Church on Morgan
Brit Barron
[MUSIC PLAYING] From Church on Morgan, a United Methodist congregation whose desire is to be a reminder of the beauty of God and each other. This podcast is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Raleigh, North Carolina. And now a moment of silence before this episode begins. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Our scripture reading this morning comes from the book of Mark chapter 2, verses 13 to 22. Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collecting station. And he said to him, follow me. And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to the disciples, why does he eat with the tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard this, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteousness, the righteous, but the sinners. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people came to him and said, why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus said to them, the wedding attendants cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and they will fast on that day. No one sows a piece of untrunk cloth on an old cloak, otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worst hair is made. Similarly, no one puts new wine into old wine skins, otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins. But one puts new wine into fresh wine skins. This is the word of God for us, the people of God. Thanks. - Good morning. How are we doing? Good. This is me making a mental note not to keep doing this, or I will get dizzy, and that will be. So someone's gonna get a weird angle, which, sorry. (audience laughs) Like Justin said, my name is Britt, and I get to be a pastor at a church in LA called New Abbey, and it is just the best, and often when I'm asked, are there any other churches like New Abbey? I always say I know of one in North Carolina, so it feels like home to be here, so thanks for having me. Like Justin said, I've spent the last few years working on a project and writing, and that was inspired by something that I feel like we've all experienced. I started looking around at the dialogue and the way we were having conversations with one another, and I started to ask some questions as to whether or not this is the best way forward. And what I mean by that is I started to see more and more and more and more of us get pushed to our sides and our edges, and the conversation felt so polarized on all sorts of topics. And I found myself falling into that as well and feeling like, oh, at least I'm on the right side. And then I thought, you know, what's gonna happen, right? And is there a way to, with our own integrity, maintain these relationships with people in our life who disagree with us? It felt like an easy out to say, if someone disagrees with you, then that's a reason to not have relationship with them. I mean, that gets tricky and complicated, and I didn't know if that was the best way forward. And so that's the conversation that I've been having and the work that I've been doing. And a lot of that is inspired by this passage. Something I love about this passage in Mark is, when you talk about wine skins, and this is actually one of my dad's favorite scriptures, so I've heard it a lot growing up. I'm a pastor's kid, any P.K.'s, and okay, we made it. (laughs) And the thing I love about it is it is very practical. It's like, hey, if you have a new wine, you need to put in a new wine skin. If you put new wine in an old wine skin, it will break, you lose the wine, and the wine skin. This is just like, this is practical, applicable knowledge. And I think about that as it relates to every new iteration, every new evolution, every new thing, it needs a new rhythm. It requires something different of us, and I think about that even with my relationship with God. When I was younger, I think, okay, everything I knew about God could fit in a cup. I was like, this is the cup that holds everything I know about God. And eventually that expanded, and I was like, oh my gosh, the cup's been on a table, you know? And then I was like, oh my gosh, the table's in a room, and the story just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and it was such a beautiful thing. And that's the same, it's true for us as well, like as we evolve and we grow, we need new rhythms, we need new containers, we need new understandings. I often say this is most understood with our physical bodies. When I was in college, I know what you're thinking, are you not still? I know, I just look, I look so young. And when I was in college, I was like queen of all-nighters, okay? And so I would literally, me and my friends would stay up all night, not even doing anything. And I'm like writing a paper, we're just like giggling for hours for some reason, and you stay up all night, and then somewhere around like three o'clock in the morning you go to Taco Bell, you get like two hard shell tacos, and then I was good to go for a whole 'nother 24 hours. Like I can't even, you guys, if I try to do that today, like before I can even go to bed now at this point in my life, I have like 10 steps, I need like electrolyte water, I have magnesium, a B12, a mask, a sound machine, the temperature has to be right, like everything, just a go to