From Monuments to Movements by Bishop Yvette Flunder (June 25, 2017)

hallelujah this prayers is of such as I hands they would near give I to be for such as I had was given to me I truly receive [Laughter] and I truly gay so in the name of Jesus stand up and live hallelujah glory to God that's my prayer today I want to acknowledge the presence of God and the spirit of love that is in this house the incredible rich and authentic welcome that I received in the roving rooms we have some characters among the clergy but we had a wonderful time getting ready for this opportunity of worship I want to speak greetings and appreciation to my friend and sister the Reverend dr. Amy Butler and to the entire family that is Riverside Church I not only have been here before to be with you in the preaching moment but for a whole semester when I was teaching at Union I lived down the street and had a chance to come often to observe the service to community that is Riverside Church I'm also glad to have been asked to become a part of the Advisory Council not only asked by your pastor but I received the invitation graciously and with joy because it's important that we work together for intersectional justice in the time in which we live this is a peculiar time and it's going to require a peculiar people to do the work that we are called to do and I'm so glad to be peculiar today I just love it another word for that is queer queer used to be an insult now we wear it with joy and gladness I serve a queer Savior who was himself a heresy who was himself problematic and I say often they did not kill Jesus because they thought he was the son of God they killed him because he was a political subversive who had the audacity to speak truth to power how many more queer people in the room I want to see who you are where the queer people in the room today god bless you and so let me share a little bit from my heart to your heart I'm very glad to be standing in this pulpit on Pride Sunday and I cannot stand in this pulpit without acknowledging a couple of things I thank God for rivers of living water you heard them sing earlier rivers of living water you see see right here in New York and in New Jersey Casa Vanessa Brown closed her service today to be in this service today so that we could be together come on let's celebrate rivers today I am a native of San Francisco and some of my friends in the Midwest and on the East Coast suggest that that is my problem I was born in San Francisco and at the Mount Zion hospital the Jewish Hospital that was in the middle of the african-american community and not too many years ago because I am a native of San Francisco I know a lot about earthquakes a lot in fact when I was a child coming along we had earthquake preparedness for people who are from places where their hurricanes tornadoes they have hurricane and tornado preparedness earthquake preparedness required you to get under your desk at the sound of a horn or the sound of a siren and we were supposed to learn how to be safe in an earthquake you get under your desk they tell you stand in the doorway they'll tell you don't go out in the street because many people perish from parts that fall off buildings it's just a whole litany of things that we learned as children not long ago in the mid 80s we had a significant earthquake it was called the Loma Prieta earthquake and I was driving down the street in my car and I felt what felt like I'd run over a bump my car sort of lifted off the roadbed and then came back down when I got to the house when I got to the door my partner and my children were standing at the door waiting for me when my key turned they opened the door they grabbed me and pulled me in and then started touching me on my body to see they said are you okay did you do all right and I said what do you mean am i okay they said well we just had an earthquake I said what earthquake and then it dawned on me that that's what made my car jump off the roadbed when I was on my way home we were praying they said and praying you through the earthquake we were praying and praying you through the earthquake I was conscious of earthquakes and I was also conscious of the fact that in my part of the country we build our buildings with earthquakes in mind we do it because terrible things happen when we don't San Francisco survived an incredible earthquake at the turn of the century and we've had earthquakes since that time we live on an active fault that's called the San Andreas Fault it's deep it's present and every few hours of every day we have an earthquake we just don't feel them because they're too far down in the earth but the San Andreas Fault yawns and moves and stretches consistently and constantly because we are upon a living earth amen we build dead buildings on a living earth let me keep going and so in San Francisco we're conscious of that and we keep it in mind because we know what happens and our history tells us no matter how fabulous and magnificent we build our architectural II world-renowned structures and monuments they are dead structures on a living earth and they can be utterly destroyed in seconds by a certain kind of seismic event even our monuments have had to respect our movement Oh glory to God I had a Pentecostal moment right there even our monuments have to respect our movement the movement of the earth under us is at constant moving and our monuments are at constant risk of being destroyed so our monuments have to be retrofitted that's what we call it let me tell you what retrofitting really is it is building a building to mimic moving living things we try to make a building act like living things act like palm trees you know we have a lot of palm trees in Southern California palm trees know what to do in an earthquake when