February 6, 2007 — 6:51 PM
God made a quilt and called it good
Nehemiah 8:1-10
1 Corinthians 12:12-31
In December I had the opportunity to visit the de Young Museum's exhibit of the Gee's Bend Quilts. Did any of you have the chance to see that exhibit? It was an amazing display of craft work.
When I first entered the space, I was struck by how different these quilts were from most other quilts I have ever seen. The first thing to really hit me were the colors. They were bold - reds, yellows, oranges, and black. Quite a change from the more typical muted blues, pinks, and other pastels.
And almost as quickly I was struck by the designs. While the pieces used were similar in shape to those used in other quilts, here they were put together in very unique patterns. The quilts had a geometric feeling to them.
The fabric pieces were cut mainly from worn out clothing with a few pieces of newer materials thrown in for flair. Each woman came up with her own style of assembling the fabric pieces. And on top of that, many women stitched patterns with thread. Some of the quilts hanging on the walls were irregular in their shape since the women added to the quilts as fabric became available to them.
These quilts were utilitarian and yet they were works of art. Clothes that no longer served their purpose for work were transformed into something new, something that could provide warmth during those hours not spent working.
No one piece of clothing would have been sufficient for the job. Only when all the pieces were combined together did the full quilt emerge. The diversity of fabrics and stitching patterns combined to make the individual pieces come together in new and creative ways.
I bet you can see where I'm going with this after hearing our New Testament reading for this morning. I am using the metaphor of a quilt; Paul used the metaphor of the human body. That was a metaphor being used frequently in his time. He knew that the people would understand what he was trying to tell them. He wanted to help the people of the church in Corinth to see that different gifts were needed in the church in the same way that different parts are necessary to make up the human body.
The members of that community were fighting over who had the best gift - the most important gift. The one that was valued most highly by the people there was that of speaking in tongues. And those who exhibited this gift were looking down on people with other gifts and disregarding their usefulness or importance to the church as a whole.
But Paul counseled the church members that just as a body would not be a body if it was only made up of all eyes or all ears, neither is the church a true community of God if it is made up of people who only exhibit the same gift.
Paul wanted the Corinthian Christians to understand that diversity is not only good, it is necessary. God's work in the world cannot happen without it. I would like to paraphrase Paul's point this way: When God created the world, God made a quilt not a blanket.
The beginning of the book of Genesis tells the story of creation twice and in both stories the diversity of what God made is quite evident. On each successive day, God made new things that were different than those made the day before. And at the end of each day God sat back, looked over everything God had done, and said, "It is good." God saw the diversity and was happy with it.
I fear that we have gotten away from this understanding in our country and in our church. I fear that we are being pushed to be a blanket - to all be the same - instead of being allowed to be the quilt God made - a quilt with great diversity and variety.
For instance, if you are asked your opinion about the Iraq war, do you answer honestly? What if the people listening to you include a mix of those you know well and those you don't? Can you be sure your ideas will be well-received?
Even here in our city, which is labeled by the rest of the country as radically liberal, there is a wide range of opinions about the war and how it is being handled. People who think they agree may find out that they don't agree as much as they thought. It is a complex situation and there is no clear and unequivocal way forward. This leaves a lot of room for differing opinions.
There has been much lamenting over the loss of unity that arose in our country as a response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. On that day, people around the country as well as around the world, were able to agree with one another that what had happened was wrong. Labels of Democrat and Republican, Conservative and Liberal, Hawk or Dove fell away. We as a country came together with one voice to express what might be called an "essential tenet." We said that it is not okay to attack us in our own cities using our own planes as weapons.
That unity, so clearly expressed that day, quickly gave way to a diversity of opinions about how to react in light of the attacks.
Many around the country asked, "Where are we sending our troops to put a stop to this type of unbridled aggression?"
But the more pacifist among us countered, "Is a military response the only option?"
And those who were looking to understand the root causes of the attacks wondered, "Did our excessive lifestyles and super power status have anything to do with the fact that people felt the need to attack us to make a point?"
The vast majority of Americans, and indeed the world, agreed with the administration that a military strike in Afghanistan against the network of al Queda operatives was a necessary act to ensure the safety of the American people. But then came the expansion of the war on terror to include fighting in Iraq and any semblance of unity was lost.
Deep divisions arose - not completely along Liberal and Conservative lines although it was characterized this way. To this day, we remain a country deeply divided over what is the best strategy for moving forward. Much rhetoric has been traded back and forth as we struggle to find that much-desired sense of unity.
Maybe asking for unity on such a large scale is asking for too much. How about if we try on a somewhat smaller scale? Say, within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Did you find yourself laughing under your breath at that suggestion? Those who have been in the church for any time at all (and many folks who have not) are probably aware that the PC(USA) itself is a deeply divided body. The big issue that has been causing rifts among our members for some 20 years now revolves around how to understand homosexuality. And in light of that understanding, how to welcome and include gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people into the church and into leadership roles.
A task force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the church worked very hard to try to propose a way forward for the church on this issue as well as on others that have been the center of heated debate for many years. Their answer for how to go forward was to go backwards: go back to an idea that arose at the beginning of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. They proposed that individual members of the church be allowed to declare a "scruple," a difference of opinion, on issues that were not deemed to be "essential tenets" of the church.
Many people facing ordination these days, whether as deacons, elders, or ministers of Word and Sacrament, are struggling to find an appropriate way to declare such a scruple over the issue of ordaining GLBT people to leadership in the church. Current wording in the Book of Order (our rules for government in the church) disallows this. But many people want to argue that this is not an essential tenet and thus they should be allowed to disregard it as they go about the work of building up the Church to do God's work in the world.
The Presbyterian Church is in the early days of learning how to apply this idea of scruples to our life together. But cases are emerging across the country where individuals are declaring a scruple on this point because they believe that this issue has divided us long enough and has kept us from doing what we are really called to do: show God's love to the world.
Our country and our church are deeply divided. But this is not how God wants us to be. A quilt, or the human body, does not function when the different pieces are separated one from another. They only function when all of the pieces remain diverse but come together as one whole unit.
Diversity is a much different thing than division. One does not necessarily bring about the other. God wants creation to be diverse. But God also wants creation to be united in worshipping and glorifying God - things that cannot happen when creation is divided against itself.
We stand in a long line of communities who have been divided among themselves throughout history. Obviously, the Christian community in Corinth to whom Paul was writing was divided over the issue of spiritual gifts. But would you guess that the Israelite community about which we read in the Nehemiah passage was also deeply divided?
Our text from Nehemiah does not say anything about the community being divided. In fact, it says quite the opposite in verse 1 where it says "All the people gathered together." The Hebrew wording actually says that the people were as one man. You can't get a more opposite description to division than that, I'll admit.
The power of this statement comes from the fact that the people for whom the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written were actually deeply divided among themselves. Up to this point in the story, nothing had gotten the people to come together at all. They were locked in a power struggle that kept them separated into competing camps.
There were at least three distinct groups vying for land and for the power to govern the people that inhabited it - groups that were formed because of the fall of Jerusalem first to Babylonian and then later to Syrian forces.
First, there were the poor, land-working people. These people had lived in the land surrounding Jerusalem continuously throughout all of the shifting power struggles. Following the fall of Jerusalem, foreigners moved into the area and the Israelites began to intermarry with them. The foreigners brought their own religious traditions - traditions that the Israelites began to incorporate into their own practices as well. This group believed that they had the right to rule the land because they had never left it. But others did not agree because they had intermarried and had corrupted the religion by adopting other traditions.
Next, there was the first wave of returning exiles. This group consisted of descendants of elite families as well as educated priests and scribes. The Babylonian conquerors had taken these people away in hopes of using their abilities and knowledge to benefit the new kingdom and to ensure that insurrection would be next to impossible.
When the Syrians conquered the Babylonians and King Cyrus came to power, he offered foreign exiles the opportunity to return to their homelands. Not everyone was keen on this idea - most of the original exiled people had died and the next generations did not know this homeland that was being offered to them. But for some, the idea of returning to the land of their ancestors to rebuild the Temple to honor God held a great appeal. And so, a group of people went and began the work of rebuilding. But their efforts soon faded and their work was only partially completed.
The third group came years later, after the first efforts to rebuild the Temple had ceased. A second group of exiled people were convinced to return to pick up the work that had stopped. They hoped to re-establish the worshipping community with all the rituals that had been observed in that sacred space.
This third group had the backing of the Syrian rulers and so they were ultimately the group that held the greatest sway in the land. Nehemiah was the leader of the people in this second wave of returning exiles and Ezra was the chief priest. Soon after returning they established themselves as the leader and chief priest of the whole land.
These three groups did not find it easy to live together. They did not think that the differences between them were good. Each group wanted the others to conform to their own way of life and religious practices.
What our text this morning gives witness to is the three groups putting away their past strife and coming together to proclaim an "essential tenet" that the Lord God is great and is to be worshipped through the reading of the book of law of Moses. By taking part in the worship of the God of their ancestors, the people acknowledged that God is greater than their strife. This act of worship gave them the power to rise above their divisions and to gather together "as one man" to hear the reading of the law God gave to Moses.
To honor the unity of the people brought about by God through worship, Ezra declared the day a holy day to be observed each year. The differences of opinion that existed before still existed now, but the people were able to see that there were more important bonds that bound them together as one community. And Ezra affirmed their decision when he told them to go and rejoice saying to them that "the joy of the Lord is your strength."
As long as the people held onto the essential tenet of the right worship of God, they were free to declare scruples with one another about the working out of the details of daily life together. God's joy would give them the strength they needed to forge this new community together.
We are called to do the same today. The task force that wrote the Peace, Unity, and Purity report started with a very long section reviewing the Reformed Christian understanding of who God is and who God wants us to be. By affirming what it is that we believe, the task force is hoping to draw us together as a community of believers united by our love of God and our desire to worship God.
God, the divine quilt maker, calls us to worship, asking us to rise above those things that divide us. God wants us to celebrate our diversity because God made us that way and declared it to be good. God does not want our diversity to divide us. The thread of God's love is strong, it can hold us together even though we come from many different cloths.
Today let us say, "Enough." Enough of the bickering and stubbornness that has marked our political as well as church dealings in the past. Enough of the arguing over whose opinion is right and whose is not. Enough of the divisions that are tearing the thread of God's love out of our life with one another. Enough.
Are we ready to be part of God's divine quilt? Or are we stuck on being a blanket?
To be a part of a quilt we must be willing to be cut up into smaller pieces and to be sewn back together in a different way, intermingled with other pieces. We cannot remain just as we are. We must be willing to change. It's not easy being part of a quilt, but it is how God created us to be.
God made a quilt and called it good. May we all let God incorporate our lives into that quilt.
