Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] July 17, 2022 “Marsha and Sylvia” Luke 10: 38-42 – Common English Bible After While Jesus and his disciples were traveling, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message. 40 By contrast, Martha was preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. So Martha came to him and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself? Tell her to help me.” 41 The Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. 42 One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won’t be taken away from her.” Sermons about Mary and Martha often contrast the spiritual life – for example, some people are doers and some people are “be-ers.” But this text isn’t about how some people are one thing and some people are another. It says, “Martha, you’re too focused on other things. Look at your sister. She chose the better thing.” Theologian Dr. Karoline Lewis has had it with sermons that compare and contrast Mary and Martha. She said, it creates a competition between women, or even worse, rivalry between sisters. In very strong words, she said, preachers, more often than not men, “elevate and exacerbate our insecurities, part of the way our society fosters and depends on the socialization of women toward competition, judgment, and expectation. It’s a way to control women.”[1] Dr. Lewis laments that inevitably, women who identify as Marthas, and churches are full of and often completely dependent on Marthas, feel chastised. “Martha, you’re too focused on other things. Look at your sister. She chose the better thing.” Could that really be the point Jesus intended? It might help to recognize that the story of Mary and Martha is paired with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which immediately precedes. Jesus praises the unlikely Samaritan. And the very next thing Jesus does is praise Mary, an unlikely disciple. Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus listening is clearly the posture of a disciple. As the Jesus Seminar folks point out, “Both the Samaritan and Mary step out of conventional roles in Luke’s gospel” and are praised.[2] And yet, so much of the challenge of this story still rests on the word “better.” One of them chose the “better thing.” Or, Mary made the “right choice.” She chose the “good part.” But the intention certainly cannot be to pit one against the other because service and learning are both hallmarks of following Jesus. Imagine removing all references to hospitality and eating together from the Gospels. Who’s going to feed everyone? Ultimately, the image left in our minds from this story shouldn’t be Martha feeling dejected, though she’s still clearly still frustrated with her sister. The image we should hold on to is that of a female disciple, sitting at the feet of Jesus. It is to imagine Jesus upholding the Samaritan as an unlikely hero and Mary as an unconventional disciple. Jesus is always expanding previously accepted boundaries, opening wider our understanding of the Kingdom of God which is both here and not yet. Here and not yet. Just like the LGBTQ+ Pride we celebrate this weekend. Fernando López is the executive director of San Diego Pride and on Thursday he wrote this: “Cresting over the horizon is the brilliant liberation of our dreams. But looming are growing shadows of hate. It is why we have Pride. We don’t have Pride because we are free. We have Pride because we are not. Our community will not let fear, hate, and intimidation win. We will not shrink ourselves or return to the closets and prisons of our past. He added, “this Pride, we will unshackle our hearts and bodies from anyone’s expectations but our own. We will rise unapologetically to indulge in being radically only and absolutely who we know we truly are. I invite you to bravely discard fear. Seize hope. Be free.” 1969 was the year of the Stonewall Riot. What a different world we live in and yet, while so much has changed, so much has not, exemplified in part by two brave individuals at the Stonewall Inn that night in June, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Marsha was born in 1945 and named Malcolm. She began wearing dresses at age 5, but stopped after being teased. After graduating from high school, Marsha moved to New York City with a bag of clothes and $15. She landed in Greenwich Village which was one of the most tolerant places for people like her, but it didn’t protect her and others from constant harassment, including by the police. The police were responsible for enforcing horrible laws, including one that required individuals to wear at least three items of clothing that matched your gender. Three. Not two. And how would that be enforced without violating the most personal parts of the body? That indignity might have been small, however, compared to the fact that no one would hire someone like Marsha. She was frequently homeless and like many others at the time, dependent on prostitution to survive. In the face of all this, Marsha was generous, jubilant, and open to any and every one. And she was religious. She said she loved Jesus because “he is the only man I can really trust. He listens to all my problems and has never laughed at me.” Marsha took in anyone in need, which is how she met Sylvia Rivera. Sylvia’s father abandoned her at birth. Her mother committed suicide when Sylvia was three. She then went to live with her grandmother, but Sylvia was beaten every time she was caught trying on her grandmother’s clothing or makeup. At age 11 she ran away and became a prostitute. That’s when she met Marsha on the street. Marsha took in young people and offered the kind