12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C

12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C September 1, 2019 This past week was the anniversary of the death of Emmett Till. Till was a 14 year old African-American boy who was visiting the Mississippi Delta from his home in Chicago when he allegedly whistled at a white woman and was then murdered for it. Historians believe that Till’s lynching and his mother’s insistence upon a public funeral and an open casket sparked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement and the beginning of the way that America wrestles with racism and the horror our society has inflicted upon people of African descent since the days of slavery. This past week, an article on NPR talked about how Mississippi continues to wrestle with how to tell the Emmet Till story. The headline of the news story was “'Why Don't Y'all Let That Die?' Telling The Emmett Till Story In Mississippi,” and the article talks about how the historical marker that has been placed near where Till’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River has been removed from the spot after repeated vandalisms—the most recent being captured in a photo of the sign riddled with bullet holes and three fraternity brothers from Ole Miss posing beside it smiling and holding guns. I was especially struck by commentary from two different men in the article. The first one said, “‘The question of who gets to tell the Emmett Till story is a charged question’ says Dave Tell, a professor at the University of Kansas and author of Remembering Emmett Till. ‘There is way more at stake than simply a history lesson on what happened in 1955," Tell says. "Because it matters morally who gets to tell it, and it matters financially who gets to tell it." Reilly Morse, president of the Mississippi Center for Justice, which is supporting the efforts by others to have “Bryant’s Grocery and other sites associated with Till's lynching protected as part of the National Park Service, says that for decades, there has been a reluctance to draw attention to the building.” " ‘It's just a symptom of America's struggle to come to grips with its history of racial brutality,’ Morse says. ‘And for folks that live here, there's been, over generations I think, a tendency to sweep it all under the rug to the extent possible. And there's shame attached to it.’"i In our Old Testament reading for this week, we see the importance of remembering and telling stories, the power of who gets to tell the story, which shapes how it is told, and the effects of shame on the story. Our reading from Jeremiah continues as a covenant court case that has been brought by Yahweh against Israel, saying that Israel has forsaken the covenant they had with Yahweh and Yahweh is blameless in all that is unfolding. In our reading for today, the prophet speaks on behalf of Yahweh saying, “What wrong did your ancestors find in me/ that they went far from me,/ and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?/ They did not say, "Where is the Lord/ who brought us up from the land of Egypt,/ who led us in the wilderness,/ in a land of deserts and pits,/ in a land of drought and deep darkness,/ in a land that no one passes through,/ where no one lives?"/ I brought you into a plentiful land/ to eat its fruits and its good things./ But when you entered you defiled my land,/ and made my heritage an abomination./ The priests did not say, "Where is the Lord?"/ Those who handle the law did not know me;/ the rulers transgressed against me;/ the prophets prophesied by Baal,/ and went after things that do not profit./ Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord,/ and I accuse your children's children./ Yahweh is the one who is telling the story here, and Yahweh is complaining that the all the people of Israel, including the most faithful, have forgotten the story of their salvation and their deliverance by Yahweh’s hand. How we tell stories matters; there’s power in that, and when our stories are colored by shame, then we tend to want to forget them, sweep them under the rug, pretend like they didn’t happen. That is a normal human emotion going all the way back to at least the 600’s BC when this portion of Jeremiah was written. Sociologist Brene Brown has conducted thousands of hours of research on shame, and she writes about it extensively. She writes about how the antidote to shame is actually vulnerability (which is counter-intuitive). And she helps people cultivate shame-resilience through four elements: 1. Recognizing when we feel shame and learning our triggers. 2. Practicing critical awareness. 3. Reaching out and telling our story. 4. Speaking about shame, which shines the light on it and helps it lose its power over us. All of these elements come together to help us become more of our authentic selves and to develop more meaningful relationships with others.ii This is all actually what Jesus is referring to in his party advice in parable form from today’s gospel: don’t think too much of yourself and really, don’t think too little of yourself either. Show up in authenticity, self-awareness, and some humility, and relationships will be strengthened. How we tell our stories matters. There is great power in that, and it informs how we show up—either in shame or in authenticity. Did you know that there are many times that I’ve heard people in this church tell our story with shame? It hurts me to see it because I love this church and I love y’all, and it is not an authentic telling of our story, when we let it be colored by shame. It usually starts with “well, we are just a small church, we couldn’t possibly do….” Or it manifests itself in a longing for more—usually more of who we think we used to be—more people, more young families, more children.” Our true story that is not colored by shame is that God has already given us everything that we need; God has sustained us and will continue to sustain us because God is faithful. Jesus Christ has promised to be present with us whenever we gather, and one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit that is manifest in this place (actually, mentioned in the Hebrews reading for today) is the gift of divine hospitality—where people are welcomed and made to feel at home. This week, this church will kick-off CAST-Co-Op at St. Thomas. It is a boldly courageous and bodacious experiment to create a place of hospitality and authenticity for the community outside our church’s doors. Many people have given many hours of their lives to helping bring this about, and of course, we all want it to succeed. But that’s not the point. The point is that this offering can help us change how we tell our story, to move away from saying “oh, we’re just a small church” to saying “God is with us, and God is faithful, and God has already given and will continue to give us all that we need”. That gives us courage to try new things and to offer the gift of hospitality which has been given us by the Holy Spirit to a world that is in need of just that.” Your invitation this week is to think about how you tell your story. What parts of it do you try to hide because they are colored by shame? How might letting the light of God’s love shine on those be a healing balm to move you toward courage, connection, and greater vulnerability? i.https://www.npr.org/2019/08/28/755024458/why-don-t-y-all-let-that-die-telling-the-emmett-till-story-in-mississippi?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR14IEeVXXAXcJFzjiTXbDhrBg6JCgy6Llq9PK_lrfJF7GcJiaYjvRvAIMA ii.Synopsis of Brene Brown’s work is paraphrased from https://www.habitsforwellbeing.com/shame-resilience-theory/