2nd Sunday in Lent (March 16, 2003)

          “All in the Family”           Dr. Van Kemper

                   Texts: Romans 4:13-25 and Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

SERMON

“All in the Family.”  For many of us of a certain age, hearing this phrase immediately brings back memories of a television series of the same name, a series than ran from January 12th, 1971 through 1979, lasting more than 200 episodes and watched by millions of Americans.  Archie Bunker and his wife Edith, their daughter Gloria and their son-in-law Mike Stivik, and eventually their grandson Joey, provided the stuff of many intergenerational debates about social justice issues, and eventually came to be seen as icons of American culture – at least if placing the Bunker recliners in the Smithsonian Institution is any measure!

The point of “All in the Family” – at least when seen in historical perspective – was to show how it was possible to sustain family life across the generations and to strive for “healthy” family life even when things got “uncomfortable.”  Each week we could see human foibles played out before a live audience and we could hear Archie and Edith sing the program’s theme song, “Those Were the Days.”  Do you remember the words?

"Boy the way Glen Miller played,

songs that made the hit parade,

guys like us we had it made,

those were the days,

and you know where you were then,

girls were girls and men were men,

mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again, didn't need no welfare states

everybody pulled his weight,

gee our old LaSalle ran great,

those were the days!"

 “All in the Family” is recognized as a definitive statement on American family life and on the generation gap.  And, as such, it provides a perfect introduction to this morning’s lectionary texts – each of which deals with family . . . not just “family” in a narrow, one-dimensional sense, but family in an extended, multi-dimensional sense – literally, family extending across the generations.

First, we have the story about Abram/Abraham from chapter 17 of Genesis. Here, God makes a covenant – some of you will remember that the original Hebrew for making a covenant translates into colloquial English as “cutting a deal” – so that Abraham would be “the ancestor of a multitude of nations.”  God did not limit the covenant to Abraham, but promised to extend the covenant to Abraham’s offspring “throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your offspring after you.”

Second, the lection from Psalm 22 – which begins with a focus on “all you offspring of Jacob,” . . . “all you offspring of Israel” -- concludes with the Psalmist proclaiming, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him” . . . and that “future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim . . . deliverance to a people yet unborn. . . .”

Third, the Epistle reading – taken from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome – offers a commentary on Abraham and his descendants.  As always, Paul focuses on the tension between “the law” and “the righteousness of faith.”  Paul writes, “For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all [Abraham’s] descendants. . .”  Not surprisingly, Paul argues that Abraham “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of [his wife] Sarah’s womb.”  And Paul concludes that the covenant was “written not for his sake alone, but for ours also.”

Finally, in the Gospel lesson from Mark, chapter 8, we hear Jesus teaching the disciples that “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”  And then Jesus called “the crowd with his disciples” and laid out the paradoxical guidelines for anyone who want to “follow” him: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

From Abraham to Jesus, the Lord provided covenants, guidelines, and rules for those who were – and would become – members of God’s great, multi-generational, extended family.

As many of you know, this past week I was away from Dallas.  In fact, Sandra and I were nearly 5,000 miles away – spending most of our Spring Break in and around London, England.  Even if we never have been there, images of “London” are surely in our minds.  In fact, recent surveys show that the number one image of London is “Big Ben,” the great clock tower.  Other important elements of London’s “image” include its double-decker red buses, the Underground (or “Tube”), the Tower Bridge [the real one, not the one sold to the American who installed it on the Colorado River!], and St. Paul’s Cathedral.   In fact, here’s a post card that shows all of these images [show the post card].

In planning our travels, I was well aware that I would be returning – jet lag and all– to preach here at Trinity this morning.  Several days before our departure on Friday the 7th, I had delivered to the office the materials for this Sunday’s Bulletin.  So, as we traveled to London, and beyond that great metropolis to Canterbury, Sheffield, and York, I knew that I would be returning to Dallas with experiences that might become part of this sermon, already entitled “All in the Family.”  To be sure, these experiences were not listed with the books, CDs, posters, etc., on the Customs declarations forms I turned in when we landed at D/FW Airport on Friday evening.  But there is no doubt that what I encountered in England did provide inspiration for my words this morning.  So, unlike most of the sermons you here from this pulpit – in which you are charged to do “this” or “that,” you may think of this morning’s sermon as “duty-free.”