the earth shakes the palm trees lay down and then they come back up everybody got that let me do it again things here they lay down and then they come back up because they have roots and because they are living in a place indigenously living in a place where earthquakes have existed they know they have to sway and they have to move with the movement of the earth if they don't flex they will crack and break and crumble and fall down they have to bounce come on them because bouncing is important and when we retrofit our buildings in San Francisco we do incredible things some of our buildings skyscrapers actually have hydraulics underneath them so when the earthquake comes they bounce we have some buildings that are on huge rollers so when the earthquake comes they move from side to side because they are dead things mimicking living things built on foundations that have to mimic life just so they can survive and even with everything we do with the multiple billions of dollars we've spent in San Francisco some of our buildings still fail because the earth is a mighty living thing and here's what I want to leave with you sisters and brothers those of us that are of the church and whatever in whichever way we acknowledge understand and worship the divine we must know the difference in being a monument and being a movement the two are very different and I'm very concerned at the present time that what I am hearing back from church and perhaps what I am not hearing back from church given our present political atmosphere I'm not sure if the church isn't rinsing entrenching itself more as a monument or is the church or is religion as we understand it remembering that we are and ought to be movement oriented you see we need a movement because I think that we might have abdicated our responsibility in this time we need a movement as people who claim to be in real in ship with the divine why because religious history is filled with monuments big formidable often miserable institutions come on now we have immovably entrenched ideologies that divide and separate and separate and divide and diminish and destroy all in the name of the current socially acceptable God and I read the other day when I was at the Museum of Natural History and also at the African American Museum when I was in Washington DC how complicit the clergy and the church was in the work of chattel slavery in this country and one someone said in a quote that it must be of God because the judges are with it the politicians are with it and all of the church have supported it it must be of God because the church has supported it and I thought about it when I looked in this same display case where this statement was made and there were chains in that case I want you to see that with me for a moment the statement was made and the chains were there at the same time and the frustration that I felt in my spirit is how problematic it is when people who are religious abdicate their responsibility and become more attuned to and connected to the monument then the fresh flowing move of the Spirit of God sometimes we can get in the place of monument thinking because monument thinking seems to be politically correct a man visits London and also because movement thinking is dangerous can I tell you it's dangerous to be involved in movement thinking when you're moving and government is not with you when you're moving and religion is not with you when you're moving and culture is not with you if Jesus was walking in the flesh here today he would say you can get dad doing that stuff because movement work is often dangerous but our history is filled with monuments thank God for Reformation thank God for Reformation thank God for shaking Reformation that reformed and Riaan formed come on thank God for earthquakes you see in San Francisco when we have a good earthquake even if there is a good retrofit what will fall off of the building first will be facade what is a facade a facade is therefore pretty but it's useless sometimes as religious people we have to stop and ask ourselves what are we doing for pretty and we just keep doing it but it's useless anybody hear me sometimes it's it's useless sometimes somebody says so why do we do that we say we don't know but we've done it for 150 years and we're just going to keep on doing it well is it helping anybody not really does anybody enjoy it no they really don't but we just keep on doing it because that's the way it was done and we're going to keep doing it because culturally it makes us feel like we are really Church there are some things that are just useless and it begs a question that I asked when I was a kid coming along when Mother Bertha Robinson was our youth leader mother Bertha Robinson was one of those youth leaders that drove one of those wood-paneled station wagons anybody know somebody goes back that far with me one of those wood-panel station wagons and we could get in mother Bertha Robinson station wagon with our hot dogs and put mustard and real and stuff all over her car she didn't care she was one of those kind of youth leaders every fifth Sunday mother Bertha Robinson was in the kitchen working to raise money for the youth department there was one real problem though the birth of Robinson was not a good cook not at all she was one of those people that when she cooked Fried Chicken it would be burned on the outside and bleeding at the bone anybody understand one of those people that when she made a pound cake it was a little salty and dry and we couldn't understand what was wrong with it but she raised money because people would say Oh mother Bertha here's the donation came to dinner and she could raise money on the Bertha and it leads me to this concept for 20 years 22 years or so of my life mother Bertha