bed, let alone trying not to go to bed, okay? And I don't even wanna tell you, I don't wanna know what would happen if I had two crunchy Taco Bell tacos at this point, day or night, right? Just as we evolve and as we change, it requires new rhythms of us, new containers, new experiences, we can't put that old wine in our new wineskin, I physically can't, I don't even know what would happen, right? And so some of these things are very low stakes, like we evolve and we change, we have new rhythms, but sometimes it's high stakes, and as I evolve and I change my mind on things, and my belief about the world and the people in it expands, I found myself wrestling with this question of what happens when I'm in this new wine skin and the people I love in my life are still in the old one. And it felt like this rub that I couldn't figure out and that felt like a constant tension. And for a season, part of my answer to that was like, I'm just gonna go around and force feed everyone my new wine, right? In case you've tried that, it doesn't work well. And so what to do? And I was looking for a framework and a way to understand this, and one of the things I bumped into is something that I call my work, Progressive Amnesia. And it's our ability to kind of conveniently forget a time before now. So I'm really good at it. Sometimes I can convince myself that I've always been in this wine skin. I just like forgot all the ones that came before it. And part of the reason that I don't like to remember all the times that came before it is because sometimes it's a little painful. There are things in the world, there are jokes and ideologies and things that now I would consider extremely problematic, but if I'm being honest, at some point I believed them, and I laughed at those jokes. And that version of me is hard to sit with at times. But James Baldwin has this quote, and he says, "I imagine the reason people cling so tightly to hate is because they fear once the hate is gone, they'll be forced to deal with pain." And sometimes when I find myself being like, "I'm on the right side of the line." And I know right now we're close to an election and politically that feels like a thing that is easy to fall into, but we do this in all sorts of things. I have the right ideology, the right theology, the right politics, the right parenting style, the right marriage advice, the right everything I exist on the right side of the line. And so I am completely right. Anyone over there is completely wrong. And what's hard about that is sometimes that disconnects us from the reality of all the times that came before. And the people in my life, and I may be alone in this, but the people in my life that I'm easily most judgmental about are people who sat in seats that I once sat in. And so someone who grew up deeply evangelical in a, I'm trying to find words to describe it, but different than I believe now. Sometimes it's easy for me to look at churches and pastors who are preaching messages that I feel deeply troublesome about. And it's easy for me to look at them and be like, you guys are so dumb. You guys are so, I can't believe you would sit in there, and I can't believe, and I have this, I get on this high horse that is so, so high, I can't even reach the ground. It's actually Beyonce's house, some of course from Cowboy Carter. It's also bedazzled, and it's a disco ball somehow. And I am so up on that high horse, and it's so easy until I am reminded that, oh, are they dumb, or are they me 15 years ago? Or do I also know what it feels like to feel comfortable in that seat? And have I also wrestled with those things? And then is that also one of my wineskins that got me to where I am? And then that changes the conversation. And my ability to have empathy for the versions of me that came before changes everything about the way I engage with folks who are still there now. Something I say all the time is the work never changes, something I want deeply in the world is liberation, and what I want it for is for all people. And if it's going to be for all people, then it's going to include them as well. And it's also included me at every stage of my journey. Something I love about the message of Jesus is he's always pushing it further. He's always erasing the line in the sand that everyone tries to draw. It's like, oh, you're here for these people, but definitely not the tax collectors. He's like, no, them too. And he's like, but definitely not these people. And he's like, no, them too. And then they keep saying, definitely not those people. He's like, literally them too, okay? If I have to spend one more chapter, but them too. Because our human tendency is to be like, okay, yeah, I get what you're saying, but then this is where it ends, right? These are the people who get to be in. Like we have this tendency to want to be like, okay, but now we've arrived and now we're right. And Jesus is constantly pushing to like, know them too, them too, them too, them too. And as I find myself in this time in our culture, in our society, I feel so many of us clinging to like, but we're the right ones. But this is it. And I'm like, oh gosh, unfortunately, them too. Not unfortunately, the 40 and slip. No, because it is hard work, you know? You know