Today's Gospel--the
entwined stories of the raising of Jairus's daughter and the healing of the
woman with the flow of blood [Mark 5: 21-43]--comes in what some biblical
scholars call a "Markan sandwich".
There are several places in the second Gospel where Mark enfolds one
story within another, thereby allowing each to comment on and amplify the
other. The raising of Jairus’s daughter gives us the bread, the woman’s healing
the filling.
Today's two stories
are related on several levels. They both
feature desperate people--a man whose daughter is near death, a woman who
cannot stop bleeding. They both tell of
miraculous healings--Jairus's daughter is restored to life, the woman's blood
flow is stopped. But to my mind, the
most important feature these stories share is that everyone in them takes a
risk.
What's so risky about
this Gospel? An establishment figure
dares to seek help from someone outside the official religious system. In going
to Jesus, Jairus risks both his position and his reputation. Then, a person who
is ritually unclean dares to touch the garment of a holy person. In touching Jesus, the woman risks punishment
for violating the boundaries of Israel's purity laws.
But they're not the
only ones taking risks here. Jesus has
no choice about the woman's petition--she touches him and he feels the healing power
leave him. But he does have a choice
about Jairus's daughter, and in choosing to restore her to life Jesus risks the
rejection of those around him. "The
child is not dead but sleeping," he says.
They respond by laughing at him. But when he tells her to get up, and she
does, they respond not in derision but with amazement.
Healing and
resurrection, derision and amazement. And now to the windows. Many of you
probably know that I have called for Washington National Cathedral to remove
two windows on the south side of the nave that depict the lives of Confederate
Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and display the Confederate battle
flag.
These windows (along
with their inscriptions) seek to reframe the Civil War and present the two
generals as saintly, exemplary Christians.
Let me say a word about each issue.
First, the battle
flag. It is a common image in American
culture, but in the wake of the shootings in Charleston the week before last we
have all become aware of how deeply offensive this image is, especially to
African Americans. Like it or not, the Confederate
battle flag has become the symbol of white supremacy in America. There are many white southerners who will say
that they intend no disrespect when displaying it. But as a preacher I know a lot about the
difference between intent and impact. I
may not intend you to hear something when I say it, but if you do hear it, I am
still responsible for what you hear. And
so it is with the flag: as benign as the intentions of some may be in
displaying the Confederate battle flag, the fact that many find it offensive
should be enough of a reason to fold it up and put it away.
There simply is no
excuse for the nation's most visible church to display a symbol of racism,
slavery, and oppression. None. I believe
all representations of this flag should go from our public spaces. In saying
that, I do not want to whitewash history.
But I don't want to celebrate a cause whose primary reason for being was
the preservation and extension of slavery in America.
As President Obama
said on Friday at the funeral for Clementa Pinckney,
Removing the flag from this state's capital
would not be an act of political correctness.
It would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be acknowledgement that the
cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong.
Second, the windows
themselves. Some have suggested that we
merely excise the flag images from the windows and leave the rest of them
intact. But if you go look at them after
the service, and I encourage you to do so—they’re on the south side of the
nave, just this side of President Wilson’s tomb--you'll see that the flags are
only part of the problem. The
Lee-Jackson bay was installed in 1953 after a long campaign by the United
Daughters of the Confederacy both to fund and approve them. The United
Daughters of the Confederacy is a group mainly concerned with fostering respect
for southern heritage. But in proposing
these windows they went beyond heritage and created a memorial that puts a
decidedly saintly spin on two leaders of the Confederate Army. The inscriptions portray them as exemplary
Christian gentlemen. But the windows
contain no reference to the sin of slavery which both men fought---and one
died--to uphold.
Some have accused me
of wanting to whitewash history. I do
not seek to whitewash history. I seek to
celebrate history in all its fullness and complexity. In calling for the windows to be removed, I
am asking not to rewrite the past but to tell the story of the past honestly--in
a way that honors not just one side but everyone involved in a painful time whose
effects are with us yet. The great
southern American writer William Faulkner said, "The past is never dead.
It's not even past." America’s cathedral should represent America in all
its fullness and tell our story without trying to make saints of men who served
an unjust cause.
We can live with some
contradictions until we can't. I'm not
unaware that the dean who installed these windows--Francis Sayre--was one of
the great activist civil rights clergy of the 1950s and 1960s. Apparently he
saw no contradiction between supporting the Lee-Jackson windows in 1953 and
Brown versus Board of Education one year later.
He could live in that tension, but I cannot, and I believe this
cathedral cannot. It is time for those
windows to go and live elsewhere in our buildings as part of a historical
display. It is time for us to commission
new ones for the nave that will tell the full, painful, yet hopeful story of
race and justice in America.
And that brings me
back to today's Gospel--two entwined stories about faithful people taking risks.
Like Mark's Gospel, America itself tells two interlocking tales--one of
equality and liberty and freedom, another of oppression and violence and
segregation. We will never live into the
fullness of our destiny as a people until we live into the fullness of the
interconnectedness of these two stories.
In 1865 we ended a war over slavery and began, as blacks and whites, to
live together as full equal citizens of our shared land. 150 years later we still have not completed
the work begun in that war’s end.
Washington Nation Cathedral is called, as our nation's most visible
church, to lead the faith community and our nation in healing America by facing
into racism, its history, and its encampment in our own hearts. We cannot do that if our building only tells
one side of the story. We cannot do that while the Confederate battle flag
shines in our windows. All our artworks, like our scriptures and those who
preach on them, must always strive to tell the truth. And sadly, our
understanding of truth emerges only over time.
Jairus dared to risk
by seeking out an itinerant preacher for help.
The woman dared to risk by touching a holy man when she was sick. Jesus dared to risk by promising he could
bring a dead girl to life. Everyone
laughed, and then they were overcome with amazement.
We can live with some
contradictions until we can't. Here is the question the Gospel poses for us
today, and we could not find a clearer sharper moral problem if we tried. In light of the risks taken by Jesus and
these others, do you and I have the courage to do something risky as well? Can Washington National Cathedral--this
great, glorious, temple of our nation's religious establishment--can this
cathedral dare to risk on behalf of our best shared vision of America? Do we
have the courage to revisit our assumptions and admit when they are inadequate
or false? Can we risk admitting that we can no longer live with the
contradiction between justice and oppression, that we can no longer celebrate
both slavery and freedom in the same space?
"The past is
never dead. It's not even past." This cathedral will continue to honor all
sides of the American story. What it can no longer do is pretend that slavery
was a value worth fighting for. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E Lee were men of
courage and valor. They fought for their
homeland with courage. But in choosing to serve a nation founded on slavery
they were wrong, and they fought under a flag that many across America equate
with racism, bigotry and hatred. It is
time for our cathedral to replace their memorial with one that does justice to
the sacrifices of all involved in that terrible and bloody conflict. It is time
for this cathedral, like the Jesus we follow, to dare and risk. People may laugh, but if we are faithful and
persistent, they will be "overcome with amazement" at the loving,
forgiving, and liberating grace of the God whom we struggle, by fits and
starts, to follow. Amen.
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