was done under some other banner than the church, or led by those who don't look like us.
A course on Bonhoeffer with Dr J. Kameron Carter my final semester helped to crystalize these issues for me and begin to imagine alternatives. For in Bonhoeffer's theology we see a shift in focus away from the church as a separate and distinct ethical community to that of an already reconciled—and yet still reconciling—world. His biography helps us understand this transformation. Upon his return to Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, Bonhoeffer became an active leader in the Confessing Church movement. He helped to found the underground seminary at Finkenwalde, which would train pastors who had defected from the official German church. His book Discipleship, published in 1937, outlined an ethical vision of the Christian life founded on the Sermon of the Mount, one that emphasizes the disciple's break from the world-as-is. Yet as the Nazi regime intensified its persecution of the Jews, he became increasingly frustrated with the inaction of the Confessing Church. A portion seemed content to focus on theological statements, quibbling about whether or not this or that Nazi statement was blasphemous. Others, understandably, could not bear the intense pressure from the state and scattered. Bonhoeffer increasingly found himself drawn to the resistance movement and to keeping company with those who would not claim to be Christian. Joining the plot to assassinate Hitler, he had to wrestle with how his present actions were inconsistent with his earlier writings. In his fragments that were published posthumously as Ethics, Bonhoeffer calls into question the notion that Christian ethics is really about being good in the first place. For the question "How can I be good?" is really about justifying the self. The purpose of Christian ethics, rather, is to witness to and participate in that which is really real. And what is really real is the world's reconciliation through Christ, the man for others. The church then, becomes for Bonhoeffer no longer a fully separate or distinct space from the rest of the world. It doesn't have to guard its boundaries or insist on its specialness through speaking a certain language or upholding tradition. It is not about conformity to the rules (even the good ones!). It is simply that part of the world that expresses the unity and reconciliation that already exists at a deeper level. And this unity, this really real-ness, can often be found in the most unexpected of places.
So where am I going with this? What does it have to with Palm Sunday? And with us as Eighth Day gathered here at the new Potter's House?
I guess what I am saying is that what made Jesus' message so electrifying to the people who greeted him with palms and what made the movement gathered in his name so terrifying to the Roman Empire, is that it excluded no one. Morally suspect sex workers, ethnic outsider Samaritans, even the traitorous tax collectors were invited to enter the kin-dom. In words borrowed from Tom Brown, even those who chose not to conform to the rules were given a seat at the table.
The good news is thus not that there is some separate, distinct community called the church that you can join that does good works. Rather, the Gospel names a radical refusal to accept our socially-constructed separation; the good news is a stammering insistence that we are one despite and amongst our differences. It is about nurturing the creation of an Everyone that truly includes everyone. The point is not to be a model minority, but to join the mass movement of God's kin-dom which takes many shapes and expresses many colors.
This shift in perspective I've had over the past five years shapes how I understand our mission at The Potter's House. The point for me is not just that someone who walks in for coffee becomes a member of the Church of the Saviour. I am excited for that to happen, and I want to encourage these opportunities for deeper belonging as they arise. But as I see it, our purpose is to be a space for deeper communion and connection across all our differences, whether people come to join our church or not. It is to be a place that celebrates our diverse cultures and stories, and where each of us can share our gifts. It is to be a seedbed that nurtures movements for equity and inclusion across all of these intersections. And I believe that this is already starting to happen, or perhaps better said, again starting to happen. Let me share with you some glimpses of life at The Potter's House over the past three weeks:
- Three young Muslim-Americans have become cafe regulars. They use our community room for daily prayers and want to begin holding their Quran study group here.
- Sanctuaries hosted an incredible Soul Slam attended by over 100 people, in which people from different spiritual traditions shared their personal journeys and empowering social messages through spoken word and song.
- Environmental activists gathered around our community table to write letters of support and solidarity to unjustly persecuted political prisoners.
- A gay man said he was really excited to see a Christian bookstore that stocks books lifting up a wide range of LGBT voices.
- One of our homeless friends asked if this place was still The Potter's House and if he could come back at 2 for soup. When we said we have a Pay What You Can soup available all day, he pulled out a brand new pair of socks and passed them across the counter as his contribution. When he left he thanked us for the soup, expressed gratitude that we were back up and running, and said he'd be back.
- Two small groups from younger churches have started to meet here during the week, pulling up wherever they can find a spot for four or five. One of the groups is reading Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer, which led to a discussion of The Church of the Saviour's vision of the inward-outward journey and the mission-group model.
- Multiple persons with mobility-related disabilities have come to the cafe or attended a gathering in the community room, and several have commented on the newfound accessibility of our space.
- Several people who live in the apartment buildings across the street have inquisitively entered our doors. Questions like "Is this place new?" and "Why do you have a pay-what-you-can option?" have led to deeper conversations about our history in the neighborhood and ongoing mission to welcome everyone to the table.
- We're preparing to host an Emancipation Day event in partnership with ONE DC that will proclaim Black Lives Matter and ask what freedom really means under conditions of police violence and economic exclusion.
Over the coming months I am sure we'll have many more stories like this. And I am excited to see the things that may grow from these conversations in the years ahead. But in this moment I just want to express my gratitude for how the community of Eighth Day has helped to make all this possible. If we were a church focused on our own needs alone it would have been much easier to just find another place to worship. But Eighth Day heard the call to help carry this place forward as a tangible sign of God's kin-dom.
I know that this process of transformation has at times been tough, and that those of us leading the change, myself included, have made mistakes. I understand the fear and anxiety some people feel around all the change, who wonder whether it is possible to really be a mission-rooted space that welcomes everyone while also becoming a financially viable café and bookstore. The truth is I share these concerns. And I'm happy to have a conversation about how we best do this and to hear your suggestions. The latest invitation from the Servants group, supporting spiritual conversations across our differences through reimbursing meal costs, is a great way forward and just the latest example of how Eighth Day shares in our big vision.
As we move from this place carrying palms, or if we're staying right here at The Potter's House for a cup of coffee, may we be continually inviting ourselves and others to the mass movement that is God's kin-dom come to earth.