Legacy

The texts: Philippians 2 and the story of the Caterpillar from Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Last week we read that Paul didn’t care why preachers were preaching about Christ, whether it was from selfish ambition or from a pure heart. This week we read that Paul requests those in the church at Philippi, and by extension us as well, to not do anything from selfish ambition. Neither should we do things from conceit. Paul teaches that we also shouldn’t murmur or argue. This description of having a good attitude and maintaining harmonious relationships with each other Paul summarizes as “holding fast to the word of life.” This legacy that he leaves will enable him to boast on the day of Christ that he did not run or labor in vain. Even though this legacy is what is causing him to be imprisoned, he says it is what makes him rejoice.

October is Queer History month. October wasn’t always a month to commemorate the history of queer people in the United States. It was established in the early 1990’s, in part due to October 11th already being Coming Out Day. Coming Out Day was instituted in 1989. What preceded all of this, though, were the Stonewall Riots and a gay rights movement led in many ways by Sylvia Rivera. Ms. Rivera was a genderqueer drag queen who threw one of the first bottles at the cops who were invading their sanctuary, a bar called the Stonewall Inn. Sylvia suffered for the freedom of queers, especially the youth.

Paul and Sylvia – an unlikely combination to some, but a natural one for me - both helped to spearhead a movement of rag-tag people trying to figure out the best way to live life. Both were ridiculed by people both in the movement and outside of the movement. We are the legacy of both these pioneers. How we handle ourselves now reflects on the work they did then. What we do today leaves a legacy for those who follow us.

Sylvia and Paul both knew that people had to change. The people they were speaking to had to change from being weak to being strong and they had to change from being selfish to being selfless. I struggle with how to talk about how we can be meek and not weak. I know that we need to be self assertive and not selfish. I believe we need to put others first while we make sure to take care of ourselves. The revolutions that Sylvia and Paul were leading required people to walk this line. Knowing who you were was the only way to be able to truly put others first.

Jesus knew who he was. He took care of himself by stealing away to the mountains to pray so that when the throng pressed he could be strong. When he didn’t have an answer to a question, he would say he didn’t know. He was grounded in his faith and in the reality of who he was and in his mission. People called him King, but he knew his title, whatever it was that they decided to call him on any given day, did not and could not dictate the choices he made or the way he moved through the world. If he was a King, it was not as the world understood Kingship. If he was a bringer of Peace, it was not as the world knew peace. He was reconstructing ideals and expectations.

This is the legacy that Jesus left Paul. Paul taught this radical restructuring to the Philippians. Sylvia taught her radical restructuring of what it meant to be a queer person of value to the homeless queer youth in New York City. She was, by most accounts, considered to be a freak. She was not defined by the heterosexist society outside or inside of her sub-culture. Paul and Sylvia wanted to see change. They left us a legacy of walking in the tension between being confident in themselves and what they knew to be true, and giving all they had for the sake of the radical restructuring they knew needed to happen.

Change is hard. Depending on what the change is – how extreme or in what aspect of our being – we might believe, like Alice, that we don’t even know who we are anymore. The Caterpillar asks Alice, “So you think you’ve changed, do you?” She replies, “I’m afraid I am, Sir.” But there is change and there is change. The change that Alice was experiencing, or at least what she was describing to Caterpillar, was not convincing him that she was undergoing true change.

Alice feels like she’s changed so much that she doesn’t know who she is anymore. Caterpillar is suggesting that she hasn’t really changed at all. Each of them has a different definition of change. Both of them are influenced by what change has been and meant in their past. I don’t think we have the right to decide for someone else if their change is true change, however, sometimes an objective opinion is helpful when we are looking at ourselves. Regardless of what Caterpillar thinks, Alice doesn’t feel like she knows herself anymore. She has become very large and very small over and over, and when she tries to recite stories that she knows well, the words are changed and unfamiliar to her. The legacy that she knew to be hers was altering. The stories that she knew were changing. Her perspective of the world changes with her size. All that she expected, because of what she had previously known, she could not count on anymore.

Paul, I believe, is asking us to participate in a similar shift of expectations. He instructs the Philippians to not give up their joy because it results in his imprisonment, but rather to maintain their joy so that his imprisonment is not in vain. Sylvia Rivera might have played the social game better and become a charismatic leader with an influential following. But for her, true change was not buying into a system for the sake of rising higher in ego or status. She wanted to see people free to be who they really are, regardless of how they would be accepted – regardless of who the mainstream of society or even a movement wants people to be.

Alice learned how to be Alice in the world of Wonderland. Paul learned how to be Paul and Sylvia learned how to be Sylvia. Sometimes in order for us to grapple with our future, we need to look at our legacy – the one left to us and the one we are leaving for others. I think change itself is one of our most prominent legacies, both in our faith walk and in our queer social rights movement. Change in the form of evolving.

Plus, we are in a world that has a value system much different than ours. We need to constantly be evolving away from assimilating into that system and remember who we are and what we value. Paul is concerned that the Philippians will be influenced by those preaching Christ for the sake of seeking their own self interests. As much as he says he is glad that Christ is preached regardless of motive, he clearly doesn’t plan on sending these folks to minister to his flock. He is very particular about who he sends while he is away. Timothy, he says, is the only one left who he can trust to send. But then he mentions Epaphroditus, who he also trusts. Paul sometimes is given to a bit of hyperbole. The point is, though, that he doesn’t trust the legacy he is leaving to just anyone. Paul may also have a control issue. I don’t know how tight of a grip we should have on these kinds of things. I think being mindful of our legacy, the one we’ve received and the one that we are leaving, is crucial. I don’t believe in micro-managing. I think that we need to allow people to have agency and to listen with their own critical ears.

I was reading a piece from the American Baptist Church, USA’s website. It is called: 10 Facts You Should Know About American Baptists. Point number 4 is this:

American Baptists believe that the committed individual Christian can and should approach God directly, and that individual gifts of ministry should be shared. American Baptists hold that all who truly seek God are both competent and called to develop in that relationship. They have rejected creeds or other statements that might compromise each believer’s obligation to interpret Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and within the community of faith. American Baptists also celebrate the special gifts of all believers, testifying that God can use each of us in ministry.

I want to highlight two of these sentences. The first is: “American Baptists hold that all who truly seek God are both competent and called to develop in that relationship.” The second is: “American Baptists also celebrate the special gifts of all believers, testifying that God can use each of us in ministry.” I believe this. This is a part of the legacy that we are to live into. Paul speaks to this ideal often when he talks in his letters. Jesus sent his disciples out often and expected them to be competent in their ministry.

We don’t have to have any more of a special anointing or calling to share our special gifts and to cultivate our own relationship with our Divine Beloved, than the anointing of being made in the image of our Creator and the calling of our hearts to participate in community.

Paul and Sylvia did not wait to be perfect before they began their work. The truth is, most of the time we are all like Alice, not knowing who we are because we are changing so much, but we will not stay there. We must remember our legacy, and that part of our legacy is to go through these evolutions – to go through these changes. Let us be mindful of who we are, who we think we are, and who we are to become. This is our journey – our calling. We are to walk the line of being strong and being meek; of being confident and being other-centered. We need to be mindful of our needs, our weaknesses and our strengths as we “work out our own salvation,” so that we can be free to share everything that we have. This is our legacy.