what's really nice? To be right, it is awesome to be like, okay, I finally have, I did it. I've arrived and I can take a deep breath. And only the people around me and only like us, we finally nailed it. But the reality is it's always them too, them too, them too. That this liberation and freedom and transformation that we want to see in the world only exists in its truest form if everyone is included. And everyone means everyone. And that's an easy thing to say and that's simple to understand. I think where it gets hardest is for the people in our lives who directly conflict with something that we've existed in our new wineskin. I, when I met my wife and we were first like falling in love. Aww. She, it was like breathing air for the first time. It was like the most magical thing that's ever happened to me. But it directly conflicted with the wineskin that I was in. The narratives that I believe to be true about, gay people about myself, about church, about my calling, about what was possible. It, they directly conflicted. And I remember sitting in my therapist's office and I was working at this church and I had this like budding ministry career but I'm falling in love with this woman. And I remember telling her I'm like, this feels like a beautiful experience. Like it feels so good. It feels right. It feels so true. But I also, I don't know if it's like a good thing or like a test from the devil, right? Which is a wild thing for me to say now as we've been like married for eight years and to have this life. But I'm like, that was the wineskin I was in. The narratives I believe to be true about the world and myself caused me to not even believe in something I was experiencing. They caused me deep, deep, deep levels of distrust with my own self. And so I had to break out of those wineskins. I had to pour the new wine into the new wineskins. And now I have this life and I love it and I'm so proud and I'm so proud of me and my marriage and all of these things. But I wasn't always this way. And I can look back at her and be like, I hate that. I'm like so angry at that version of myself. I stayed in the closet too long. I can't believe I ever believe those things about myself and I can go on and on and on. But it was what has been beautiful work is for me to sit and be like, oh my gosh, I have so much compassion for her. I don't actually even know how she could have gotten it any other way. I don't hate her. She is included in the fabric of my story. Sometimes I imagine if I had a museum of my life, it would be so many cracked wineskins in a shadow box as they grow and grow and grow into this one now. And they're all important. And they all deserve to be a part of my story and they all get my empathy. Sometimes when I think about what draws us to our ideas and the way we see the world, a lot of times what we think it is is facts, but usually what it is is feelings. And here's what I mean. So I was watching a documentary because I'm like just really cultured and educated. If I'm going to try on the TV, it's going to be a documentary. The documentary was called "Real House," I'm just kidding. (audience laughs) It was, I may have heard of it, it's an ad, adapted from a book. So I was watching this documentary about, and it was like not something I would normally choose, but it like came on after something else. It was a documentary about flat earthers. And so I'm like, okay, like, you know, I'd rather just let this play than get up and change it. So that tells you where I was at. (audience laughs) And it was so interesting because the person making the documentary is he goes into this conference and all these people are there are gathered to talk about the earth being flat. And this man pulls him aside and does all these interviews about the earth being round, okay? So, you know, they sit down across from each other and the man doing the interview says something like, "We have pictures of earth from the moon, it's round," you know, and then the person says like, "Those are AI generated, I don't know." But what was so interesting is at one point there was an interview and I thought, this, nothing has ever been more true and nothing has ever made more sense to me. So he's interviewing it and he sits down, he's like, you know, we have pictures of earth from the moon and it's round and here's all the reasons, you know, if there's a scientist or something in the room, I'm so sorry that that is the only piece of evidence I have for the earth being round is a picture from the moon. But in the, they kind of argue back and forth. And then at one point the man says, "Listen, it's really hard to make friends "and I join this Facebook group "and we talk all the time. "I go to two conferences a year "and these are the people who feed my cats "when I go out of town." I'm like, guess what he doesn't care about? The shape of the earth. Guess what he does care about? Having a sense of belonging in the world and making meaning of his experience here. And so often I feel so much tension and I feel so much like I wanna get these people out of these wineskins and I want these things, I wanna be right and I realize I'm not arguing with facts, I'm arguing with their sense of belonging in the world. And that creates so