![Picture](/uploads/5/3/1/4/53145165/published/sojourner-truth-portrait.jpg?1549308834)
Peter JB Carman
Emmanuel Friedens Church, Schenectady New York
February 3, 2019
Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Jeremiah 1:4-10 I
We all know what it is to have somebody call us by name. What does it feel like? Foolish question: that depends on the circumstances!
The person who called me most often by name, as a child and into the early years of adulthood, was my Dutch mother, Ineke Wichers Carman. I always knew who it was when my mother called. And depending on how she did the calling, I had a feel for what was coming next. “Ohhh Peter” (sing-song) meant something good. “Carman, Peter, you come here.” NOT so good. When eyes were still closed, early in the morning:“Peter. I’ve brought you a cup of coffee. It’s next to your bed. And I put a little list there, of things that need fixing. Would you mind taking a look?” Very sweet. But not really a QUESTION. My day just took a turn. Oh, and then there was the time I was about 19, and home from school and about to take to take a walk, while my mother, not in good health, rested in her room. As I was about to go out the door, I THOUGHT I heard somebody call my name, very quiet but a little sharp: Peter?! “Oh, better go check,” I thought.
My mother, prone to passing out from insulin-related issues, was flat on her back that time, comatose, obviously had been for a while. Not talking, eyes staring at the ceiling. But breathing. Sometimes someone will call you by name, using different means.
When have you been called by name? When have you been told, in no uncertain terms, in unique and personal ways, what was needed of you? Was it your mother? Your grandfather? Was it an angel in disguise? Was it the voice of God whispering?
II
Each of us knows what it is to be called by name by another human! Many of us know what it means to have someone we love call us by name, with love in the naming. But all of us don’t know what it is to be called by GOD by name, like Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, or Jeremiah the prophet, or like Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth. Remember her story? She grew up not so far from here, it turns out. You may have thought she was from the deep South, escaped from some plantation to the North. But Isabella Baumfree was a Dutch-speaking slave of African descent from Ulster County, New York. As it is put in the opening words of her biography, being “born a slave, and held in that brutal condition until the entire abolition of slavery in the State of New York in 1827, she has known what it is to drink to the dregs the bitterest cup of human degradation.”[1] In 1843, Isabella, a deeply religious woman, discerned she had been called by God, for a new purpose. She had heard the voice. She took a new name, the name Sojourner Truth. She started to travel, to sojourn the country to proclaim God’s holy truth: she was to proclaim liberation of slaves and an end to slavery. She became a public voice for the rights of women. Somebody was calling her by name—her new name was the new beginning in her long journey. Like some ancient prophet, her life belonged now wholly to the cause of justice and deliverance. Sojourner Truth’s most famous speech was one given to a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851. It wasn’t written down—but two people took notes. Sojourner Truth gave a little Bible study that day. She caught both the love and the edge in the Gospel in ways more truthful than those who had presumed to interpret it to her! Hear these words from the earliest transcription of that speech.
The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up, blessed be God, and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard. [2]
Each of us knows what it is to be called by name. And each of us has a calling. We may not hear a voice in the night, the discovery may be gradual or sudden, a clear sense or an emerging sense of leading. Each of us has our own circumstances. Few of us have had to face the adversity of a Sojourner Truth—but some have. And every day the systemic racism and patriarchy that she critiqued continue in deadly intersection. But whether we be the children of privilege or the children of oppression, or both, when that Somebody, that Spirit that is beyond all names --- when that’s Who is calling you by name—old name or new name! -- it is good to pay heed. God can and does work with whatever human material is at hand--- even and particularly you and me. God will come calling. And when we answer, we will always be surprised. it will rarely be easy. But it will be very good.
III
We are each called by name, we are called individually, but we are not called alone. The first letter to the Corinthians reminds us, each of us has special gifts—gifts from the divine, spirit gifts. But the greatest of these gifts are not the special talents or the unique calling so much as the ones we share together. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Love, bringing together our various and powerful individual gifts, is the secret ingredient in our communion bread.
In churches it has long been popular to use Paul’s words to try to pacify upstarts, and Chapter 13 of Corinthians is no exception, the chapter concluding with “…the greatest of these is love.”. But real love isn’t something that leaves everything the same. Jesus didn’t call his friends to leave the world alone—but rather to stake our lives on the proposition that there is a better way, a “still more excellent way”(Romans 12:31). In the Church in Corinth, he was speaking specifically to the issue of “trouble at the table.” The exclusion of some from the table when those early Christians gathered in that town, for example women, and the preferential treatment of others. But at Christ’s table there is no room for exclusion or for some to have better seats. We don’t bring our own picnic baskets. We share and share alike, if we are being true to Christ. When love becomes our inward law, we are all one.
Some day, could be tomorrow, could be the day after, we will live together into the whole picture: In the words of Paul’s epistle: “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
The communion table invites us to come together, bringing all our varied callings, and dedicate them with mutual respect to a common cause. God invites each of us by name into an abiding movement for humanity’s deliverance. That’s deliverance right here on this good earth! That’s the new covenant, the communion cup to which Jesus invited us. It isn’t about me, it is about us. All of us together, in dignity and mutual respect, affection, freedom, and yes, love. It isn’t an easy vision, it isn’t just some dream. It is an ever-evolving path. It will cost us. But it is worth everything. And somebody is calling your name.
++++++
[1] The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Dictated by Sojourner Truth (ca.1797-1883); edited by Olive Gilbert; Appendix by Theodore D. Weld. Boston: The Author, 1850.
https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/truth/1850/1850.html
[2] Marable, Manning (2003). Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: an African American Anthology. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 67–68.
