The Beautiful Community: The Source and Solution to Our Discontents
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Introduction
Introduction
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
This title is influenced by Isabel Wilkerson and her excellent new book, Caste: The Origins of Discontents… I wanted do a biblical dive with you into the source of our discontents along lines of division, racially, ethnically, economically, politically, and on and on. But not only that. I want to also put before you the solution to our discontents.
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I want to share something with you as a way into grasping the source of our discontents. I am a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. One way I describe myself is as the son of an immigrant and a migrant. My father immigrated from Trinidad & Tobago in the early 60’s. My mother migrated from Wilmington, NC to Harlem, NYC as a teenager in 1952. She was a part of the Great American Migration, the mass exodus of African Americans out of the southern States from 1900-1970.
I love the fact that I’m a New Yorker. Particularly that I’m a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees; perhaps the most accomplished sports franchise in the history of sports.
But a tragic event of history set the conditions in Wilmington that led to my grandmother and her children leaving a few decades later. David Zucchino, in his book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, details the tragic armed, hostile coup of the city government in November 1898. The violence left untold numbers of African Americans dead, led to the overthrow of the city government, and the installation of the coup leader as mayor. The reason for the coup? A flourishing and growing Black community in a city that was becoming a post-Civil War model for Black and White cooperation.
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In the lead up to the coup Rev. Peyton Hoge, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, preached white supremacist messages to his congregation. On the Sunday following the coup Rev. James W. Kramer, of Brooklyn Baptist Church in Wilmington, declared to his congregation, “God from the beginning of time intended that intelligent white men should lead the people and rule the country.” Rev. Hoge himself carried around a Winchester rifle during the overthrow. Today we say that politics has no place in the pulpit, but Rev. Kramer said in his post-coup sermon, “I believe that the whites were doing God’s services, as the results for good have been felt in businesses, in politics and in the church. We will give the negro justice and will treat him kindly, but never again will we be ruled by him.” In the Sunday after the coup Rev. Hoge opened his sermon saying, “Since we last met in these walls, we have taken a city.”
Why bring up the coup of 1898? That was over 120 years ago. Well, the coup set the city on a course from which it has not yet recovered. In 1898 Wilmington’s population was 56% Black. Today it is 18% Black. Earlier this year I met and interacted with a racially and denominationally diverse coalition of pastors who are striving to bear witness in the city of our unity in Jesus Christ. For them and the city, the coup is not ancient history. It still even casts a shadow over the church. They know that they must engage the lasting effects of this historical event if they are to experience the intimate communion the Scriptures describe for God’s people.
We see bumper stickers on cars calling for us to coexist. Rodney King, who was brutally beaten by police in LA over 25 years ago asked, “Can’t we all just get along?”
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The last time humanity was one big happy family, who all just got along is recorded for us in Genesis 11:1
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
Re-creation account in Genesis 6-9…the chaotic waters from Gen 1.2 come back...
After the re-creation account God reissues the command to Noah and his sons...
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
The Table of Nations, Genesis 10…seems like obedience, but Genesis 11...
The Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu at Ur. The great ziggurat at Ur was constructed during the reign of the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (2111–2094 B.C.), and is believed to have been dedicated to the moon god Nanna. The temple which crowned its top level has not survived, but otherwise it is remarkably well-preserved. The tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9, was probably a ziggurat, similar in construction to this one.
Riff on Gen 11...
This isn’t just a religious event. It’s a political event. This is about who is going to rule us. What kind of government do we want?
Following Babel there was, by implication, going to be injustice, oppression, exploitation, dehumanization, etc.
The consequence of Babel is the idolizing of one group (usually our own) and the demonizing of other groups.
Therefore, the world doesn’t know have a large enough vision of justice because it doesn’t have a large enough vision of God. Why would the church give up being a prophetic voice for justice in the world? Justice is rooted in the blessing and beauty of God’s nature and his benediction.
Slide on Iceberg here... Source - Indiana Department of Education, Office of English Language Learning & Migrant Education
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The promise of God is the solution to our discontents...
The solution is not the flattening out and doing away with differences (we’ll see that in tomorrow morning’s chapel). What the Spirit of God brings is an appreciation for beauty in our diversity.
“Glory be to God for dappled things,” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poem, “Pied Beauty.” To be dappled is to be variegated, exhibiting different colors. Hopkins glorifies God in his poem for the skies, fish, finches, landscapes, and the like. All of the created variety in this world points to the glory and grandeur of God. Our God loves difference. From the beginning humanity was destined for what I call beautiful community.
“The Spirit is not an automated die-press, punching out stacks of Jesus-copies, one after another. The Spirit’s perfecting work is creative and sensitive to the character of the material before him. Those filled by the Spirit are one body of Christ, renewed in his image; yet “varieties of services” (1 Cor. 12:5) and diverse gifts (1 Cor. 12:6–10) are given “by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (1 Cor. 12:11). The work of the Spirit is both particularizing (or “diversifying”) and unifying. The distinctiveness of each member does not destroy the unity of the body; the unity of the body does not annul the distinctiveness of each member… The new creation will be beautiful because there will be harmony and right relationship between God and humanity, among humanity, and among all that God has made. Each thing will be most truly what it is, and—what is more, and amazing—the utterly distinct character of each being will contribute to the beauty of the whole.”