Transcend and Include

In what may be a classic case of the pastor reading his or her own life into the text, I noticed for the first time that this Pentecost story from Acts, which we read every year on this festival Sunday, is a story about identity. That is, who we understand ourselves to be; as well as who God understands us to be.

In today’s story, Jesus’ disciples are gathered for the Hebrew festival of Pentecost when suddenly God’s Spirit rushes into their room, lights a fire above their heads, and enables them to start speaking in languages other than their own. This attracts a great multi-ethnic and multi-cultural crowd of amazed and astonished onlookers. Each person in the large crowd, regardless of their home country and language, hears and understands the words of God’s spirit speaking through the mouths of 12 Hebrew men. 

The first lesson about identity from this scripture is that the Spirit respects and works within an individual’s identity. The crowd did not have to sacrifice their culture or language in order to receive God’s word. No one among that crowd had to become a Hebrew in order to be filled with God’s word. The Mesopotamians could be Mesopotamian and still receive God’s word. The Arabs could be Arab and still receive God’s word, and so on.

It’s appropriate and important to layer this truth on top of our world today. Israelis can be Israeli and receive God’s word in the same way that Palestinians can be Palestinian and receive God’s word. Republicans can be Republican and receive God’s word in the same way that Democrats can be Democrats and receive God’s word. Ohio State fans can be Ohio State fans and receive God’s word...and, well, good luck to all the rest of you! Just kidding. The Spirit never demands that you give up your identity; nor does it require that of anyone else. Who you are matters. Your gifts, your desires, your quirks, your vocational calling...it all matters.

The second lesson about identity from this scripture is that the Spirit transcends an individual’s identity. Peter is tasked with correcting those among the crowd who think the disciples are nothing more than drunks. Human beings like to label and categorize the identities of others. You’re black, you’re gay, you’re rich, you’re lucky, you’re a jerk, you’re a friend, you’re worthless, you’re a banker, you’re a pastor. This can be an innocent and helpful practice, but it clearly has the capacity to push away and oppress those whom you consider different.  

To such dismissive label-making, Peter raises his voice (which, in the New Testament, only happens when a blessing is being pronounced), and shouts an excerpt from Joel:

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh….Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

All flesh shall prophesy and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not just the Lutherans, the Hebrews, the Republicans, the Democrats, the righteous, the drunks, the rich, the poor, the bankers, or the pastors.

This story is an epic announcement that God seeks to transcend and include our identities as the Holy Spirit does its saving work. 

It is absolutely true that who we are matters. 

It is absolutely true that God will work within us in spite of who we are. 

It is absolutely true that God will work within us because of who we are. 

Transcend and include. In other words, be who you are but don’t let it limit you or others.

This is my final Sunday here as a Pastor at Cross of Grace. Since announcing my resignation, the question of my identity has been a dominant one. Just about everyone has questions about who I am, or, rather, who I will be starting tomorrow. 

Will I still be in the ministry? 
Yes, of course. After all, one of our core faith tenets is the priesthood of all believers. We are all in the ministry. 

Will I still be a pastor? 
No…probably not...well, who knows!

What is my next job title or career path? 
Excellent question! TBD, I’ll keep you posted. Earlier in the week a friend told me he is going to think of me as a retired pastor, which I find quite amusing, though it’s a designation I’ve not earned. “X-Pastor” sounds like a superhero comic book character, like the “X-Men.” I suppose I could print a business card that says that. 

It’s not that these are unimportant questions. God knows I have been wrestling with these questions of identity for a long time. 

In packing up my office I picked up a book that was given to me as a gift when I was ordained. It was signed by the gift-givers (friends who have known me my whole life). They wrote in it: “February 7, 2010 – the day you became the man God created you to be.” 

That was exactly what I needed to hear when I started in parish ministry and it got me through a lot in my 11 years of ministry. When people would get mad at me for what I would or wouldn’t do or say...when I found myself devalued by people in the church...when I couldn’t find encouragement or support, I needed to know that in spite of all the frustrations and disappointments, I was doing what God created me to do.