of stability and love of a home they had never experienced. Marsha and Sylvia were together at the Stonewall Inn that night when police raided the bar at 1:20 am, the second time that week alone. Interesting side note: bars that served queer people couldn’t get liquor licenses, so most of the gay bars in New York City were run as private clubs by the mob. It was tremendously profitable for them. That night, for whatever reason, the patrons had had enough of the constant harassment. They fought back. Patrons had never fought back before. But this time, when police hit a Black woman wearing pants named Storme, she hit back. They tried three times to shove her into a police car but she kept fighting her way out. Someone then yelled to turn over the car. Previously docile patrons who patiently got into police paddy wagons to go to jail instead began taunting the police, throwing coins and then beer cans. This caught officers off guard. Things escalated. Patrons began scooping cobblestones out of the street and throwing them at police who retreated inside the bar. Someone pulled a parking meter out of the ground and used it as a battering ram to force the door open. Trash cans were set on fire. Someone threw lighter fluid and a match into the bar through broken windows. It was a riot. From inside, Inspector Pine was within seconds of ordering his officers to fire their guns, but backup finally arrived and began to haul rioters away. But not like before. Not everyone would go quietly. Tensions remained high, added to by a growing number of people from the neighborhood and other bars who gathered around, unaware that they were witnessing the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ liberation movement. However, Stonewall wasn’t the first time queer people fought back. There was the “Cooper’s Do-nuts Riot” in Los Angeles in 1959. The “Compton’s Cafeteria Riot” in San Francisco in 1966. Both riots involved the same kind of crowd that gathered at the Stonewall Inn. Racially mixed, mostly poor, women who dressed in shirts and trousers, men who called themselves drag queens, and a collection of people who weren’t welcome anywhere else. There was one other event that preceded Stonewall. A “Sip-In” at Julius’ in New York City. A group of well-dressed men visited bars, told bartenders they were gay, and ordered drinks to try to challenge the law against serving homosexuals. Already raided that week, the bartender at Julius’ denied them service which ultimately led to a court case that overturned the law. And yet, three years later, patrons like Marsha and Sylvia at the Stonewall Inn were still being harassed and arrested. By the way, Stonewall wasn’t a one-night event. Skirmishes continued throughout the weekend and into a sixth day. At “gay liberation” protests that followed in the days and years after, people like Marsha and Sylvia were pushed off stage. Literally. More “respectable, dignified,” white men became the face of gay liberation. I understand it and I hate that I understand it. Well, things came to a head at the Pride March in 1973 when Sylvia was repeatedly blocked from speaking. When she finally grabbed the microphone, she shouted, “if it wasn’t for the drag queens, there would be no gay liberation movement. We’re the front-liners.” She was booed and jeered and took the rejection hard. Later that day she attempted suicide. Marsha found her and saved her life. They founded an organization called STAR: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries but eventually Sylvia gave up her activism and Marsha focused on saving the never-ending line of young people escaping the brutality of their homes for freedom in New York City and later caring for people with AIDS. It occurs to me that the same competition that pits Mary and Martha against each other could characterize Stonewell and the modern Pride movements. Which is better? Is one better? Serving or listening. The more “dignified” or the more colorful. Those trying to prove we’re all the same or those just trying to live in harmony with their identity. Watch as the governors and legislatures in places like Florida and Texas intensify their harassment and persecution of transgender people, fostering judgment and competition in the LGBTQ community, trying to elevate and exacerbate our insecurities. The religious right sees this as a way to divide our allies and the LGBTQ community – to control us and make us compete against each other. Don’t fall for the trap. Anyone who says “they’re not like me” or “why can’t they tone it down” or make comments on their looks is betraying everything we’ve been fighting for. Martha should be Martha. And Mary should be Mary. The only thing better about either one is that they better be themselves. And you should be you. And I’ll be me. But until everyone can be the radically and absolutely only person God created us to be, none of us will ever be free. This Pride unshackle your hearts so we can rise together unapologetically. A final word. The officer who led the police into the Stonewall Inn that night, Inspector Pine, formally apologized for his role, 15 years before the police department gave an official apology. He understood the power of redemption and the possibility of transformation when he said, “if what I did helped gay people, then I’m glad.” But we can never forget, nothing would have happened that night if not for the beautiful people God created like Marsha and Sylvia. [1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/no-comparison [2] The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say, 1993, p 325
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