Last Sunday, even before you all were celebrating Communion here at Trinity, Sandra and I already had attended worship services in two great cathedrals, located in two different cities. Our morning began with us taking the Tube to St. Paul’s Cathedral, located in the heart of the old “City of London.”  Known as “New St. Paul’s”, this building (famously designed by Christopher Wren) was built between 1675-1710 to replace a structure destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666.  Visiting St. Paul’s, not just as a tourist but as a member of the world-wide Christian family, certainly heightened my appreciation of the longevity of the church as an institution committed to loving and serving our neighbors. 

Then, we took the train down to Canterbury (located in the southeastern County of Kent), arriving just in time for the afternoon “Evensong” service at Canterbury Cathedral, established by a certain Saint Augustine soon after he arrived in the area in the year of our Lord 597.  At he worship service, Sandra and I were invited to sit in the Quire [that’s spelled q-u-i-r-e], right next to where the world-famous men and boys choir perform so beautifully.  It turned out that this was a special Sunday at Canterbury, as there was an Appeal on behalf of Commonwealth War Veterans, especially those who had served in the Second World War.  This appeal was particularly poignant in the light of British political actions (and reactions) regarding the prospects for a war with Iraq.

Attending worship in two cathedrals on the same day is probably not the usual fare for American tourists, but it was a wonderful experience nonetheless.  Being at St. Paul’s and at Canterbury, one can feel the continuity of God’s people, as expressed through the Christian tradition, from generation to generation.  God’s covenant with Abraham and Jesus’ demands on those who would follow him take on new significance in such great places.

On the next day, Monday, we traveled to Sheffield (located in southern Yorkshire, about 160 miles north of London).  The rationale for taking the train to Sheffield was to visit the Rev. John Vincent, a Methodist minister whom I had met in November 2000 when Julie and I attended an Urban Ministry Conference at the Claremont School of Theology in California. John Vincent is well-known for having authored more than twenty books on ministry and theology, including a wonderful book entitled Hope from the City (2000).  He also is famous for his work at the Urban Theology Unit, an ecumenical religious organization established in Sheffield – not in 669 or even 1669 – but just a generation ago, in 1969.

The mission of the U.T.U., as it is known, is to train and equip “ministers and lay people for the tasks of urban mission, urban church and urban theology.” The U.T.U. is at the heart of the movement known as “British Liberation Theology.”  Led by John Vincent and his colleagues at the U.T.U., this movement emphasizes the work of local congregations with the poor in their immediate context. 

Especially noteworthy is the sense of “hope” that British liberation theology finds in the experiences of the people living in cities like Sheffield, an old industrial center trying to make the difficult transition to post-industrialism in these times of globalization and transnationalism.  Like our own Oak Cliff, Sheffield (the fourth largest city in Britain, with over 400,000 residents) has been transformed by the arrival of thousands of immigrants from nations throughout the world. And like our own Oak Cliff, these immigrants have become part of the fabric of economic, social, political, and even religious life in Sheffield.

Then, on Tuesday, Sandra and I traveled north again – this time to the famous town of York, where we visited the Minster, as the great Cathedral of York is known.  The Christian community in York dates to the early 4th century, for we know that by the year 314 York already had its own bishop.  We not only walked through the cathedral at ground level, we also ascended the 275 steps to the top of the tower, from which a wonderful view of the city and countryside was to be had on that sunny, but very windy (and cold) afternoon. 

As if all of this theological tourism were not enough, we capped our British experiences by attending the Thursday evening performance of a new play, immodestly entitled “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged).”  Performed by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (a small group of young American actors), this comedy was very funny – but also carried a powerful message in the light of what the British see as a “run up” to war in the Middle East.  For instance, at one point in the Old Testament story, God (speaking in a deep voice from off-stage) asked the actors, “Just what part of ‘Thou shall not kill’ do you not understand?” 

