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| 2007 Palm Sunday Sermon: Are We Fans or Followers? |  |  |  |
| By the Reverend Rev. Nancy L. Wilson The question has been posed for Palm Sunday: "Are we fans or followers?" You know, there are also more loyal fans, such as my friend Fran. Fran is a Red Sox fan, come rain or come shine. She watches every game, has the memorabilia, knows every player, and puts her heart in it. She cheers when they win. And she grieves when they lose. God has good news for you at the dawn of Holy Week: One can shift from simply being a fan to become a follower! Jesus also had followers on that first Palm Sunday. But when he appeared to be losing, some of them would betray and deny him. Still others would follow him all the way through that momentous week and beyond. We gather here, today, to open ourselves up to the question: "Are we fans or followers?" The Apostle Paul started out not as a fan, but a self-proclaimed enemy of Christ and so-called Christians. He wrote the letter to the Philippians from a jail cell. It is a letter filled with expressions of joy and companionship, from a committed follower of Jesus Christ, who will pay any price to preach and share the gospel, and to embody Jesus' love and grace. It is a gorgeous letter. If you have time, just read it through this week. What an incredible transformation took place in his life! In his letter, Paul, offers one of his many definitions of following Jesus -- which he describes here as sharing the "mind" of Christ. "Mind" in the Greek language is not limited to our mental capacity or intellect. It includes so much more; it means our will, our heart, our deepest, most complete self -- what some would call "consciousness." We are to have that mind, not just as individuals, but we are also called to have it "among us." It is the "mind" (meaning heart, will, essence) of Christ, that we are to live and share. It is what distinguishes us as followers from those who are merely fair-weather fans. In the second chapter of Philippians, Paul describes the secret of Jesus' inner life as his mind. Paul writes that Jesus, though equal with God, did not try to understand or hold on to, or use or abuse that equality, but "emptied himself, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." Jesus did not take the Power that he was given and use it for selfish reasons. He did not become addicted to it. He did not let it use him. Instead, he emptied himself (the word in Greek is "kenosis"). He aligned himself with God and God's purposes and became utterly transparent. To follow Jesus, then, is not to be a fair-weather fan, but rather to share that amazing mind, that Mind of Christ, that risked emptying of self to allow God to shine through. And that raises an important question: How does one do that? Well, we don't do it alone, we do it in a community of accountability. We do it by recognizing that from the time we are very young, we start to get full of things. We are full of fears and insecurities. We are full of pride (not the good kind!), of needs and longings, of hungers and even of addictions. We are full of our own opinions and ideas and pre-conceptions and prejudices. We are full of other's opinions of us. Sometimes we are even full of lies, and self-hatred, and despair. And we can also be full of good things -- busy-ness, good deeds, commitments to this and that and the other thing, or group or activity. Our calendars are full, our refrigerators are full, we want our bank accounts to be full. Our hearts and minds are full. But are we full of the things of God? Is there any room for God? Can we imagine what it might be like to empty ourselves, to start over, to align ourselves with a God who wants to reconcile the world, to bring a reign of justice and peace? Sometimes we see examples of that, and some Christians have called that being a "saint." Today we are honoring Mychal Judge, because so many saw that self-emptying in him. He is often called the Saint of 9/11, because of the indelible image of him on that terrible day in New York, Pieta-like, dead in the arms of the firefighters he cared for and served. But Mychal Judge is not a saint because of what he did that day. Rather, it is because of what he did every day over the course of a lifetime. Over a lifetime, Mychal Judge -- a gay, Catholic priest -- gave himself away every day in the service of Jesus Christ. He emptied himself for a long time, a lifetime. He walked what he talked. He stood up for justice. He stood up for those with HIV/AIDS. He loved with grace and transparency. People come to be saints not because of something heroic they do once, but because their lives point beyond themselves to the Author of Life. We celebrate Mychal Judge today because, for us, he was also the embodiment of queer self-emptying. The terrible lie that says that LGBT people are not capable of sainthood is overthrown! There have always been saints among us, and there are today! And each of us is more capable of self-emptying that we have ever imagined. We live in very troubling times in our world today. Dr. Justin Tanis, in his essay on Philippians in The Queer Bible Commentary, says of Paul, that he preached Christ, "who turned the power structures of this world on their heads." We need a gospel that does that today, that urges us to empty ourselves, and to allow the paradoxical Power of God to overturn the destructive, oppressive forces of this world on their heads. I commend to you a sermon offered by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, and I must note this: It is a great thing to have a Rabbi write a Palm Sunday reflection, it coincides so well this week with Passover. Rabbi Waskow says, "From Rabbi Jesus marching in Jerusalem against the Roman Empire just before Passover time, down to Fannie Lou Hamer chanting Black American freedom songs like "Go Down Moses," the Exodus story has been used for centuries as an inspiration for resistance to tyrants. We should also pay attention to the other side of the story: its brilliant description of Pharaoh's addiction to top-down, unaccountable power. We should pay attention, because we are living through this history.." Rabbie Waskow notes that "...Pharaoh depends more and more on violence to control the rebellious world - the rebellious workers (foreigners! illegal immigrants!), his own rebellious daughter, the rebellious earth itself. Even when Pharaoh's own advisors shriek at him, "You are destroying Egypt!" he can no longer turn back... Today we face not merely a single person, but a set of interlocking institutions that are our "Pharaoh, - Big Oil, the swollen military, an Imperial White House. This Pharaoh has so addicted itself to its own uncontrollable power that it can no longer make a free choice... Unfortunately, when those who have great power insulate themselves in arrogance and violence, the disasters they create do not only wound themselves. They wound the whole society." It is from this kind of addictive power that we must seek to empty ourselves, and becomes more than fans of a Jesus who emptied himself. We must risk becoming followers. There is a way out of the addictive cycles of violence and power. It is the Jesus' way -- the way of mutuality, of love, of grace. It is the same inclusive love and grace that we have found in the community we call Metropolitan Community Churches. It is the only Power that can heal our world today -- a world that is on the brink of yet another war, with yet more hostages and threats and counter-threats. A world where homophobia and AIDS-phobia kill our brothers and sisters in Jamaica, and in many places in the world. We need more saints who know and live the power of God's love and grace. We need living saints who will say yes to the freedom that self-emptying brings. May we find and live that freedom for the sake of the world that God so loved, for Mychal Judge, for Jesus. Amen.
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