Robinson made a bad cake it was a terrible cake and she made it all the time and it begs the question what is a 20 year old bad cake it's a bad cake it doesn't get sanctified with time it was bad from the beginning the ingredients were inappropriate and wrong it was dry from the first time she made it and it stayed dry until mother Bertha Robinson made her last cake and went into the presence of God it never got better because it wasn't good from the start and there are some things that we are sometimes at church that are just not going to get better until we move from monument izing what we do and move to movement izing what we do let me let me go on thank God for change some folks thought that a big fine or respected denomination or institution filled with outdated exclusionary clauses in its religious rules would be strong enough to hold back movement in monuments that are in some way in the way of movements but no matter how big or how finely organized when a real shaking come everything can be shaken down when a unity shaking comes when a love shaking comes when a Justice shaking comes we'll find out sometimes how miserable monuments are you know it happens like this outside of my church building we have a stop sign a threeway corner and there's one stop sign we really need three stop signs but we only have one outside of our building and I found out and I said this to the city you won't do anything until somebody gets hurt or killed at this corner we're suggesting that we do something now because there's a certain inevitability but if someone gets hurt or killed on that corner then there will be a new stop sign if two people get hurt or killed then there'll be a stop light if three people get hurt or kill then it'll be two stop signs and a stop light essentially something has to happen and so it is with how we become burdened sometimes as monuments essentially when we begin the work that we begin maybe our book of order was like two pages long and then somebody slept with somebody and then we added a third page anybody understand what I'm saying and then some of the Deacons sold some money and we added a fourth page I'm sure it doesn't happen here and then a little further down the line you understand somebody fell down the stairs and then we add a fifth page and before you know it was a pamphlet becomes a huge volume and somebody will say you can't do that we say why can't we do it because you go to article 3.2 small a - one in the addendum you understand and you'll see because therefore alone what was once a movement has become burdened down come on now with legalisms and rules and responsibilities and with salt press with holding to the rules that we can't remember the movement the movement the movement which means that sometimes people have to be released to be who God has called him to be without all the ridiculous strictures that prohibit us from being a living breathing organism now I'm preaching now so let me get on there has to be a shaking why because our facades have to follow a real shaking that makes our facades fall off because monuments are not built often with the movement in mind you see it was movements that freed slaves it was a movement that got women to vote come on now it was a movement that brought justice to workers in this country it was a movement that opened the door to equal rights and equal marriage for the same gender loving community in the trans community it was a movement it was a group of people who linked arms and they linked purpose we lay down in the street in coffins until money and and prescriptions were available for people living with HIV it took a movement it took a group of people linking their arms and singing loud and three and four part harmony they don't let nobody turn me round see that's movements music right there if that kind of determination now let me take you to this acceptance is good but there is little or no action in just accepting that things need to change you can be an accepting person personally and privately and I'm talking to everyone who feels that you have now retired from the movement and you have taken off your Birkenstocks and you have put your signs in the attic and you're leaving it to someone else let me say to you you can accept the changes necessary personally and privately but I am saying that this present reality that we are in now is calling everybody back for monument sinking to movement thinking we need help and no one is excluded from this movement can I say something to you and here's my confession my present is now framed with some concepts that I developed in my path about my anticipated future when I was a girl coming along I did not imagine that I could have a day like this and let me just say that I did not imagine that there would be a day possible like this not only the negatives with the positives as well let me say it this way when I was a young Pentecostal female coming up in the Church of God in Christ and my belly was filled with a desire to be a change maker I couldn't understand how that could possibly have been possible for me and all of the things that I sent myself to be and knew myself to be female female clergy budding clergy a same-gender loving woman a black woman and a Pentecostal now I want you to think about that that's a whole lot of sugar for a dime if you think about it trying to figure out how it's going to be able to do what I had seen in the spirit does anybody know what I'm saying it's I saw it in my dream life in my prayer life for days like this terms like this but I couldn't perceive how I could possibly get there and God gave me a dream I used to play a classical clarinet in the orchestra and when I'm playing my horn what I know about a wind instrument is that when it makes an off note it's a