But at some point, I became curious about life outside of being Pastor Aaron. If I could set off on another career path, what would I choose and why? I discerned a sense of encouragement and optimism as I considered my future outside congregational ministry. And, as the saying goes, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. 

The Spirit is inviting me to transcend my identity as a pastor...but to include it as well. Tomorrow, I will no longer be Pastor Aaron; but tomorrow I will have been Pastor Aaron. That rich and beautiful experience will always inform my sense of identity.

Transcend and include. After all, I’m still becoming the man God created me to be. And God’s still helping me in the process.

This process has, admittedly, been fairly tumultuous. I have an email folder full of rejection emails from positions at nonprofit organizations to which I’ve applied over the past few months. It is tempting to think of myself as someone no one wants to hire. And that is, in fact, a part of my identity. The call of the Spirit is, of course, to transcend that identity...but to include it as well...to let it fill me with humility as well as inform my decisions and have compassion for others who find it hard to find meaningful employment and the gifts that such employment provides. Transcend and include. 

On top of all this, I found out this week that my identity has been stolen and that someone with my name, phone number, address, and social security number recently applied for a $50,000 loan from the US Small Business Administration. The credit reporting agencies are helping me transcend this identity issue, but as long as I’m unwilling to change my name, phone number, address, and social security number, there will always be a chance that someone will pretend to be me and steal money. I think there’s a whole separate sermon in there about being your true self, but alas, I’m out of time. 

All this is to say that identity matters, but only insofar as it leads to openness and inclusion rather than pride, isolation, and judgment of self or others. Who I am today and tomorrow matters. It matters to you, to my family, to me, and to God. Who I am today will be a part of who I am tomorrow. But who I am today or tomorrow will never change the fact that my true identity is found in Christ alone. I am a child of God. And doesn’t that make for a better business card to carry around? 

Who am I? I am a child of God. 

That’s what the Spirit says when it speaks to and through me, as it will continue to do regardless of whether I’m a pastor, a business owner, a teacher, a bartender, or anything else. 

And what’s true for me is especially true for you. Know who you are and let that knowledge expand your heart and mind in order to treat yourself and others with kindness, respect, and love. You are a beloved child of God with unique characteristics that God placed in you for a reason. You are still becoming the person God created you to be. So be kind to yourself and others, treat one another as beloved children of God, and may God bless you today, tomorrow, and forever. 

Amen. 

On the Road & Changing Course

Acts 9:1-22

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

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Just to re-cap… Saul – a good, faithful, perfectly-pedigreed, First Century Jew – better known as Paul to most of us, was persecuting other Jews for following Jesus. He had the blessing of the high priest who sanctioned the threats and murder he breathed against those early disciples and, on the road to the city of Damascus, while “Paul” was still called “Saul,” he was blinded by the light (before it was a hit song), he started hearing voices, and then couldn’t eat or drink for three days. He heard the voice of Jesus, that is, and all the rest was prepping him for the big change – the life-changing, transformational, conversion – that was to come.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the city of Damascus, Ananias, an already faithful follower of Jesus – someone who knew about Saul’s wicked ways – started hearing voices, too. The voice of Jesus, telling him to go out, find Saul, lay hands on and heal his enemy – this man who might have killed him, if given the chance – Aanias was to heal Saul from the blindness that struck him on that road. And Ananias does what he’s told. Saul gets healed and the scales fall from his eyes. And Saul, becomes Paul, who we know to be the first, greatest evangelist, missionary, and church planter in all of Christendom.

I’m probably more cynical than I should be – or at least more cynical than people expect a Pastor to be – but I’m pretty suspicious of “call stories” and “conversion stories” like Paul’s, and others I’ve heard. It’s not that I’d ever say they couldn’t or didn’t happen. If that’s what someone says they’ve experienced, I believe them. I just know that sort of thing hasn’t happened to me, I’m not sure I have the faith to believe it really could, frankly, and I’m almost certain I wouldn’t want it to, because it seems kind of terrifying – blinding lights, hearing voices, days without eating, “something like scales,” falling from my eyes. Thanks, but no thanks.

