January 14, 2024
Good morning, beloved community! I'm not sure if this will be a sermon or a TED Talk, but we're about to find out. I've spent a lot of time in the corporate world, so we'll see if we can beat that out of me over time. Or maybe it works, I don't know.
Would you pray with me, please? Creator God, you give us a lot of work to do in this world. Much of what we do here in this church is in the outer world, serving your creation and loving your people. But sometimes, you call us to turn inward, to equip ourselves, to spend time with ourselves, to become the best servants of you that we can be. Today, we ask you to be with us in that energy of seeking to equip ourselves, to discern your authentic purpose for us, so that we can be our most powerful, most real, most in line with your plan for us in this universe. And then, go back out and serve your world with strength, power, and authenticity. Amen.
Let's deconstruct this Psalm that was probably written by King David: "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Now, the "wonderfully" part, that's not so hard, right? Look around; we've got some pretty fabulous people in this church, right? So, we're out there with good hearts, serving the world, and trying to be the best people that we can. So, that wonderful part is pretty easy to understand. The "fearfully" part, that takes a little more analysis. And this is where I think sometimes biblical translation fails us. "Fearfully" does not mean "afraid," not in fear, but rather "reverently made," with great intention. God makes each and every one of us with a plan for us, to equip us to be happy, to do service, and to be exactly who God made us to be. So that's what "fearfully made" means - not in fear, but in reverence and intention.
One of God's greatest gifts to us is our free will. We are not puppets; we have a choice. And that choice can be confounding sometimes, especially when we ask ourselves, "God, what's your purpose for me?" We didn't get an instruction manual, would have been nice, right? We don't know every answer, but God loves us, and if we can lean into and trust that, we can discern our purpose. And that's the premise of my sermon, that we need to engage with the mystery of our own creation in order to be the happiest people and the best Christians that we can be.
For some of us, those choices are obvious. If you're questioning your sexuality, your gender identity, maybe even discerning a call to ministry, sometimes that call is a slap in the face and an alarm we can't ignore, right? But for most of us, those choices, calling us to be our authentic selves and to discern our purpose, are far more subtle: career choices, how to live a life of service, relationships that we want to seek or leave. These are complicated questions, but all of these things require us to develop a strong inner sight, to spend time in silence and contemplation with God, to meditate, and to seek God's purpose for us.
But a lot of us don't always do that. I know in my life, I haven't always done that. Sometimes it's difficult; sometimes we avoid seeking our purpose. Sometimes we have an inkling of what it's supposed to be, and we say, "No, God, I'm not ready. I can't do that right now." Why do we do that? There are really good reasons. We live together; we want to fit in; we want to be loved; we want to be safe. And in order to do that, very often, we conform to other people's expectations of us, because when we do that, we feel safe, we feel loved. But is that real? Does that last? Can we live our entire lives going through that and not discerning our authentic purpose? So, this is something that's fascinated me for decades, this inner work of how do we find our God-given purpose.
I believe that the answer to that question lies in our observation of our environment, the ability to find God's message in every single thing in God's creation, whether it's in the Bible or whether it's in a movie. Sometimes a movie is just a movie, but sometimes it's so much more. And my philosophy, and the reason I'm preaching about Barbie today, is because, besides the fact that pink goes with everything, is because God's wisdom is available to us in everything, including the movies. And I think that's the beauty of the sermon series that we're doing for the next month here. So, use everything for your growth and development. That's the motto of my life and always has been, and I hope it's something that's meaningful to you.
So, let's talk about Barbie for a second. Ruth Handler was the founder of Barbie in the 1950s. This was the era of McCarthyism, post-World War II. This was the time when the men of America wanted the women who had staffed the factories and led the domestic war efforts to go back into the kitchen where they belonged, in their opinion. So, Ruth Handler created Barbie with an intention of empowering women to be the best housewives that they could possibly be, right? But the result was essentially a tyrannical definition of femininity that has done harm to the psyche of American girls and perhaps boys for decades since then. So, even though Mattel succeeded eventually in creating 300 different careers for Barbie to aspire to, and also a little bit more racial diversity than she started out with, that damage was done, and it remains with us.
So, why would I want to talk about a movie that would seem to be, at face value, a celebration of those horrible values? Well, it was the most popular movie of 2023, and I believe that there was a reason for that. That's because, besides all the pink and the glitz and the glamour and the great dance numbers, there was a story in it that essentially contains the instruction manual that we were all looking for when we were born, that we didn't get. And that's called the hero's or, in this case, the heroine's journey. Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist who studied hundreds of works from around the world, myths, stories, every time, every culture. And what he found is they all had something in common: the exact same story. So, whether you're talking about Homer's Odyssey, King Arthur, Joan of Arc, Star Wars, The Matrix, or Barbie, they all share the same story, pretty much. And he defined 12 steps in each of those stories. And I'm not going to give you all 12; I'm going to do the shorter version today. So, even George Lucas, when writing Star Wars, admitted to the fact that he used Joseph Campbell's work to write that story.
There's something about that storyline, the hero, the heroine's journey, that resonates so deeply in our psyches that I believe it's really something that God has implanted in each of us as a roadmap for how to find our authentic purpose. So, we did get an instruction manual, great. So, what did that look like in the movie, and what does it look like in our lives? First of all, who's seen Barbie, and who hasn't? All right, so this will resonate with a lot of you, and the rest of you, I'll catch you up a little bit, right?
