Bishop Yvette Flunder - "Our God does not discriminate"

faster Beth whose husband Steven is a wonderful cook you know I said to myself she really needs to keep him this is important because what a wonderful opportunity we spent in their home Charlene and I having dinner met their beautiful daughters and experienced such an authentic welcome it's good for your bones when people really want you to be with them and it was a beautiful beautiful time I want to also express my appreciation to our sister Christine who I know is on the ministerial staff here and her little boy what's the baby's name Aaron Aaron is a character I think he's probably going to be a pastor or a rabbi we'll see which way it goes Aaron but he'll definitely be in charge of something I'm pretty clear about that but we and very clear about that and we spent some really warm and fuzzy time with our four-legged member also sister Emma who I can tell is potentially on the diagonal because she sort of runs every atmosphere that she is in also it has been a wonderfully joyous and authentic time and Charlene and I are feeling real blessed to be here I know that I am standing to share some insight from the passage of Scripture that was read a moment ago but I've raised a Pentecostal and because I am a Pentecostal and I say this often never for the sake of Tranquility or the sake of impressing anyone will I ever ever deny the authenticity of my experience and my experience as a Pentecostal suggest that we do a whole lot of stuff we didn't anticipate doing so let's have this do this thing together you got a working mic is your mic on alright [Music] Lord keep me day by day good old gospel song sung by Albertina Walker and the caravans years and years ago out of Chicago Illinois Lord keep me day by day in a fuel and perfect way I want to live I want to live in a building not made by hand no keep my body strong Lord keep my body strong so that I may do no wrong and give me grace Lord give me grace just to run this Christian race all to building not made by hey I'm just a stranger I'm just a stranger here traveling through this Baron but lord I know there's a building a building somewhere a building not made by Oh keep me God low or keep me day by day [Music] in a few and perfect way I want to live I want to live I want to live Oh God I want to live in a building not made by [Music] thank you thank you sunny old school gossipy old school so let me share a little bit about Eldad and Medad and have an opportunity to fold in some of the theology even of the song that we just sang Eldad and Medad folks that we only hear this one passage of scripture about they don't show up before and they don't show up after this passage two brothers either of the flesh or spirit who were in rebellion against the prescribed method for spreading the inclusive love of God these two brothers were in the number but they were not or they did not choose to be on the a list and it disturbed the keepers of the protocol when they became so filled with spirit that their witness could not be confined to the tent of meeting as was true among Moses and the other elders the tabernacle or the tent of meeting was the place that was ordained for the leaders of the congregation to go meet together and experience the spirit and presence of God unlikely recipients these two brothers were with an unacceptable call essentially they broke protocol how about that they broke protocol Eldad and Medad extolled God's attributes and declared God's will out in the open in the camp among the people they left the tent or the prescribed place they went outside of the denomination and the prescribed places for divine work they prophesied in the clubs and on line and in the park and on a stroll in Congress and recovery centers homeless shelters and other such holy places and the word in the Hebrew for prophecy has a power powerful dual meaning it means both to foretell and forth tell to speak the things that are not yet and to speak the things that are the current word from God they voiced with power what God was doing and what God was planning to do that's a prophet and what God was planning to do not just for the people in the tent but for all of God's people and when Joshua the protocol officer I know every Church has one I'm sure you probably don't have one but we have a couple in our church protocol officer when Joshua the protocol officer rebuked them Moses said this peculiar thing would that all of God's people were prophets and so my beloved here's what I have learned in my years of intersectional justice work not all bishops are prophets how about that not all pastors and evangelists and reverends and priests and Abbot's rabbis and overseers are prophets not all megachurch pastors are prophets for what is a true prophet one who foretells or who can perhaps since what is coming but that's the easy part the complicated part is the one who forth tales or speaks a word out of season when others are afraid or ashamed to speak it one who speaks when it is dangerous to speak when it is political politically inappropriate to speak when your family is not in support of your speak when your whole presence speaks and it is problematic when it is not popular to speak when folks won't join your church because of what your church speaks or when big money may leave your church because of what your church speaks that's the hard part to forth tale so where are the prophets in this time of effort to use religious freedom to take back our hard-won freedoms religious freedom is a buzzword in the United States religious freedoms suggest that I am free by my religion to discriminate against whomever I would choose to and we are trying to pass laws in my country to concretize that reality it is like the backlash of the end of Jim Crow or the end of peonage on the back heels of chattel slavery it's like here we go again and we discriminate again in the name of a loving God and shift god's nature to what we need God to be and I say it this way in the African American vernacular that I tend to use because Farrell don't make bricks what does that mean essentially as soon as we got from being servants in one way that we have a culture that creates another way for folks to be servants whether that is slavery or peonage or Jim crow or the prison industrial complex Farrow don't make bricks and what gets me is the weak voice of megachurch around issues like this in the United States it's weak its weak to the point at which I fear that the entire movement is advocating its whole moral authority its compass is being somehow Sassoon and assumed by people who do not even hide their hatred against the other whether it's at our borders whether it is in our neighborhoods or whether it is the great fear of the shifting of race from European race based majority to people of color race majority there's an incredible fear in the name of God because feral don't make bricks and it will stop only when prophetic voices stop the epidemic of