horrible note it's usually really dissonant and very problematic and in my dream I asked a question how can such a dissonant note good thing and in my dream the head of the officer said to me only if the conductor changes the key of the song because then your dissonant note will fit where it was once a problem my testimony is that when I'm living now I am living because activist people worked until we saw the whole song change and the thing that used to be my problem is not my blessing oh you didn't hear what I said the thing that used to be the reason people rejected me has become the reason that people call on the essence of it this is not what I anticipated I thought I would always be in a hole in a closet and never be able but now in the former administration of the White House sometimes they were called and they would say what we need is somebody who is female get this now black gay come on now church and they could send one airline ticket and get all of that when they invited me it was their servant everything that was my oppression became my blessing because movement people got busy and moved and changed such that the whole song had another key sisters and brothers we're going to have to change the key of this song there's a song being sung out there right now that is a song that does not come from the heart of God we are going to have to get out there and because our children are depending on up they need us to change the key of this song and finally this on my journey I've learned something institutions sometimes a placeholder until we can move to the next level of growth but what happens is sometimes we fail because we are spending too much energy trying to maintain the facades that we've we lose the heart of what it is that we're trying to do we lose the soul of what it is sometimes that we're trying to do because the burden of maintaining the monument is so great maintaining the organization maintaining the denomination maintaining just maintaining until we lose sometimes the heart of why we do it preacher came to me and said mr. plunder I want you to pray for me he said 30 years I've been passing my church and 15 of those years I have hated my job and of course I was about to speak to him out of my ego and say to him well why don't you just leave when I realized that perhaps he needed to stay because he has children because he has bills some of us probably left over seminary bills because he has a medical insurance policy there because he has an automobile allowance I don't know but for some reason for 15 years beyond his joy beyond his passion beyond the time of movement he's stayed so I have a question how many of us are stuck and we can't get in the movement and we are blaming so many things if I blame it on my marriage I blame it on my children I blame it on my job I blame it I just but you're miserable doing what you're doing I'm gonna encourage you get back in the movement take some more risk hey Gloria do a few more things answer another dangerous call put yourself in harm's way again and get back in the movement because somebody's future depend on what we do today institutions and so proactive leadership the way that we ought to be involved in this is in need of profits hallelujah how said proactive leadership is in need of profits now I fully realize this is a brother that spirit-filled movement risk is risky placing oneself again in harm's way sticking one's neck out risking professional familial and denominational sometimes assassination taking the heat having to unfriend some people off Facebook come on them hallelujah take them off your speed dial getting in the fray taking a public position speaking truth to power acting up and acting out but we are not moving from a weak place for God is still able to do exceeding abundantly above all we could ask or think and if my for mothers and for fathers didn't decide at some point that they were going to bury their change and sing the song that before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my god and be free if they have not believed that I wouldn't be able to stay in the hotels where I say fly on the planes where I fly demand justice for housing and for food and for inner-city care I would not be able to demand justice for the immigrants come on now that has to come a desire to come to this country and I had not been set free from this kind of oppression by the people who were made to come to this country and built it I said to somebody who said the other day but you know we want our country back and I said to them for now wait a minute this is my country Jews and I wait a minute I was born here well you know what I'm saying I said yes I do know what you saying when you say you want your country back but if you didn't want it to be my country you should have picked your own cotton I had a moment I had a moment you should have pulled your Tabasco you should have breastfed your own children it was a moment I had a moment but since I'm here I want you to know it's also my country and what we need to do is open up our borders and love people who are oppressed all over the world if we are going to bring peace to the earth and so take this with you the movement time is now now somebody said well let's wait and see what happens in the elections in 2018 don't you do it movement time is now their decisions are being made about health care this week movement time is now it is now it has to happen now someone said well I don't know how to vote well let me just tell you real clearly that the ovens are being heated up but let me say what do you mean because I'm talking about a plan that is going to take the lives of people you see the way that health care come on it's being moved it's so that frail elderly people will not be able to live