In Barbie land, Barbie's life is perfect, and it's the same every single day. She wakes up, she puts on her high-heeled shoes. It's funny because when she takes them off, her heels are still like this, up in the air. Her whole life is based on this rigid perfection, and everyone has a role to play. Except, one day, Barbie wakes up, and she has horrible thoughts of death and cellulite, and her entire universe is destroyed in an instant. And all of a sudden, the nature of life as she understood it is different. It no longer exists. Something has shifted. What's wrong? So, she sees it in the beginning as a problem, not as an opportunity. You know, I understand that.
When I was 12, 13, the emerging awareness of my sexuality being different than the people around me was like that for me. It was a problem to be solved, right? And not an understanding of my authenticity. And that's how it often starts for us. We perceive something is off, something is different, something is taking us out of sync with our conformity that gives us access to love and acceptance from others. And that can be challenging. But God's divine plan is in there somewhere.
Where in your life have you had a realization that you're being called to your authentic self, and maybe in an uncomfortable way? Maybe it was a change of profession, the realization that something has to change. Maybe it was a change of relationship or a change of faith. Was it comfortable or uncomfortable for you? Did you run away from that choice, or sit in stillness and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and discernment? So, when Barbie is faced with this choice, she consults with an expert called Weird Barbie. Ultimately, based on some advice, she decides to go on a quest and leave the familiar surroundings of Barbie land.
Now, if you've seen The Matrix, you might remember the red pill, blue pill dilemma. You choose one, you go back to the life that you always knew and everything is fine. You choose the other, and you are committed to a life of change and transformation. That's a scary choice. In this case, it was the choice between a pump and a Birkenstock, and she resisted. Where have you resisted that choice? It's difficult, it's not easy. I'm giving it to you.
The good news is that when we make this choice, the Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us community, love of neighbor, and love of one another to guide and assist us in that choice. We're not alone. We have help, we have people there for us. Many people who've gone through the same thing that we're going through right now. People who have done the work for us and all we have to do is listen and understand the people who've gone before us and done the work that we can learn from. And that is one of the greatest blessings of being in community with Christ - that we can share that.
So, after the decision comes the initiation. Barbie faces various trials and challenges. When we make a choice, there are consequences. Sometimes we lose something as a result of that choice, but there's often so much to be gained as well. On her quest, the real world, when she leaves Barbie land, wasn't what she expected it to be. She finds out that her entire life and all of her presumptions about the way the universe worked were based on false pretenses. Women were not construction workers, men were, and they wore their pants about halfway down their rear ends, and they weren't really that nice. So, in Barbie land, they'd made a perfect place for women. She thought that the real world was like that. And when she came face to face with the reality of what Barbies had created in the world, she had to take accountability for that and realize, "Oh my gosh, I've been a part of this problem."
A similar thing happened for me after George Floyd was brutally murdered in Minneapolis. I had to take account of what my white privilege was and what that meant to me. I had to realize that I had been participating in an oppressive system for so long and had to make the choice to understand what my role in that was and what I wanted to be my role in that going forward. I could continue to conspire to maintain an unjust system in silence, and that would have been really easy for me. Or I could begin to challenge the world and that reality, both internally and externally, and try to bring about God's Kingdom for all people on earth. I had to align my inner reality with outer reality, just like Barbie, and that can be painful.
Once Barbie completed that process, she learned everything she needed to learn. She returned home. Now, that's difficult. Sometimes, how many of you ever have to go home, where you come from, and realize you can't go home again? It's very different, right? Because you've changed, and home probably hasn't. And that's what she found. And worse yet, when she got back, she found out that Ken, in his quest for authenticity, had gone way off the chain and had embraced patriarchy, which, I think, is mentioned about 27 times in the movie as his favorite new toy to play with in Barbie land.
So, she understands that the problems she perceived at the beginning of the film were simply the first steps in starting to claim her authenticity and her humanity. That thing that she thought was her problem in the beginning ended up being her purpose. She went from problem to purpose. She finally has the understanding that she's not perfectly made as she thought she was. That was only a defense against her authenticity. She is fearfully and wonderfully made, and she's started to discover her purpose and her plan. And like is often the case, when we develop a new awareness of these capabilities, when we've been through that transformation, very often the first thing we want to do is bring that good news to others and be in support of them.
And I think this is an amazing part of what God does for us. When we're given a gift, as Christians, the first thing we want to do is we want to share it with somebody else. All of us have been on our hero's journey or heroine's journey, in one way or another. You know, I've been on many, you've been on many. And I can tell you, I am so grateful for every step of that journey because it's allowed me to finally, after 54 years, proclaim, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." The journey's been worth it, and it's my greatest wish now to share that with other people and let them know that God loves them and wants them to be their authentic selves. I think it's our natural response to blessing, when we've been gifted with our authentic self, to want to share it with others.
And because of that, you know, I celebrate many of you in this congregation who've been on that journey. And one of them that's become known to me since I've been a member here is Miss Millie's. Wasn't easy, was it? But what was her response to that journey when she completed it? It was to share with the young, with people who'd been on her path, to want to make life better for them so that they had to do less work, and that they would know that they were not alone. Because when we complete our journey, when we do that inner work, we are far better equipped to do the work of God.
So, while this church does amazing work in the world around us, you'll hear me probably again and again come back and encourage you to be doing the inner work of equipping yourself to be a true servant of God. I'll wrap up with a bonus scripture that I would like to share, and I hope that you take this as encouragement and something that you can take home with you from Romans. Now we move to the New Testament: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - God's good, pleasing, and perfect will."
Would you please repeat after me? "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." In moments when you need to hear that, say that to yourself and continue on your hero or heroine's journey.
Amen.
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