hatred not only in the US but around the world where this reality has become epidemic and people are affected by it everywhere Muslims Sikhs people of African descent women people who are LGBT people who vote in the other party whatever the other party is we have to take prophetic voices into the marketplace to stop the epidemic because if we just treat it it will rise again you know it's like putting a band-aid on a boil if I know what a boil is it doesn't make sense to put a band-aid on a boil the only way that a boil we'll really be dealt with is if it is opened up and the poison in it is allowed to come out we've got to open it up and stop putting a band-aid on it you understand how do we do that with a boys ready to deal openly with the prejudices in religion with regard to human sexuality with a voice not striving to win popularity contests puppets are not for popularity contests a voice willing to confess that the use of religion as a weapon of oppression has never been and is not the will of God it does not matter who is preaching it they are still wrong a voice not afraid to admit that you just hate some people and stop using the Bible to justify it just say I just hate some people I just hate them my momma hate it on my daddy hated them and I hate them and I need God to do something about the hatred that is in my heart but don't expect God to carry that water with you or for you preconceived prejudices pejorative assumptions of the other I can objectify you forever if I never get right up on you come on now I can spit all day saying you know how white men are you know how they are all of them are like that you know how they all are everyone I meet is like that as long as I am way over here and you are way over there I can determine and I can decide how I am going to feel about an entire group of people all the brothers and sisters when we get close enough to hug and feel each other's heart beat something shifts and changes about how we objectify one another you are my sisters and you are my brothers and you are my siblings because I choose to be sister to you you're stuck with me there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it get ready for it because I'm something to deal with get ready for it it's important because we need a voice that is not afraid to admit what our realities are and the way that we have used God and religion to justify our pre-existing hatred we need a voice that will look at history and cultures of oppression and vow not to emulate the oppressions that we have experienced and just because it's old doesn't make it right there's some stuff that just needs to change in the church when I was raised up we had a mother of the church her name was mother Bertha Lee Robinson mother Bertha Lee had one of those wood-panel station wagons and she would let young people get in there with hot dogs and put mustard and ketchup all inside her car she didn't care she was that kind of mother to the children mother Bertha used to be in charge of the kitchen on fifth Sunday's problem wasn't mother Bertha she couldn't cook she was one of those kind of folks if she fried chicken it would be blood he kind of had to bone and burned on the outside you know and her pound cakes were kind of salty never see just couldn't cook but she raised more money than anybody when she was in the kitchen because people would come by and say mother let me make a donation she said well here's a dinner I said no that's all right you keep the dinner but here's $20 for the children it worked really really well and it begs a question because 20-plus years of my life I set under mother Bertha's ministry and her love and for 20 years mother Bertha made that same quick that same cake and this is the question that it makes what is a 20 year old cake that's a bad cake it is still a bad cake it's just now an old bad cake there are some things in our traditions come on now that we don't know why we do it we just keep doing them and we won't shift and move from even if they're not inclusive and radically inclusive in nature because it's just always been that way and when we try to move towards something else we get a pushback and we think sometimes it's God but it's culture come on now because radical inclusion inclusion has to be radical and inclusive Eldad and Medad are in trouble in this passage because they broke with protocol they broke with tradition they said this is a bad cake and somebody has got to stop cooking this same cake over and over and over and over again they broke ranks they broke with tradition they broke with political customs they broke with practice and practice and they went into the camp now I was raised in a Joshua church Joshua was the protocol officer by the way where we were taught to convert confine the spirits blessing to those that were in our tent that were part of our church obey our rules we were taught to come out from the world they quoted the scriptures all the time come out from among them and be separate saith the Lord touch not taste not handle not the unclean thing I knew that passage of Scripture before I could spell my name but that is not the Pentecostal message and I say that as a evolved and evolving Pentecostal the Spirit of God will not be confined to the tent the Spirit of God will not be confined to the upper room the Spirit of God will not be confined to this great space the Spirit of God will not be confined to a denomination will not be confined to a race the Spirit of God will not be confined to its prescribed location and will slip out of the tabernacle or the tent of meeting and we'll move into the camp if L dad and me dad will take it in my imagination Eldad and Medad rode motorcycles and had tattoos and jeans and cowboy boots perhaps various piercings we'll talk about that l dad and me dad were people who listen to loud music you understand L dad and me dad were perhaps counterculture to the rest that were in the tent and let me say something to you about them they were on the list they were on the invite list but they chose not to go they slipped like the spirit slipped from behind the veil and became a part of the lives of everyone who wanted a spirit-filled life the spirit that came to L that in me dad was the spirit of radical inclusivity the spirit of radical inclusion that did not leave out anyone the spirit made a desperate effort not to confine itself to a culture a denomination or a doctrine because the spirit comes to blanket the earth with the opportunity to know God by all of God's many names and all of God's beautiful manifestations they were not limited to the lines that we draw to the silos that we create and some said that spirit could not show up in places where spirit had not been before and it begs the question where is a place where spirit has not been before

Channel: Canadian Memorial United Church

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Length: 22min 14sec (1334 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 27 2017