Robin Cooper, a seminarian at Duke Divinity School and member of Hillsborough Presbyterian Church where Alice and I attend, preached there this past Sunday. I wasn’t there, but Alice was and reported back that Robin’s sermon was seriously compelling. So I asked him for a copy, which he graciously sent, and then asked him for permission to publish it, which he graciously gave.

I think the sermon is excellent. For me, it offers important hope in a time when the church seems as polarized as the world. I had begun to think, in fact, that a pastor’s job is so difficult nowadays that it’s almost impossible to preach prophetically. Someone is sure to be offended, rightly or wrongly. But Robin, who is a personable and likeable guy, seems to me to demonstrate that it isn’t impossible.

I’d like to know what you think. Here’s his sermon. His texts were the lectionary suggestions for the day, I Samuel 2:18-20, 26 and Luke 2:41-52:

In these two stories, Samuel and Jesus are young people growing in the faith.  It’s unclear exactly how old Samuel is, but we do know that Jesus is 12 years old.  Do you all remember being 12 years old.  I do.  My twelfth year was the most difficult year of my life.  I was in the 7^th grade, and I was awkward and funny looking.  My voice was doing weird things, and I had an oversized head.  Some of the 8^th graders made fun of my big head by calling me “Helmet Head.”  I had recently moved to a new town, and I had a hard time making new friends. 

To the middle schoolers worshiping with us today, I would like to tell you all that your life will most likely be more pleasant in adulthood.  As an adult, you’ll find that you no longer have to impress people in order to make friends and be well respected.  Trust me, there is nothing impressive about my life, but I have friends, and most people tend to treat me with respect.  I hope you can find comfort in knowing that even Jesus was once your age, and even Jesus suffered most of whatever you might now be suffering.

One of the more awkward things about being a twelve-year-old is the way your relationship with your parents begins to change.  Most twelve-year-olds begin to distance themselves from their parents.  Or was I the only one?  I doubt it. 

As a pre-teen, I both loved and resented my parents.  I loved them because they took care of me, and they loved me.  But I resented their tendency to embarrass me in front of my peers.  Like many parents, my parents had cute little nicknames for me.  Mama used to call me “Bunny Boy” and Daddy used to call me “Scooty Poop.”  As a pre-teen, I lived in constant terror that he would call me “Scooty Poop” in front of my peers.  How could I ever attract the eye of my crush if she knew my dad called me “Scooty Poop?”

Not only do I know what it’s like to be twelve, but I also know what it’s like to be a twelve-year-old who has been left behind by his parents.  Mine were great parents, but it hurt my feelings when they forgot to pick me up from school or when they left me somewhere else.  They were not bad parents, and neither were Mary and Joseph.  We can all be a little neglectful sometimes.  Can’t we?

An early version of this sermon sought only to provide a word of comfort to our youth and the parents of our youth.  I believe that interpreting today’s scripture in this way is both sound and important.  I hope that we can all see that message in today’s text.  It’s okay if your parents leave you behind from time to time.  But don’t worry.  They’ll come back for you.  Jesus too suffered this indignity.  Your parents love you. 

Sometimes, being left by your parents might even lead to experiences of great learning.  I can only imagine how much Jesus must have learned during his five days of studying with those who taught in the Temple.

Today, I feel called to present a different way of looking at this text.  A way that provides insights for all members of the Church.  To do this, perhaps we should ask different questions of this text.

Have you ever thought of the Church as a parent?  It was common for early Christians to talk about “Mother Church.”  I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve learned some very important lessons from the Church.  In fact, much of the wisdom my own biological parents have taught me is actually the Church’s wisdom.

Today, we should read this text while asking ourselves an important question.  How has the Church – as parent – left our siblings in Christ behind?  How has our own congregation done this?

I am extremely happy to be a part of this congregation.  I love you all, and I am convinced of your love for me.  We worship every week in this beautiful sanctuary.  I like to describe our sanctuary as being just plain enough, or rather, just Presbyterian enough.  This place is plain enough to not distract from our services, but it’s not so plain that it become uncomfortable or awkward.  I am thankful for this great sanctuary that is over 200 years old.