Let me share just one bit from the play.  Early on, Moses comes out onto the stage with two large tablets, enumerated in Roman numerals I-V and VI-X.  After telling us the “good news” that he has negotiated with God to reduce the number of commandments down from twenty to ten, he goes on to share the list of what the other ten commandments might have been.  The second item on Moses’ list of deleted commandments was “Mind the Gap.”  This got a great laugh from the audience, because, whether tourists or locals, all of us are constantly being reminded to be careful getting off  and on trains, buses, and subway cars.  Instead of warning, as we Americans do, “Watch Your Step,” the British prefer to say, ever so politely, “Mind the Gap.”

This expression, “Mind the Gap,” took on another meaning for me, in the light of thinking about the texts for this sermon.  The “gap” that we need to “mind” – that is, to pay attention to and to think about – is not the space between the platform and the subway car, but the gap that seems to separate us from one another as well as from our neighbors.  Sometimes, we think of this “gap” as ethnic or even economic.  But, in many important ways, this “gap” is generational.

In a recent book, entitled The Multigenerational Congregation (2002), Gil Rendle describes the challenge of the contemporary church as “Ministry in an Impure Market.”  He doesn’t mean a market of “sinners,” though that is true too.  He means that congregations and the communities surrounding them are no longer as homogeneous as they used to be.  According to Rendle, an important consequence of the transformations in our communities is that many congregations have become “bimodal” (p. 4); that is, there is an “old guard” of long-term members and a “new wave” of recent members, with a “missing generation” in between.  Rendle goes on to suggest that this “bimodal” situation does not need to be cause for alarm.  He observes that such congregations can be “healthy,” though not necessarily always “comfortable.”  He says that a “healthy” congregation is

·        receiving new members

·        is passing on the faith, and

·        is in earnest dialogue about what’s important.

Rendle also suggests that the tensions within a “bimodal” congregation “are driven largely by generational differences that leaders must learn to negotiate if the congregants are to move with confidence into the future” (p.7). [pause]

This morning’s lectionary readings remind us that God initiated and has sustained a relationship with the extended family of humanity from the original covenant with Abraham through the “new covenant” available through Jesus.

The great cathedrals of England remind us that the Western Church has been an important manifestation of the continuing covenant with God since Roman times.  Despite fires, social upheaval, wars, and the plague of modern tourism, the cathedrals still stand in places like London, Canterbury, and York as symbols of God’s relationship with humankind.

The work done by the Rev. John Vincent and his colleagues at the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield over a generation reminds us that God’s covenant is about much more than cathedrals and structures.  God’s covenant is an all-embracing claim on human beings, especially in the light of Jesus’ life of love, service, and hope.  The U.T.U. does not so much “break the mold” for doing church, but instead “scrapes off the mold” from the institutional church by focusing our attention on the local context for congregational life.

And a play like “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged),” reminds us about the sinfulness and fragility of the human condition (from Adam and Eve to Jesus’ disciples), while showing its audience that God is always there with us and for us, regardless of our lack of good works, and our lack of faith.  And, perhaps just as importantly, the play reminds us that God always has a sense of humor about humankind!

Remember that God is the one who initiated the covenant with Abraham and sent us Jesus as a model for love, service, and hope.  God is the one who spread the covenant across the generations.  It is not up to us to determine who is “in” and who is “out” of God’s extended family. 

But, as Gil Rendle’s wonderful book on The Multigenerational Church reminds us, it is up to us to recognize that our different generations have different ways of understanding what it means to “do church” and “to be faithful.”  It is up to us to keep working on how to be “healthy,” even when this is “uncomfortable.”  And it is up to us to strive together to fulfill Jesus’ mandate for his followers. 

Whenever we talk about our church “family” here at Trinity, we need to remind ourselves that – from God’s perspective – all who come in the sanctuary door already belong to God’s extended, multigenerational family.  This bumper sticker says it very well, “Value All Families.”

So, let us commit ourselves to meeting the challenge of being a “healthy,” even if “uncomfortable” multigenerational church.  Then, perhaps, a few hundred years from now, tourists will come to Oak Cliff to visit and worship at a place where the Official Dallas Tourist Guidebook will record that, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Trinity Presbyterian Church really did rise to the challenge of living out God’s covenant of being “All in the Family.” 

  Amen.

  © 2003 Robert V. Kemper (e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org)