Beyond This Generation's Time

A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

“To what will I compare this generation?” Jesus asks.

On Wednesday, the Episcopal Church celebrated the feast day of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Lawyer and scholar. Poet, priest, pastor, protestor, professor and prophet.

The significance of Murray's life to this country and this church could take an entire day to outline, so I’ll simply provide some highlights. In 1940, 29-year-old Murray—a Black woman—was arrested for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, an act of public resistance fifteen years before Rosa Parks’ act of defiance most of us learned about in school. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (as with Murray, a lifelong Episcopalian) called her book States’ Laws on Race and Color, the "bible" of the civil rights movement. Murray is named along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg as coauthor of the ACLU brief in the landmark 1971 Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed. Murray helped lay the legal groundwork for women's equality under secular and ecclesiastical law, ultimately becoming the first Black woman ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church.

While celebrated this way, Murray actually used a variety of pronouns and gender self-descriptions throughout her life; and even sought gender-affirming care in an age when it was even less accepted than it is now. As we do not know how Pauli Murray would identify if they were living today, I will follow the Pauli Murray Center’s custom of interchangeably using she/her, he/him, and they/them pronouns going forward.

People with expansive experiences of gender have existed in every age, and in describing this experience, and seeking care that affirmed it, Pauli Murray called and continues to call us beyond “this generation's” time, and into God's time.

Beginning seminary before women could be ordained in this church, Murray used both their legal and spiritual gifts to push the church toward justice. Following the 1973 General Convention, when women's ordination once again failed to move forward, Presiding Bishop-elect John Allin suggested that the matter simply required “more study.” Murray responded in a bold letter: "In my custody," he wrote, "are three bound volumes of studies made on women in the church, dating from 1946 to 1974.... And you, sir, desire another study?... The call of God is not controlled by leisurely studies."

Mic drop. The institution was moving on “this generation’s” time: cautious time, procedural time, comfortable time. And Pauli Murray was moving on God's time. And, eventually, “this generation” caught up. Women's ordination was approved in 1976, and Murray was ordained to the priesthood in 1977.

And, lest it sound as though I believe these things move in a straight line — as though God's justice is revealed just once and never needs revealing again — it is quite clear in this time and place, as we mark the 250th anniversary of this nation, that the work of prophets is not accomplished once and for all, and then safely stored away for future generations to appreciate and enjoy. Prophetic progress is precious. And it is breakable. And every “this generation” is responsible for its care.  

We are seeing that rights won through courage and sacrifice can be weakened. Truths seemingly agreed upon can become controversial once again. Every "this generation" must reckon with how we compare to those who came before us, and how we will compare to those who will come after.

When we look back as students of history and see so clearly that certain human beings were able to shrug off the "this generation" of their time and live in God’s time instead, it's almost as though God is winking at us. As if to say, "the truth has always been right here in plain sight. There have always been people who saw it. And there have always been people courageous enough to witness to what they saw."

And people have responded to these prophets with critique and suspicion. Laughter and malice. By asking them for scriptural references. For proof of miracles. For yet another study. People have responded with violence. 

John the Baptist lived on God's time. And he told us the way people and nations were behaving did not fit with God's dream for us. And Jesus invited people to inhabit a realm where all is made new — right here, right now — if we would live as citizens of that tealm, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

“To what will I compare this generation,” Jesus asks? “It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” I imagine Jesus thinking, “John is too serious and ascetic for you. And yet I am too open and indulgent for you. How does a prophet get your attention?” I can feel his frustration here.

But he doesn’t stew in it for very long. He moves rather quickly to words of profound comfort and understanding.  "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Not “ugggh catch up already!” or  “Figure it out, you fools!”  But, “Come, all you generations” who don’t quite get it right.”

I imagine it might be tempting for God to drag us along like a resistant dog on a leash, but instead God offers to walk right beside us, sharing the load. Step by step, until we can get there. Learning, even if only for a moment, to live on God's time rather than this generation’s.

There is work to do. And justice to pursue. And prophets to hear. There are voices that will be dismissed today and celebrated tomorrow—and then, perhaps, dismissed again.

Last year, a page honoring Pauli Murray was removed by the federal government from the National Park Service website. Prophetic progress is precious. And it is breakable.

Every member of every “this generation” must decide whether we will continue the work of the prophets of the past, and whether we will listen to the prophets of the present. Because it is so easy to domesticate[i] the message of past prophets, making it softer and easier to bear. And it is so easy to discredit and ignore present prophets, because they, by their very nature, appear as strangers to “this generation.”

And so God keeps sending them. “Again and again,” as our Eucharistic prayer puts it. Because God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows we need this “prophetic refresh.” God knows we are “wearied by the changes and chances of this life,” and our attention is hard-won.

“Come to me, all you that are weary,” Jesus says.

The yoke is shared. By God. And by all of us. And generation after generation, God is here—patiently inviting us out of the time of "this generation" and into God's time.

Note: I learned this morning that many in the congregation had not heard of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, and look forward to learning more. Oh, does that make my heart sing! Here is some suggested reading to get you started:

Dark Testament, and Other Poems, by Pauli Murray

To Speak a Defiant Word: Sermons and Speeches on Justice and Transformation , by Pauli Murray

Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage, by Pauli Murray

Proud Shoes: An African American Family by Pauli Murray

Jane Crow: the Story of Pauli Murray by Rosalind Rosenberg

The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott

My Name is Pauli Murray, a documentary film available for streaming

[i] See for example: https://religionnews.com/2018/03/30/dont-domesticate-mlk/