Emmanuel Friedens Church, Schenectady New York
February 3, 2019
Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Jeremiah 1:4-10 I
We all know what it is to have somebody call us by name. What does it feel like? Foolish question: that depends on the circumstances!
The person who called me most often by name, as a child and into the early years of adulthood, was my Dutch mother, Ineke Wichers Carman. I always knew who it was when my mother called. And depending on how she did the calling, I had a feel for what was coming next. “Ohhh Peter” (sing-song) meant something good. “Carman, Peter, you come here.” NOT so good. When eyes were still closed, early in the morning:“Peter. I’ve brought you a cup of coffee. It’s next to your bed. And I put a little list there, of things that need fixing. Would you mind taking a look?” Very sweet. But not really a QUESTION. My day just took a turn. Oh, and then there was the time I was about 19, and home from school and about to take to take a walk, while my mother, not in good health, rested in her room. As I was about to go out the door, I THOUGHT I heard somebody call my name, very quiet but a little sharp: Peter?! “Oh, better go check,” I thought.
My mother, prone to passing out from insulin-related issues, was flat on her back that time, comatose, obviously had been for a while. Not talking, eyes staring at the ceiling. But breathing. Sometimes someone will call you by name, using different means.
When have you been called by name? When have you been told, in no uncertain terms, in unique and personal ways, what was needed of you? Was it your mother? Your grandfather? Was it an angel in disguise? Was it the voice of God whispering?
II
Each of us knows what it is to be called by name by another human! Many of us know what it means to have someone we love call us by name, with love in the naming. But all of us don’t know what it is to be called by GOD by name, like Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, or Jeremiah the prophet, or like Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth. Remember her story? She grew up not so far from here, it turns out. You may have thought she was from the deep South, escaped from some plantation to the North. But Isabella Baumfree was a Dutch-speaking slave of African descent from Ulster County, New York. As it is put in the opening words of her biography, being “born a slave, and held in that brutal condition until the entire abolition of slavery in the State of New York in 1827, she has known what it is to drink to the dregs the bitterest cup of human degradation.”[1] In 1843, Isabella, a deeply religious woman, discerned she had been called by God, for a new purpose. She had heard the voice. She took a new name, the name Sojourner Truth. She started to travel, to sojourn the country to proclaim God’s holy truth: she was to proclaim liberation of slaves and an end to slavery. She became a public voice for the rights of women. Somebody was calling her by name—her new name was the new beginning in her long journey. Like some ancient prophet, her life belonged now wholly to the cause of justice and deliverance. Sojourner Truth’s most famous speech was one given to a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851. It wasn’t written down—but two people took notes. Sojourner Truth gave a little Bible study that day. She caught both the love and the edge in the Gospel in ways more truthful than those who had presumed to interpret it to her! Hear these words from the earliest transcription of that speech.
The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up, blessed be God, and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard. [2]
Each of us knows what it is to be called by name. And each of us has a calling. We may not hear a voice in the night, the discovery may be gradual or sudden, a clear sense or an emerging sense of leading. Each of us has our own circumstances. Few of us have had to face the adversity of a Sojourner Truth—but some have. And every day the systemic racism and patriarchy that she critiqued continue in deadly intersection. But whether we be the children of privilege or the children of oppression, or both, when that Somebody, that Spirit that is beyond all names --- when that’s Who is calling you by name—old name or new name! -- it is good to pay heed. God can and does work with whatever human material is at hand--- even and particularly you and me. God will come calling. And when we answer, we will always be surprised. it will rarely be easy. But it will be very good.
III
We are each called by name, we are called individually, but we are not called alone. The first letter to the Corinthians reminds us, each of us has special gifts—gifts from the divine, spirit gifts. But the greatest of these gifts are not the special talents or the unique calling so much as the ones we share together. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Love, bringing together our various and powerful individual gifts, is the secret ingredient in our communion bread.
In churches it has long been popular to use Paul’s words to try to pacify upstarts, and Chapter 13 of Corinthians is no exception, the chapter concluding with “…the greatest of these is love.”. But real love isn’t something that leaves everything the same. Jesus didn’t call his friends to leave the world alone—but rather to stake our lives on the proposition that there is a better way, a “still more excellent way”(Romans 12:31). In the Church in Corinth, he was speaking specifically to the issue of “trouble at the table.” The exclusion of some from the table when those early Christians gathered in that town, for example women, and the preferential treatment of others. But at Christ’s table there is no room for exclusion or for some to have better seats. We don’t bring our own picnic baskets. We share and share alike, if we are being true to Christ. When love becomes our inward law, we are all one.
Some day, could be tomorrow, could be the day after, we will live together into the whole picture: In the words of Paul’s epistle: “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
The communion table invites us to come together, bringing all our varied callings, and dedicate them with mutual respect to a common cause. God invites each of us by name into an abiding movement for humanity’s deliverance. That’s deliverance right here on this good earth! That’s the new covenant, the communion cup to which Jesus invited us. It isn’t about me, it is about us. All of us together, in dignity and mutual respect, affection, freedom, and yes, love. It isn’t an easy vision, it isn’t just some dream. It is an ever-evolving path. It will cost us. But it is worth everything. And somebody is calling your name.
++++++
[1] The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Dictated by Sojourner Truth (ca.1797-1883); edited by Olive Gilbert; Appendix by Theodore D. Weld. Boston: The Author, 1850.
https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/truth/1850/1850.html
[2] Marable, Manning (2003). Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: an African American Anthology. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 67–68.