“Two
Religions”
John 1:29-42
First Presbyterian
Return to the Sermons and Articles Page
Return to the Sermon Archives Page
Mary Ann Bird, in her memoir
entitled The Whisper Test, tells of the power of words of acceptance in
her own life. She was born with
multiple birth defects: deaf in one ear, a cleft palate, a disfigured face, a
crooked nose, lopsided feet. As a
child, Mary Ann suffered not only these physical impairments but also the
emotional damage inflicted by other children.
“Mary Ann,” her classmates would ask over and over again, “What
happened to your lip?”
“I cut it on a piece of glass
when I was little,” she would say, knowing it was not true.
One
of her worst experiences at school, she recalled, was the day of the annual
hearing test. The teacher would call
each child to her desk, and then she would have him or her cover first one ear,
and then the other. The teacher
would whisper something to the child like “The sky is blue” or “You have
new shoes.” This was called “the
whisper test;” if the teacher’s phrase was heard and repeated, the child
passed the test. To avoid the
humiliation of failure, Mary Ann always cheated on the test, secretly cupping
her hand over her one good ear so that she still could hear what the teacher
said.
One year Mary Ann was in the
class of Miss Leonard, one of the best-liked and most popular teachers in the
school. Every student, including
Mary Ann, wanted to be noticed by her, wanted to be that teacher’s “pet.”
The day of the dreaded hearing test arrived.
When her turn came, Mary Ann was called to the teacher’s desk.
As Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear, Miss Leonard leaned
forward to whisper. “I waited for
those words,” Mary Ann wrote in her book, “those words that God must have
put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life.”
Miss Leonard did not say to Mary Ann, “The sky is blue” or “You
have new shoes.” What she
whispered to her was, “I wish you were my little girl.” (1)
Henri Nouwen until his death a decade or so ago, was one
of the world’s most esteemed and prolific writers on spirituality, a Catholic
priest who taught at Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame until he left academia to
work with mentally and physically handicapped persons living in a small
hospitality house in Toronto. In his
book entitled Reaching Out, Nouwen wrote about hospitality as
“…the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a
friend instead of an enemy. (The
purpose of) hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where
change can take place.”
Dan Wakefield, a novelist whose memoirs I read several
years ago, tells of an encounter in which Nouwen provided him the space to
change. Wakefield, as he tells it, “sought
salvation in the first half of his life through drugs, alcohol,
and promiscuity,” but began in the second half of his life to experience a
spiritual awakening. He developed
what he could best describe as a thirst for spiritual understanding and contact
or, to put it bluntly, he said, “a thirst for God.”
But
Christianity, in other words, is not in and of itself a
panacea for what ails either us or the world.
Christianity is no paint-by-number guide to a successful life.
Indeed, the life of its founder ended in the disgrace and ignominy of
crucifixion outside of
Is that not, for instance, the point and potential of the
parables that Jesus told? No
one-size-fits-all formulas telling us how to live.
No doctrines to believe or to fight about.
No “four spiritual laws” to follow.
Just stories of grace and gospel that provide the space in which, over
time, as their alternative renderings of life sink into the subterranean layers
of our lives, we might, as the prodigal son did, come to ourselves and
live larger, truer, and more hospitable lives that bring joy to us and hope and
healing to the world.
“I wish that you were my little girl.” Can you hear the spaciousness in Miss Leonard’s whispered affection? Nothing really changed for Mary Ann Bird. She remained disfigured and deaf in one ear and the object of her classmates’ painful ridicule. But everything changed for Mary Ann Bird. She began to see that her classmates’ judgments were neither the only words about her nor the final words. She started to understand herself as loved and lovable and dared to envision a future not constrained by her circumstances but a future that could transcend them. Indeed, following in the footsteps of the teacher who set her free, Mary Ann Bird herself became an acclaimed teacher known for her compassion and kindness.
“I have a dream that someday my four children will live in a nation in which they will not be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (3) Can you hear the spaciousness in the Reverend Dr. King’s poetic polemic, especially as we are reminded this weekend of his life and ministry? No angry demands, though they would have been justified. No call to arms. Rather, a picture of an alternative future that could change the lives of individuals and nations for all the years and eons to come, and an invitation for us not only to dream the same dream but to continue to make it a living reality.
“The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God.’ The two disciples heard John say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Teacher, where are you staying?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Come and see.’” Can you hear the spaciousness in the invitation of Jesus? Jesus did not, as too many churches do these days, make them sign doctrinal statements before joining up with him. He did not require them to take new disciple classes or conform to his standards. He simply invited them to come and see where he was staying, which is to say that he invited them to come near unto God and to discover a way of life that reveals the heart of God, a way of life that unleashes love in the world and transforms everything it touches, a way of peace that renews beleaguered hearts and sets a weary world free.
When people ask me what First Presbyterian Church is up to these days, I tell them that we are trying to create a spaciousness in which we can discover and delight in the large and expansive heart of God and then to share what we find by the manner and mirth of our living. We have yet to do that perfectly but that is our purpose and hope.
There are two kinds of religion in the world. The kind that aims to tell and compel and the kind that invites us to see and be free. It is to the latter that on this snowy day I once again invite you.
Amen.
(1)
Long,
Thomas G., Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian.
(2) ibid., pp. 120-122.
(3)
The
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in
© Copyright 2008 First Presbyterian Church