they will die what will happen is poor people will not be able to live they will die people with pre-existing conditions will not be able to live they will die and the people that will survive this will be the people that won't have the money to survive it or have the youth to survive it well since I just became a senior citizen this year I declare that I am not acceptable in that way I am important to this country I am important to the people who follow me I am important to muffle and I'm important to you you need me and I need you none of us are expendable we are not going to support a health care bill that kills off a group of the nation so Wall Street will do better that is not what we are going to support a man visible under it's time its movement time move in time for who for any historical african-american organization that will refuse to be constipated by a shadow of its former self I want to see every organization get busy and let's not fall back on the laurel of Martin Kings work come on now we need some new Martin Kings oh if I was in a Pentecostal Church I would tell you ask your neighbor are you ready hallelujah how about you are you ready it's movement time now to pass the fire to the generation that is coming after us it is time for the formidable Church everywhere to refuse to be private social club with gospel music and choreographed Christian entertainment it's time to move beyond that we got it down to a fine science but I want to know are we allowing ourselves to be in harm's way it is movement time for all the fraternities and sororities in the Masons and everybody who is out there the Union we need to use our influence and our income to positively affect our communities and not to simply move out of our communities into the suburbs its movement time movement time for politicians who will not be bought by money come on or Fame or opportunities to be on the news who won't forget where they came from and who voted for them and for people to believe that many of those who we try to impress many of those who we try to impress are still languishing in the places where we left them move off the block don't forget to block come on now when you move up to the east side to a deluxe apartments in the sky moving on up anybody hear what I'm saying to Riverside don't you forget where God brought you from don't you forget when your family did not have two dimes to rub together but God made a way and open the door don't you forget that somebody swept floors and washed clothes and cleaned up so that we could get the education that we have don't forget don't forget that somebody else needs you now to look back and to help walk them out of the places that you came from movement time now move in time for educators who won't drink the kool-aid movement time for educators who won't drink the kool-aid and think that public school is still somehow our other problematic some of our children that's the only choice they have don't get tricked movement time moves away from suggesting that inner-city children of color are developmentally flawed almost something is wrong with that thinking and we need to move away from that move away from those children come on now but move away from that thinking if you don't know how to teach black children and Latino children it's not the children's fault move away from that thinking come on different doesn't mean dysfunctional different just means different its movement time and I'm going to spin a constantly sit down god is about movement much like living water rivers movement God is about movement water doesn't freeze when it's moving churches don't freeze when they're moving denominations don't freeze when they're moving monuments will fall before movements every time God is not privately-owned and God is not a stagnant pond God is a fresh flowing river God doesn't have a political part a man visits London God is about fresh liberating truth and God is about extravagant welcome and God is big enough to include all of us simultaneously and to my closeted LGBT folks in the room closet especially Church closet are unfit for human growth and habitation closets are musty they have no windows they are dark they are created for storage they're not there for living people I want to welcome you to the light and I encourage you to break out bust out come out come out come out come out there's fresh air over here come out we are waiting for you we got some good things to share with you come on out of there you're the whole community that will love you we're in the midst of a love movement we're in the midst of a justice movement we're in the midst of a living movement we're in the midst of a blood movement that will redefine what God is saying and if folks don't know they need to know that we are capable and we are talented and we are gifted hallelujah and if you don't know just keep watching us because we are the hope and the dream of the slaves but we are also the hope and the dream of the transgender come on with me now that broke out the walls and bust with the police department and walked off with their hands behind their back right here in this city and started a movement that reverberate it all the way to California we have a hope and the dream of those people who not until a couple of years ago were really acknowledged for what really happened it's so long the blood is waking up its movement time get upset get mad cus if you have to it's now officially legal I'm giving it to you by Episcopal mandate cus if you have to but move it is movement time god bless you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Riverside Church

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Id: C-LXeheTWdQ

Length: 40min 13sec (2413 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2017