much a different kind of compassion and empathy for me. When I think about even myself and the ways that I struggled so much to burst out of different wineskins, it wasn't because I was like arguing with facts, it was because I went to church with people who were my friends and I didn't wanna lose that. And I belong to something and I didn't wanna lose that. So as I see all these conversations online and in our world and I go into the comment sections of all these posts which I would not recommend doing. Regardless of what it says, what I hear is like, "I'm hurting and I want you to hurt too." Like I feel shame and I want you to feel it too. And that is such an easy thing to do when we can't hold the nuance and empathy for the past friends or ourself, we'll never be able to hold it for our neighbor. And I think that might be our only real way forward. It's have compassion and empathy for where folks are getting their sense of belonging. You know, I was talking to someone about this on a podcast and he was like, "Do you think an appropriate question might be "when you're in conversation with someone "who you disagree with?" Do you think it might be appropriate to in your mind ask, what would it cost them to agree with me? I was like, it's probably appropriate but I don't wanna ask that. Because that would change a lot of things. And again, I don't think this changes the work at hand. What I want is I want the world to bend towards justice, I want more inclusivity, I want more freedom, I want more healing, I want more transformation in the world, the work does not change but my approach to the work has drastically changed where I'm able to ask questions like that. When I'm able to remember the cost that it cost me, every new iteration of the wineskin, even though it's a thing that I cherish the most in this world, is all the evolution and growth that I've experienced, it absolutely cost me every single time. And so I just have empathy and compassion and a bend towards justice and liberation for all people, literally everyone, them two, them two, them two, them two, because that is the message of Jesus. And so this is the work that I've been doing and the conversations I've been having and just something that I believe in so deeply. And there's something that we say at our church in LA all the time is that what we want is unity, not uniformity. We wanted to live in a world where we could do it together but not all the same. And I think about that even from my own life and the things that I want, I don't want to be in a room of people who like, oh, look like me, dress like me, act like me, do everything the same as me, find the same things funny as me, but I want to be together, not the same. And that's incredibly difficult. It is very counter-cultural and counter to the narrative to sit with these different versions of different iterations of different wineskins and try to find a way to move forward together. So there's this thing we do at our church every single Sunday, spoiler alert, I'm going to make us do it. And it's our goal towards that and it's our reminder of that. So if you are able and willing, would you stand? And you're going to grab the hand of the person next to you. This is cute. (audience laughing) And we say every week, and this is true today for everyone in here, I don't know what you came in here with this morning. You may be bringing joy or pain, grief or excitement. You may be feeling stressed or anxious or very relaxed or so happy that you may be gay, straight, bi, cis, trans, non-binary. This coming lecture, you might vote Democrat, you might vote Republican, you might write in Mickey Mouse, you might not vote at all, that you might be rich, you might be poor, you might be moderately incomeed, that you may be a single, you may be married, you could be all these things. But would you trust that you're God's child and that God loves you? Regardless of all the nuance of all the things you're carrying, would you trust that you're God's child and that God loves you? And if you can begin to do that, then you can begin to believe that about the person who's hand you're holding. That I don't know what they came in with and all the nuance and identities that they carry, but they are God's children and God loves them. And if we can begin to believe that about ourselves and we can believe that about our neighbor, then we can begin to do the most audacious thing that Jesus ever asked of us and we can begin to do that for our enemy. Could we believe that they are God's child? These are incredibly easy words to say and incredibly difficult to do. But our ability to believe that about ourself is the only way that we will ever be able to believe about someone else. And what I think we really, really need in the world is the ability to believe that about every single person and expand it to them, to them, to them, to them, too. Church on Morgan, thank you so much and amen. - Thank you for joining today. If this episode has been meaningful to you, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? To support this ministry or learn more about our community, visit us at churchonmorgan.org. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
A sermon on Mark 2:13-22 (NRSV) by Brit Barron.