I am also especially thankful that the architecture of this space constantly reminds us of our former sins.  We have this beautiful balcony.  This beautiful balcony that many of our youthful sisters and brothers enjoy worshiping in.  But this beautiful balcony reminds us of our ugly past.  That balcony was originally built for slaves.

When the Kirklands and other slave owning Presbyterian families came here to worship, that balcony gave them a place to put their human property.  That balcony allowed them to feel good about themselves for sharing their faith with their slaves, while allowing them the misplaced dignity of not sitting with black people.  That balcony allowed the whole congregation to quite literally turn their backs on their non-white siblings in Christ.

Our first pastor was John Knox Witherspoon, Jr.  If that isn’t a Presbyterian name, I don’t know what is.  Reverend Witherspoon wasn’t a particularly radical man.  To my knowledge, he never spoke against the institution of slavery itself. 

He was, however, asked to leave this congregation for saying that slave owners had a responsibility to teach their slaves to read so that they could read the Bible themselves.  This was before the chancel where the choir is sitting was built, but can you imagine him standing about right there saying this in the presence of both slave and slave owner?  I can see how all of this was just a bit too much for the Presbyterian gentry of the day.

Of course, we do better now.  Right?  We’re a congregation that takes our call to be constantly reforming ourselves seriously.  We no longer ask non-white congregants to sit quietly in the balcony behind all of our backs.

We have opened wide our doors to everyone.  But do we listen to them?  Do we learn from those we previously walked away from?

Katie Cannon passed away earlier this year.  Dr. Cannon was the first black woman ordained as a teaching elder in the PC(USA). In other words, she was the first black female Presbyterian preacher in America. And she was one of the founders of what is called womanist theology.  Womanist theology endeavors to show the ways that the Church has historically turned its back on black females. 

I am happy that Katie Cannon helped found this most helpful school of thought.  But I wonder how much we – as white Presbyterians, as white Christians, as white people – have sought to learn from her. 

Jesus studied during the time between his parents leaving him at the Temple and their return.  He had much to share with them.  How might we learn from Katie Cannon and the many others our church has left behind?  We are happy to open wide our church doors, but do we seek out the very people that we have historically marginalized?  Do we seek them out and try to learn from them?  Or do we simply open our doors to them, expecting them to come to us?

It’s easy to see the ways we marginalize people who don’t look like us, but I feel called to take this question one step further.  How do we leave behind those who don’t think like us? 

Lately, our denomination has seemed to do a good job of reforming itself.  Once reformed, always reforming.  But might we have begun to leave behind folk who have sound theological reasons for disagreeing with our latest reforming?  Might we be beginning to leave behind people who don’t think like us?

Let me be perfectly clear about who I am wondering about when I ask these questions:  I am wondering what worship in this place might feel for someone who opposes same-sex marriage.  I am wondering about people who oppose safe sanctuary for people whose lives are in danger in the country of their birth.  I am wondering about people who think that the president is a good model of how to live a faithful Christian life.

Is it possible that we have all become so self-righteous in our own beliefs that our church is no longer able to mother people who hold a certain set of ideals?

It takes a lot of humility to admit when we’ve wronged someone.  And it takes even more humility to go back to those very people a have dialogue with them.  But doing so makes the Church stronger and truer to its mission.  Doing so makes the Church true to its mission to parent the children of God.

Friends, know this: Christ gives us the humility to do this difficult work.  Colossians 3 tells us that Christ renews us and that “In that renewal, there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”

People who look different from us and people who think differently than us do not lack Christ.  No one argues for or against one of the Church’s stances because Christ is or is not in them.  Christ is in all of his children.  We just need to humble ourselves in order to see that.

If the words of Colossians 3 are true, then we have the ability to do this most difficult work.  With the Holy Spirit we can help this church be a beacon of God’s Word in this community.  The gospel promise means that we can hug the descendants of those who were forced into our balcony.  Have you hugged someone of a different race lately?  Have you hugged an immigrant lately?  Have you hugged a hardline conservative or liberal lately?

Friends, it is time for us to clothe our church with the love which binds everything together in perfect harmony so that we may return to those we have left behind, so that we might do the tough work of reconciliation, so that we might learn from those we’ve left behind, so that they might feel Christ’s love in this church.

Amen.