Nancy E. Petty

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

February 11, 2007 – Sixth Sunday after Epiphany—Alliance of Baptists Sunday

Text: Luke 6:17-31

It’s a Question of Where You Stand

Soren Kierkegaard was a philosopher whose beliefs seem odd and discordant in a country where we tout the ruling of the majority. He says, in effect, that the majority is always wrong and that, conversely, the minority is always right. By that he means that mass thinking, mass doctrine, mass Bible-speak, mass belief is, even if in its infancy a world-changing truth, increasingly less powerful, less meaningful, even downright false as the word travels from ear to ear, mouth to mouth, just as a game of gossip ends in gibberish. What he listened for was not the voice of the majority but, rather, the lone voice crying in the wilderness, as the prophets of old, as the prophets of the new. To Kierkegaard, the word must be startling, striking, even world-bending and mind-altering. The word must be fresh, original. One writer, Sheridan Baker, has said that when people sit down to write they should make a list of ten things they know about a subject and then write on the eleventh. Originality may be the result. Similarly, any journalist, any broadcaster, any media guru looks for the fresh slant that will lead us to a new place in our thinking or behavior.

Twenty years ago, a motley assemblage of naysayers gathered on the campus of Meredith College, just down Hillsborough Street, to find a new word in the almost deafening outcry of policy and purpose coming from the Southern Baptist Convention. The trend among allegedly disparate and highly argumentative Baptists of the old school had become a solitary roar of inerrancy, destruction of academic freedom, denial of women’s importance and place in the church and in marriage, and a smug, even condescending attitude toward all those who would beg to differ on such important issues facing the church. This uniform voice, the powerful body, was headed by leaders who said things both unthinkable and even evil to the quieter, more reasoned group of objectors. I remember when the President of the convention said that God does not hear the prayers of the Jews. I remember when even moderate Baptists were appalled at the pronouncement from on high that wives must obey their husbands. And more recently we have heard that same voice from that same body telling us that gays and lesbians should be denied admission to the body of believers. That’s what happens when a few thousand or million people are all saying the same thing.

That motley assemblage of naysayers that met at Meredith called themselves the Baptist Alliance, but unlike the powerful Southern Baptists of the religious right, this “alliance” was loosely formed, had no crystal cathedral, no mega parking, no American flag waving on the Christian soldiers of the faith. Rather, the Baptist Alliance was just thinking out loud, mulling, if you will, about what word could possibly be said that would silence or at least restrain the tide of public opinion among conservative Baptists. The alliance had only one agenda: what can we say to the world about the word, the good news of the gospel, the voice speaking tentatively and with some fear of intimidation, from the back pew.

Intentionally or not, the alliance was following an example set by Jesus in the way he spoke to the world. You may be thinking that the masses of people who gathered on the plains to hear Jesus might be evidence of Kierkegaard’s hated and hateful mass thinking. But you would not be right. The crowd, even if it numbered in the hundreds or thousands, came, not to test Jesus or out of idle curiosity or even to receive a doctrine or set of tired precepts and proverbs—codes to live by, we might say. They came, rather, to

hear Jesus, to touch him, to be healed by him, and each came as a solitary soul emerging from a personal wilderness of pain. Luke’s version of the more widely known and oft quoted Sermon on the Mount in Matthew differs markedly, in that Luke seems to ignore the rule and regulation, the law and legalism, for which Matthew is sometimes revered and sometimes not. Significant too is the difference in the names of the sermons—sermons from the mountaintop—the almost comically trite mountaintop experience promised to those who convert according to appropriate standards set by the leaders of the church—experiences that Baptists, at least, have heard about since they were Sunbeams. Luke sets the scene in a low place, rather like the stump of which I spoke in a recent meditation, for the crowds are gathered on the plain where ordinary folk and ordinary experiences prevail. This is a humble place, a place where the original and fresh can happen to each individual. Yes, if we’re going to really understand Jesus and his message, it does matter where we stand.

That was precisely the hope that the Alliance gave to a hungry and thirsty people some twenty years ago. The Alliance came down from the mountaintop—the world of severe doctrines, standards of belief, membership requirements—to a level place of real and honest—ordinary, if you will, relationship. They came down and came together, like the two or three gathered in Jesus’ name, and their presence was a cure that brought healing to a diseased and defeated group of ragtag Baptists who were unwilling to get with the program, unwilling to have others speak for them, unwilling to accept a hierarchical system as opposed to the very egalitarian priesthood of believers that is the true legacy of the Baptist heritage.