But I heard a modern-day conversion story of sorts that rivals Paul’s, for my money.

It’s the story of a white guy named Ken Parker who marched in that “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, back in 2017. You know the one that pretended to be about protesting against the removal of Confederate statues and monuments, but that was really about white power and white pride and blatant racism, according to people like Ken Parker, who were part of it. This is the protest that ended in the death of Heather Heyer, the 32 year-old counter protestor who got run over by a car, at the end of the day.

Anyway, this event for Ken was just one of many – but also one of the last – where he was “breathing threats and murder,” as Saul might have said it, against Jews and people of color as a proud white nationalist and “Grand Dragon,” even, of the Ku Klux Klan. As Ken Parker says it, he was there to “stand up for [his] white race.”

But strange as it sounds, like Saul, Ken started hearing voices, too. Not the voice of Jesus, exactly, but, as part of the rally experience, he connected with a Muslim film maker who was creating a documentary about hate groups and that particular event in Charlottesville. Her name was Deeyah Kahn, she was brown, and she was kind to Ken, in spite of knowing exactly who he was and what he was up to – and he noticed and remembered it, and his wheels started spinning.

Some time after the chaos in Charlottesville, Ken Parker ended up in a conversation with a Black pastor, named William McKinnon, III. That conversation continued, over time, until Ken accepted an invitation to attend Easter worship at that Black pastor’s mostly-Black church. A month after that – when the scales had fallen from his eyes, you might say – Ken Parker stood before that congregation, shared his story, confessed his  racist sins, and was welcomed with hugs and hand-shakes and grace, in spite of it all, ultimately to be baptized into the faith in that place, to complete his own life-changing, transformational conversion.

Now, while I can’t not love that story, I don’t think Ken Parker is the star of the show. I mean, I’m not as impressed or inspired by Ken Parker – the grown, white supremacist knucklehead who finally saw the error and terror of his racist ways. I mean I don’t think he’s really the hero here, or the kind of example or inspiration most of us need, from what I can tell.

I’m more impressed and inspired by the likes of that film-maker, Deeyah Kahn, the Muslim woman, who was able to be kind and respectful and patient enough with the likes of Ken Parker – someone who was or would have been none of those things to her (kind, respectful, or patient, I mean) if given the chance. 

And I’m impressed and inspired, of course, by Pastor William McKinnon, III, and the people of the All Saints Holiness Church, who would so faithfully dare to welcome the likes of their greatest enemy into their midst, hear his story, believe in his repentance and redemption, and love him because of it.

See, they all play the role of Ananias – if not the voice of Jesus – in the story of Saul’s big change on the road to Damascus; Ananias, the one who healed Saul’s blindness and revealed for him the power of God’s love and mercy. Like Ananias, Deeyah Kahn, Pastor McKinnon, and the people of his church, did the Lord’s bidding. They confronted their enemy and their fears with faithfulness. They overwhelmed Ken Parker with grace and mercy, with forgiveness and a second-chance. And they showed him the Kingdom and welcomed him into it alongside them.

And that’s how I’d like to be – and how I’d like us all to be – in the world and in the Church more often:

agents of change for the brokenness that surrounds us;

kind, respectful, forgiving, open to and speaking the language of God’s love in Jesus, so that our greatest fears will be relieved;

so that our hearts – and the hearts of those from whom we are so divided – would repent and be reconciled, one to another;

so that all sins could be confessed, not in shame or for the sake of ridicule, but with the hope of forgiveness and with the expectation of redemption;

and so that the scales would fall from every eye until all can see the fullness of God’s love and be changed for the better because of it, for our sake and for the sake of the world, that has so many changes, so much conversion, such transformation yet to be realized.

Amen

NOTE: I gleaned the information I learned about Ken Parker from the following story, if you’d like to read more and/or see and hear from some of those mentioned. NBC News