"Next Year's T-shirt"

I Corinthians 12:14-26

A sermon preached by Martha Juillerat at St. Luke Presbyterian Church, Wayzata, Minnesota, on Sunday, August 20, 2000.

Check out a Lenten sermon by Martha, too.

The text:

(1 Cor 12:15-26 NRSV) If the foot would say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. {16} And if the ear would say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. {17} If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? {18} But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. {19} If all were a single member, where would the body be? {20} As it is, there are many members, yet one body. {21} The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." {22} On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, {23} and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; {24} whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, {25} that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. {26} If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

This is the T-shirt that Tammy and I wore at the beginning of General Assembly this year. ("STOP SPIRITUAL VIOLENCE!") In fact, we were arrested in these fine shirts. You'd expect to see this kind of shirt on us, wouldn't you ­ kind of loud, and in your face, confrontational, some found it pretty obnoxious, really. Describes me perfectly, don't you think?

A couple of weeks ago Tammy and I were at Northern Illinois University for Welcome Our Witness 2000, a gathering of over a thousand gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from 30 different denominations and faith communities. It was an amazing, historic gathering, which you will hear more about as time goes on.

One night about a dozen of us jammed into a dorm room to discuss, among other things, the kinds of things we might do at next year's General Assembly.

We thought about having some kind of common symbol, like another T-shirt, that hundreds of people could wear throughout the week to demonstrate their solidarity with us. It took us only a few minutes to agree on a slogan for that new T-shirt, and the choice may surprise you greatly: "Presbyterian Pride." Here, gathered in this room, were some of the most disenfranchised people in the church, leaders of the denomination's glbt and feminist movements, and we unanimously embraced the slogan "Presbyterian Pride."

Twelve hours later a newspaper reporter would ask me a question that I've been asked a thousand times over the years: "Why do you stay in the church?" My first response was to tell her that we had just decided to put the answer to that question on a T-shirt, and I'd be happy to send her one if she would give me a size. But in the end the answer to that question is complex, being at once sharply political but also deeply personal and profoundly spiritual as well.

Why am I still around?

I always have to begin my answer to that question with a personal story. About 8 years ago now Tammy and I began the process of coming out to the church. The General Assembly called for a three year period of dialogue on the issue of human sexuality, so we started telling our stories in dialogues throughout the central states.

After almost three years of experiences that were often degrading and humiliating and even included death threats, Tammy and I were so beat up and angry that we simply couldn't sit in the pew of a Presbyterian Church any longer. We stopped going to church on Easter Sunday, 1995, and five months later I set aside my ordination. Everything we ever believed was put into question. At one point, while walking in the woods, we decided to make a list of everything we still believed in. We came up with two things: God, and each other.

Several months later, though, I had an experience which began to put everything back into perspective for me. My parents were celebrating their 50th anniversary, and my sister threw a huge party for them.

Both of my parents were only children, so my sister and I have no aunts, uncles or cousins. Also, my parents moved several times, so their friends were scattered all over the country. Given this, two things struck me as soon as I walked into the party. First, my sister and I were the only blood relatives of my parents in the room. Second, there was someone there from every single Presbyterian Church they had ever belonged to, clear back to the church they had built in West Virginia after World War II.

I realized that this was my extended family. All of the highs and lows of our family life had been shared with these Presbyterian brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. That was a hard thing for me to see. I realized in that moment that the family had not always been kind to me, and at times had been downright abusive, but in the end, this was my family. The question would be whether I would choose to abandon the family, or find a way to live with them somehow.

Over the next few years Tammy and I visited scads of churches in a bunch of different denominations, and in the end we landed up here, in this congregation, in this Presbyterian Church.

My experience at the anniversary party started that journey, but several other things brought me back here.

A 1994 General Assembly report on the controversy surrounding Re-Imagining began with this line: "Theology matters." This morning I thought I'd take a huge risk and tell you what I believe, why it matters that I'm Presbyterian.

First, theology matters: The Reformed faith puts more emphasis on what God doesthan who God is. God's work in the world informs my own work: To believe that God is creator leads me to cherish the earth and all that's in it. To believe that God cares deeply about all of us compels me to care deeply about others. To believe that the God of the prophets is genuinely concerned about justice compels me to give my life to the work of justice. I became a feminist, developed a passion for civil rights, and learned the ethics of pacifism in the arms of this Presbyterian Church.

Just as important to me, God is not a person, a man "up there." God is spirit, neither male nor female, present in all of us and yet bigger than any of us. The Reformed faith is not self-centered; we put little emphasis on personal salvation. Instead we say that we're one body, that our relationship to God is completely tied up with our relationship to other people and the world around us. In other words, you can't be saying that you've got things right with God if you're bombing the daylights out of your neighbors and kicking your dog. We're all in this thing together, or we're not in it at all.