Following the example of Jesus and of the Alliance, Pullen and churches like Pullen are challenged today to find the fresh word, the new perspective, the honest message, and the level ground that has nothing to do with resolutions made on the mountaintop of spiritual and doctrinal certainties. And what sort of word was Jesus dispensing to the crowd. His word was not popular, not conventional, not safe, not easy to grasp. It was, however, faithful, life changing and life giving—transforming. He says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled,” “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” and then he concludes this strange list of blessings by assertions of dire importance that contradict everything we have been taught about success, fullness of life, abundance, and blessing. He says, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation”; Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry”; and Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” These words—for the comfortable, confident, respected, and deserving members of the church—are alarming at worst and unsettling at best. We are to have by letting go? We are to live by giving up all concern for our quality of life? We are to succeed by losing our personal fan clubs, our supporters, our reputations? What could Jesus be thinking? The life he describes feels like no life at all unless the word makes its connection to the deepest unconscious level of our souls—the part that remains un-indoctrinated and open to possibility.

Pullen is in a peculiar place. Outsiders view us as being the height of freshness, originality, danger—whether or not they like our views, they will concede that we are decidedly out of the mainstream, decidedly in that tiny minority called “radical, liberal Baptists,” a phrase that is an oxymoron to those who think they know who Baptists are. But on the inside, we look pretty cozy. The racial diversity of our congregation is not great. The pews look the same. The service sounds very much like any we would hear in many Baptist churches. We sing the doxology, we send up our joys and concerns, we discuss the budget at Wednesday night meetings, and we form committees whenever there’s the slightest question as to what should happen next. Most of us are solidly middle class and most of us are not and never will be civilly disobedient in the manner of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Thomas Paine, Sojourner Truth, Henry David Thoreau, Dorothy Day and Harriet Tubman. Most of us will never know what it’s like to go hungry, to be homeless, or to have to walk a mile to get water for the day. Is my intention to make you feel guilty for having rather than not having? And was that Jesus’ intention? The answer comes at the end of Jesus’ sermon on the plain, where we are reminded that the word is, as Thomas Merton called, “hidden” in the sacred ground of love. The last verse makes all the previous moot. It says, simply, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Thus, in every individual circumstance we stand on the sacred ground of love when we put this truth into practice.

I sometimes wonder: Have we become like the Southern Baptists that were on the minds of those at that first gathering of the alliance, or are we allowing ourselves to be challenged to find a new word and thus to retain the spirit of courage and possibility that was apparent twenty years ago in the hearts of those who met to form the alliance.

As with other times in our church’s history, Pullen is at a critical point in deciding where we’re going to stand: on the mountain or on the plains. The words from the mountaintop are actually the woes of which Jesus speaks: riches, fullness, laughter, reputation—all that the world values. The words on the plains are of poverty, hunger, weeping. These words may leave you with the impression that in order to follow Jesus we must suffer constantly, be doormats for others, donate every penny to the church, give away all that we have, and love without condition. Jesus does not expect us to deny our basic human needs for shelter, sustenance, love. Jesus does however ask us to embrace our own poverty, to not take up or use up more than our share, to work unflinchingly for others, and to love all without ceasing.

The Alliance could have turned itself into another pseudo-committee or church, with a place of its own and a budget and accompanying political wrangling. Instead, the body remained and remains loosely organized, keeping its ears and eyes open to the possibility of a new word, a turn in the road. At Pullen, again, I sometimes wonder if we are becoming more like what we left behind rather than where we are meant to go. Yes, we include gays and lesbians. Yes, we perform gay unions. Yes, we serve communion to anybody who wishes to partake. Yes, we feed the hungry. But are we simply putting new wine in old skins? Where is the new vessel of truth? Are we listening? Are we reaching to touch the very hand of Jesus? Are we seeking to be healed? Are we loving without limit or condition? Are we taking risks? Not for the sake of simply taking risks, but for the sake of the gospel—the good news? And if not, then what is the new word that will bring us to a place of change, confrontation, risk, and renewal? Where is Pullen choosing to stand now—on the mountaintop or on a level plain? It is a question of where you stand because where you stand determines what you see, and how you live.