John 2:1-11
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” 1968
Many know the prophetic final lines from “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Our reading comes from earlier in that same sermon:
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.
One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves.
You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn’t stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need.
Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his brother.
SERMON “Handling Snakes”
We will not be the only church to have read the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in worship this morning. Many will turn, as I have, to the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop Speech,” while others will read excerpts from “I Have a Dream.” Some might even be courageous enough to use material from his most famous speech opposing the Vietnam War.
Few will have placed King’s words in a spot usually reserved for scripture, as we have done, and fewer still use material from sources outside of the Bible every single week, as we do.
One reason churches shy away from non-biblical sources is that few sources would pass muster under today’s critical glare. King himself was a prophet and a pastor and a philanderer. But something more than the cynical destruction of all heroes is at play when we insist on only using texts that are almost two thousand years old.
You see, the powerful like their prophets long dead, so it is best to keep the canon of inspirational texts closed. Better still if God is also dead, as dead gods make no new demands.
We do not believe in a dead God, in a religion that has been frozen since some arbitrary council or schism centuries ago. We believe that God is alive and active, that, as the marketing campaign says, God is still speaking, and I dare say, God is still evolving, for change is the nature of the universe God created, creation being a reflection of the divine.
Why not, then, trust that we can find the sacred in work outside of the ancient canon? Why not accept that even an adulterer can speak inspired and holy words?
And speaking of holiness, let us turn for a moment to the Holiness Movement, a semi-Pentecostal offshoot of Methodism that believed a second work of grace after rebirth cleansed the Christian of original sin, allowing them to live in holiness, without sin. The theology doesn’t really matter for our purposes this morning. What matters is that Holiness churches are mostly rural, mostly located in Appalachia, and a small subset of Holiness churches is known for handling snakes, venomous snakes, during worship.
The practice is based on one verse in the Gospel According to Luke, one verse in the longer ending to the Gospel According to Mark, and the fact that Paul was bitten by a snake and lived, as reported in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles.
Snake handling during worship is in decline, thankfully, with only an estimated two dozen congregations still engaged in the practice in the United States, but it was a big deal a century ago.
The biggest proponent of snake handling was George Went Hensley from Grasshopper Valley in Tennessee. Hensley was originally a preacher in the Church of God. He left that denomination, which soon dropped the practice.
That didn’t stop Hensley. He traveled Appalachia throughout the Great Depression and the Second World War as a revival preacher, finally settling down to form the “Dolly Pond Church of God with Signs Following” in 1945.
That is a lot of rattlesnakes and a lot of years, all of which came to the completely expected ending in 1955, when Pastor Hensley died of snakebite. And so it goes. Jamie Coots, a snake-handling preacher featured in a 2013 National Geographic series called “Snake Salvation” died in 2014.
It turns out, handling venomous snakes does not make Paul’s list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, unless it falls under the “working of power deeds” category, which would be really useful, for as Christians who believe in living love into the world, we find ourselves in the position these days of needing to handle some snakes. They just happen to be the type with legs.
And so we turn to the question of how we should live in times such as these, when racists and rapists have seized our federal government and many state governments, when humans faced with catastrophe and chaos do as humans so often do, turning to false prophets who deliver violence not non-violence, who tap in to our capacity to hate rather than our capacity to love.
We fight hate with hate and anger with anger, and you know what? It isn’t working.
We are going to need more than outraged posts on social media and protest marches if we are going to live into the gospel.
Let me assure you, I am outraged. Let me assure you, I protest.
When Pete Hegseth tells you he wants to restore the names of treasonous Confederate generals to our military bases and re-install the brass ceiling that capped a woman’s potential in the military, he is telling you who he is, a racist and a misogynist, and as Maya Angelou famously said, when people tell you who they are, believe them. And he is most certainly going to be confirmed as the next Secretary in charge of our nation’s military and our potentially globe-destroying arsenal.
We are going to have to be strategic. We are going to have to start local. And worst of all, we are going to have to think theologically and work through the messy stuff of agreeing where we can keep covenant and what are our deal breakers.
We are going to have to ground ourselves in what is sometimes called our United Church of Christ “motto”: the phrase “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity.” It may be worth noting that the phrase, often misattributed to Saint Augustine, actually originates with Rupertus Meldenius during the Thirty Years War, a devastating 17th century European conflict.
What are the essentials? What is unity?
So much talk of “unity in the community” locally looks more like gaslighting than progress.
What does unity look like specifically in a congregation that honors the right of Christian conscience, as we do? A denomination that requires no creed and has no Book of Order?
We can probably mostly agree on the canon within the canon, for Christians the Great Commandment: “love God above all things and love your neighbor as you love yourself,” Micah 6:8: “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God,” and Matthew 25: “What you have done to the least of these, you have done also unto me.”
But we’re not always going to agree on that definition of love.
Let’s take a very concrete example, one in the news every week: the problem of untreated actively psychotic individuals in our cities.
Older medications had wretched side effects, leaving people feeling like zombies, and creating serious health risks. The newer medications are better, but not without their own problems, and folks who had experience with old bad drugs are resistant to trying newer better ones.
Actively psychotic individuals pose a danger to themselves and others. Just ask the family of the 14 year-old stabbed a little over a week ago on the streets of New York City, or countless other families who lose a loved one every single day, families of those mentally ill, and families of those murdered by the mentally ill.
Some of us may lean into libertarianism, believing involuntary confinement or medication is always wrong, an absolute. We can all agree that we want people to have the maximum appropriate freedom, we just place that “appropriate” line in different places.
And “What would Jesus do?” isn’t a particularly helpful rubric, as he’d order the demons to depart and the patient would be healed.
Here is something that is seemingly simple, our dysfunctional healthcare system aside. We’re suppose to help sick people, right? What defines sick? Healing at what cost? What constitutes a life worth living for those with chronic mental illness?
We actually have to sit down and talk to each other, not about each other. We actually have to sit down and listen to one another.
There are so many issues that require more than a knee-jerk response, that require time, and in our tradition, require prayerful discernment, when we suspend our own desires and listen for the holy.
And lest we should define the essential too broadly, unity too tightly, it is worth asking “how much unity is too much?”
We are a community not a cult, and our diversity is our strength, providing the creative tension essential for new ideas, for human flourishing. There is always going to be a Malcolm criticizing a Martin, a Picasso pushing past form, an Arnold Schoenberg composing atonal music that makes you scratch your head. And that’s okay.
It might not be your jam, but it creates space for new things, for serendipitous creativity, which is embodied in the divine mystery we name as God.
As we celebrate the Feast of St. Martin of Atlanta, an imperfect martyr in the struggle for justice, let us remember that he did not surround himself with the mid-20th century version of “Yes Men.” His core belief never changed, but the non-essentials did, on strategy, on the Vietnam War. As Delores Huerta said, “La lucha continua.” The struggle continues. Amen.