Destined to Repeat a History We Don't Know

I have to tell you a story about Joanna. So Joanna was one of many grandchildren who attended the Easter dinner at her grandparents’ house. She was always interested in what was going on in the kitchen. Unless you think this is about me, I don't do kitchen. My spouse is the cook in the family. When Joanna – I just like to name Joanna, Okay? – when Joanna saw her mother cutting the ham in half, and putting it in the oven, she was curious.

"Mom, why do you cut the ham in half?” Her mother said, “I do it because your grandmother did it. Go ask her why she cut the ham in half.” So Joanna found her grandmother among the people hanging around, and she cozied up to her and said, “Grandma, can you answer a question for me? Why did you cut the ham in half?” Grandma said, “I cut the ham in half because your great grandmother cut the ham in half. If you want to know, go ask her.” Joanna was lucky enough to have a great-grandparents living. And so she found great-grandma, who was playing dominoes on the floor with some of the kids. And she said “Can I interrupt for a second? Great-Grandma? Why did you cut the ham in half? Before you put it in the oven?” Great-Grandma said, “I cut the ham in half because I didn't have a pan big enough for the whole ham.”

Sometimes traditions get handed down, and we're not sure of the reasons why. And if we knew the reasons why – if we knew our traditions – perhaps we would buy a bigger pan, change our behavior. Traditions come from our history, and what we hold dear. But if they become stuck, if they determine our behavior, and our behavior is unbecoming. That's a problem. Then we have traditional-ISM. Jaroslav Pelikan, who's quoted in your program says tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Now, you all have a history, if you've read on the website, or in the E-Pistle, you will know a little bit about my history. When I was young girl, I was told in no uncertain terms. “No, you cannot be a minister.” Even though that's all I wanted to do. Because I emulated my grandfather, who was a minister.

I became a rebellious child, it took me $20,000 of therapy to be able to say that. Not quite that much –I didn't have that kind of money. 

On the one hand, I was told by my parents you can do and be anything you want. They were of that era that just because I was a girl didn't mean I couldn't be a doctor or a lawyer. 

But I couldn't be a minister. And that was because of the church. It was as though God Himself was determining what I could or couldn't do with a call that was real. 

I became a little bit cynical of the church. And yet, I can trace my life seeking for justice, advocating for increasing inclusion in the church back to that moment. I know my history, I know that we can never go back. 

Some of you may know the name Norm Kansfield is a friend of ours. He and his family were members of Dan's church in Rochester, New York. He was the president of New Brunswick Seminary. And he was brought up on heresy charges in the Reformed Church in America – the national body that holds the credential of seminary professors – or officiating at the wedding of his daughter, to her wife, legally in Massachusetts. 

I wonder if Norm had not had a lesbian child, if he would have taken such a bold step. He was he was stripped of his credential. He had to leave the RCA to practice ministry, to be a professor, which was fine because lots of people wanted him. And he was the impetus for Room for All, which is the advocating organization in the Reformed Church for LGBTQIA+persons. 

I wonder who you would be if back in 1978, Isabel Graham, had not bequeathed you $5,000. Who would you be if you had not become part of the United Church of Christ in 1965? Who would you be, if in 1987, you had chosen not to become open and affirming of all LGBTQIA persons? Our history informs our present, and our presence. 

Your presence as God's people in this community has been profound. 

I applaud you for reading the book, the Afro-Christian Convention, the Fifth Stream of the UCC, and I wonder who the United Church of Christ would be, had we lifted up that fifth stream earlier in our history as a denomination. 

I wonder who we might be as a nation if we had honored the contribution of the democratic nations of the indigenous people of this land, when we were creating our own form of law. 

When we traveled in Germany, visiting my daughter's family in the cities, we looked for Stolpersteins. Do any of you know what those are? In English, that means stumbling stones. They are little brass plaques that are put flush with the sidewalk in front of homes with the names of the Jewish people who last resided there. And what happened to them? It was fascinating. And to think that Germany does this as a nation, exploring their history of allowing that murderous time to take place. 