I'm quite sure that if we took a poll after church today not a single soul here would agree with everything I believe, or even part of it. But that's Presbyterian, too! Our faith is dynamic, not dogmatic. We don't have one list of things set in stone that we're all required to believe. Instead we have a book full of confessions, a collection of statements reflecting a whole range of faithful responses to the changing times. No one of these statements is "The Truth"; all of these statements together reflect pieces of how we live out our faith. This dynamic faith is what gives us room to develop and embrace things like feminist and liberation theologies.

Second, our connectional church matters: We don't have a congregational form of government, and that's both a burden and a blessing. While we have to drag the whole church along with us when we make policy decisions, kicking and screaming in some cases, that's the very thing historically that has given us a powerful national voice. When we finally do make a decision, people take notice. That's why I think it's so very crucial that we hang in with the Presbyterian Church on glbt issues until we get it right. Because when we do, it will rock the house. (And maybe it will rock the senate, too!)

That's why we're a More Light church. Not just because we're welcoming of gay folk; lots of churches are welcoming and don't call themselves More Light. We're a More Light church because we're committed to working for change both inside and outside the church, believing that these two areas are intrinsically linked.

Third, ministry matters: In the 16th century, the only people who were allowed to read and interpret the Bible were priests, and Bibles were all written in Latin, which no one understood. The leaders of the Reformation translated the Bible and put it back into the hands of the people. In fact, Gutenberg invented the printing press as a way to mass-produce Bibles. John Calvin went a step further, making it each person's responsibility to read, study and interpret the Bible for themselves.

"Study" was the key word here. Calvin insisted that ministers be highly trained in biblical interpretation, in order to teach their congregations how to study the Bible. To this day Presbyterian ministers have the highest academic standards for ordination of any denomination on earth, and we are the only ones that require candidates to pass competency exams in both Greek and Hebrew.

At the same time, though, the "ministry of all believers" is central to our faith. Not only do we not have bishops; the Presbyterian Church is unique among churches without a congregational form of government in that lay people ordain the ministers. In September, when we install Kim Smith King as our new co-pastor, the installation will be led by our Presbytery Moderator, who is an elder, and elders from this church. The symbolism of that is extremely important to me.

Worship matters: This room in which we worship is uniquely Presbyterian. Our style of worship, and even the space in which we worship, are two of the things that separate us from Lutherans or Methodists, for example. At the time of the Reformation, Luther chose to maintain many of the elements of Roman Catholic worship, which is why Lutheran worship feels kind of "high church" to us Presbyterians.

Calvin, on the other hand, chose to "clear the decks." He said that our place of worship should be as plain as possible, with no altar and no extra trappings, just a communion table right in the middle of the room. That would allow us to concentrate on the important things, like interpreting the Word, which was central to Calvin's worship.

And unlike the great cathedrals of Calvin's day, a plain worship space would allow us to spend our money on the important things, like mission, rather than pouring it into a building. Sound familiar?

Does it surprise you to hear how very Calvinist this place really is? Being the good Presbyterian that I am, though, it was one of the very first things that turned me on to this place the first time I visited here, over ten years ago. I figured right away that you all must have your priorities right, and indeed we do. This simple building with its sometimes-muddy parking lot is one of the key things that allows us to give half our money away. [Editor's note: St. Luke Presbyterian Church is committed to giving 50% of its budget to mission each year. To fulfill that commitment, and to avoid spending more than necessary on their own building, the congregation chooses to simplify its life in some areas, including the decision to leave its parking lot unpaved.]

Even our music has a streak of John Calvin in it. In his days there were cathedral choirs of professional singers, who did all of the singing; congregations weren't supposed to mess up the music by joining in. But in keeping with his simplicity kick, Calvin said that choirs should be made up of members of the congregation, who would lead all of us in singing. He started with hymns based on the book of Psalms. And even today a lot of our hymns come from the Psalms. Our middle hymn today is a Dakota Indian version of Psalm 96 ("Many and Great, O God, Are Thy Things"), and Jane Parker Huber adapted Psalm 136 to write the last hymn ("God of Wisdom, Truth, and Beauty").

Finally, you all matter so very much to me, you all and this plain concrete building with its muddy parking lot, because in the end none of the rest of it would matter so much without a place to call home.

So, next year I'll probably land up wearing a T-shirt that some of you won't understand, and others of you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. But I'll wear it with pride, and with faith and with love, because you all, every single one of you, and all of us together, matter so much to me.

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep this website going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Witherspoon Society" and marked "web site," to our Witherspoon  Bookkeeper: