So, when I was in seminary, they loved to make us take various and sundry personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs or the Minnesota Multiphasic Assessment. Most of the time, I did these with a small bit of grumbling. I mean, so, I end up being an INTJ or something, what am I supposed to do? Tattoo it on my head? But there was one test that I kinda was intrigued by. It was a Strengths Finder Test.
It measured 34 different aspects of a person and told you what your top strengths were as you moved through life. Now, to be honest, I don't remember what my strengths are...I'm sure I had some. But what I liked about this test is it described your strengths in terms of “balconies” and “basements.” Balconies were how your strengths could manifest themselves in good ways. And basements were those strengths manifested in bad ways.
So...and bear with me now...so, let's say I measured high in “Achiever.” This means I would be tireless and have a strong work ethic. That's if that strength were manifesting on the balcony. But it also has a basement side that shows up as “overcommitted, can't say no, burns the candle at both ends.”
Or, take the strength of “belief” where you would have strong core values. On the balcony, this shows up as “steadfast, ethical, and responsible.” But in the shadows of the basement it could also mean you're “stubborn, elitist, set in your ways, and opinionated.”
I bring all this up because it crossed my mind when I was Zooming with my mom the other day. She is undergoing a serious life change. She has decided that the time has come for her to leave her home and move into a retirement community.
Part of this means she is downsizing her stuff. And part of that means that she is having to get rid of some things that she treasurers. And that leads us to the china.
She has this really nice china: plain white surrounded by a band of platinum. She was upset because she wouldn't have room for it. We talked about it for a bit, and she admitted that when she was growing up, having nice china for dinner parties was all the thing.
It meant that you cared about the people you had invited because you were trusting them to behave and not break things. It meant that you had manners and were proper. It's what you did to show that you were somebody.
I asked what it meant if you didn't have china, and she admitted that it meant you were poor or low class. We talked about it, and she finally said, “I guess china means you are better than other people.” And there it was, the shadow side.
When my mom was growing up, this was clear all over the place in Jim Crow's South. And it all could be summed up with “whites are superior to blacks.” And this, then means, “blacks are inferior.”
And then she remembered a story where her Aunt gave her black maid some china that she was going to get rid of because it was chipped and several pieces had going missing over the years. And she was offended that the maid said, “Thank you, but no. I already have some.”
And on that Zoom call, my mom said, “You know, maybe I don't need the china after all. Who do I need to impress?”
Y'all, we're still doing that, aren't we? This coming Tuesday, Proud Boys and other white Christian nationalist are planning to show up to show loyalty to a man, to a race, and to what they see as a way of life. But it will manifest itself, as it so often does in the basement, in hatred for marginalized groups that they have deemed inferior.
Black and brown people, gay and trans people, people who vote differently, people who worship differently. This loyalty will manifest itself in hatred of difference, and fear of the unknown.
I wish this were something new. But it's not. How many wars, how many genocides, have begun this way? How many people have been enslaved, how many cultures have been destroyed because of difference? Y'all this is not God's way.
And this is not how people of God should be. I know it seems self-evident, but, y'all, I don't think that people who say they follow God in this country are listening to that, are living into that. But that's what we hear from Genesis today.
When he left Haran for Canaan, Abraham left all that was familiar – all custom and comfort, family and friends, all regularity and rhythm of his life. His journey moved from present clarity into a future of genuine and profound ignorance. Abraham journeyed from what he had to what he did not have, from the known to the unknown, from everything that was familiar to all things strange.
But in his journey into the unknown, Abraham embraced his ignorance. He relinquished control. He chose to trust God's promise to bless him in a new and strange place. But this required a second choice on his part.
Not only did he have to leave his physical home, he had to leave behind his narrow-minded, small-minded, parochial vision. He had to forgo the tendency to exclude the strange and the stranger. He had to listen to God when God said that through Abram, all mankind would be worthy.
When God called him, Abraham subverted conventional wisdom and moved beyond the fear of the unknown, the fear of inclusion, the fear of relinquishing power.
Instead of lamenting his ignorance and the loss of control, he embarked upon a journey into the unknown. Instead of fearing inclusion of the strange and the outsider, he gave himself to God's promise of a universal blessings for the whole earth.
In the face of his own profound impotence, he believed that God could do the impossible. In doing so, he became "the father of us all."
Jesus tries hard today to hammer this through the thick skulls of those who believe that their way of life makes them superior to those others, who believe that others are NOT worthy.
Our common tendency is to fear the other, but today Jesus calls us to love them. Our common tendency is to suspect and marginalize the strange, but Jesus calls on us to join them in mutual trust. Or common tendency is to dismiss all that's different from who and what we know, but Jesus calls on us to embrace and accept different people as worthy of God.
And y'all, this is needed today more than ever.
I suppose that when the Proud Boys gather in Miami Tuesday, we are going hear amazingly vicious and hateful bile spewed out by scared and hating people. And I assume that people are going to get hurt, maybe even killed.
But I also believe that this will not be the end. They will not win. Because I believe that God moves through the world one person at a time, embracing the better life that God promises Abraham.
And I believe that my Mom will give up her china with no problem and no regret, and move on to her unknown new life, a little less weighed down by her past, embracing the better life that God promises Abraham.
And I believe that there are more followers of Abraham like my mom. And I believe that one Abraham will beget another and another and another. Each of them, following God into the unknown with trust and love, embracing the better life that God promises us all.
Amen.