It makes me wonder if we, as a nation ,would do our due diligence with regard to enslaved people, by insisting that their names be prominent on the properties of the Southern plantations where their bodies were used as machines. 

How would that change our understanding of who we are, as a people? 

Our history informs our present and our presence and the traditions we hold dear about the embarrassing and awful parts of our history. If we don't know them, we're destined to repeat them according to one wise person. 

Or will we seek to know them, name them and address them for what we are? Then we can be healed. We can be better. 

And I'm gonna step out on a branch here. I hope it's a sturdy one… I believe that as a church, there's very little that we do, very few rules that we follow, very few social mores that we subscribe to that are sacred. 

Paul's letter to the Thessalonians he says, “Test everything, examine everything to see if it is from God.” Norm wrote in his sermon on the occasion of Anne and Jen’s is reading about the history of “marrying out.” You know this language…”marrying out”? Means marrying outside your tribe, outside your race, outside your religion. He spoke about that in his sermon. In Deuteronomy, marrying out was forbidden, you could not marry outside the Hebrew tribe. The Moabites are specifically prohibited from coming into the community, no foreigners allowed. Nehemiah centurys later tells us of the havoc that was reaped, when people who had married had to separate in order to abide by God's commands. Families were split apart, marriages ended. Yet the prophet Isaiah says that God will not deny a foreigner welcome among God's people. And in fact, Ruth, a Moabitess, is welcomed into the community, declares her love for a woman ,and agrees to worship the god of that woman.

She becomes the ancestor of probably the most famous of Israelite kings.

The God of our ancestors, the god of Jesus, is indeed a God whose love consistently becomes more and more expansive. And our Gospel lesson for today, we understand Jesus’ invitation to be connected to the vine, so that we can produce fruit – as a parable of how to discern whether we were receiving the juice, whether we're actually going to be able to produce fruit. 

If we live the ways of Jesus, if we're connected to Jesus’ model of bringing community of being welcoming, and forgiving and merciful, we will bear fruit. And so it makes sense for us, if we don't want to be one of those that's chopped off and thrown in the fire, that we examine our our ways. Inviting, welcoming, inclusive are the ways of love. 

You've had a profound 10 years. Obviously there's something loving and compelling about who you are and what you're doing. You've grown as a church in numbers tremendously. I imagine that goes along with a growth in your faith. And most of you, I'm guessing, have been participating for fewer than 10 years. 

What about the rest of your history? What do you need to know? What wonderful thing happened in the past that you can pull into the future that will inform your witness to the broader community? And what are the sacred cows? You know that language right? What are the sacred cows, the traditions that have become traditionalisms – we all have them? What's keeping you from the next iteration of love in your community? That's what the interim time is about – exploring those sorts of questions. 

So during May, with the help of those who'd like to be part of that transition team, we will explore your history more deeply. We'll create a timeline so that you can see beyond the last 10 years. 

And you can write your own connections on that timeline. And then we'll engage in some conversation about loss and grief. 

In fact, we'll start that on Wednesday evening, associated with Sal’s departure, and wonder together about the space that has been created and what can fill it with hope for the future. 

Yaroslav Pelikan, ends his famous quote with these words, “Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time. So all that's needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of a homogenized tradition. Tradition, on the other hand, lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are, and when we are, and that it is we who have to decide.” 

Amen? 

Amen.

Rev. Jody Bettem


Words of Integration and Guidance         
Richard Rohr, white, American, Franciscan priest, writer,
founder of Center for Action and Contemplation

It’s possible to trace the movement of Christianity from its earliest days until now.  In Israel, Jesus and the early “church” offered people an experience. It moved to  Greece, and became a philosophy. When it moved to Rome and Constantinople,
it became organized religion. Then it spread to Europe, and it became a culture.  Finally, it moved to North America and became a business. 

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