The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins at
the Sunshine Cathedral on
Sunday, February 10, 2008, at the 9:50 and 11:10 am
services.
I am of an age where I can remember record albums. I am even of an age
where I can remember being able to check out record albums at the public
library.
Now, in Southwest Arkansas where I spent my early childhood, one could go
from village to dell without ever finding a record store that sold Broadway
cast albums. Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn — that coal miner’s daughter, Glen
Campbell (a native of Delight, AR)… those artists had albums that seemed to
grow on trees; but a tough as nails, larger than life Broadway diva… seemed to
be a mythological creature like Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster. We heard
about them, but no one you knew had ever actually seen them.
But even tiny towns had libraries, and by some strange miracle, the musical
theatre cast albums were ALWAYS available… no one ever checked them out…
except for one atypical little boy who for multiple years made his father take
him to the public library to check out over and over again the Ethel Merman /
Jack Klugman cast album of Gypsy. “How do you like those egg rolls Mr.
Goldstone?”
Not the 1973 London cast album with Angela Lansbury, though it was
fabulous. Not the 1962 film soundtrack with Rosalind Russell and Karl Malden
and Natalie Wood. But the 1959, seven years before my birth, 1959 cast album
with the incomparable Ethel Merman. I couldn’t find a store that sold it back
then, but trust me I own it today (as a compact disc, of course).
That sounds a little silly, and a little fey (yes, JUST a little). But it
was important to me. I couldn’t have told you why at the time, but it was.
I was playing Judd Fry my junior year in high school in our school’s
production of Roger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! And during rehearsals
for that show, Ethel Merman died. (How can a goddess die?) The cast was
shocked when I showed up for rehearsal… they all thought I would be too
devastated to rehearse. I’m 17 years old and the whole school knows that the
death of a Broadway legend will probably incapacitate me… I’m surprised I
wasn’t beat up more.
In any case, I DID show up for rehearsal. After all, it was Ethel Merman
who belted out in Annie Get Your Gun, “You get word before the show has
started that your favorite uncle died at dawn; top of that, your ma and pa
have parted — you’re broken-hearted, but you go on…” I would have cast a show
on the night of Merman’s death if I had to just to honor her memory.
Now I said that I couldn’t tell you when I was 10 or 12 or 17 or even 20 or
30 why Ethel Merman and Tyne Daily and Patti LuPone and Angela Lansbury and
Barbra Streisand and Betty Buckley and Bette Midler and Jennifer Holiday and
other members of the diva pantheon somehow resided in my soul. But I can you
tell you now.
These figures… on stage, in film, on cast albums… they were heroic. I’m
talking about what they represented when they performed their characters.
These women were smarter than the sexist system in which they operated. They
were stronger than the men who seemed to be running the world. They were
wiser, more interesting, more compassionate, or more vicious (depending on the
role); they were just MORE. They “chose” to be beautiful, even if they didn’t
meet society’s standards of beauty. They “chose” to envision possibilities and
to pursue them, and to seize them and to celebrate them.
They seemed to say, “You can be more than you’ve been told you can be; you
can be more than you’ve allowed yourself to be so far.” They seemed to say,
“Look at me… I’m creating a world where who I am is valuable and important and
wonderful.” They seemed to invite and encourage me to follow their example.
Be more. If they knock you down, rise again. If they judge you, claim your
own authority. If they want to make you sad, insist on being joyous. If they
laugh at you, laugh with them and celebrate how your very essence can call
forth joy in others. Be stronger, be smarter, be wiser, be more interesting…
be YOU and let that be as magical and as wonderful as it is supposed to be.
The characters these women played were heroes that stormed in from the
margins and took control of their own lives and their own destinies. These
heroes with every larger than life gesture and every belted out lyric were
looking me in the eye and saying, “follow my example… believe in yourself.”
I was 19 when the North Carolina Repertory came to my hometown to perform
A Chorus Line. About that same time, the film version was released. I
saw the North Carolina Rep and then I saw the movie half a dozen times. And I
remember sitting in the theatre and then in the cinema feeling at home. Just
as I was, these characters were peering into my soul and expressing my hopes
and showing me that I could thrive no matter what my situation happened to be.
Those characters were telling their stories on that stage and on the
screen, but they were also telling my story. They were looking for meaning and
sharing their journeys, and inviting me to come along.
It felt like worship. It felt sacred. It felt inviting. It felt
surprisingly real. And I remember thinking, “This is what religion should do.
Religion shouldn’t tell me who I ought to be; it should reflect back to me
what I am so that I can see not only what needs improving but also what is
already very good. Religion should make me feel welcome and invited, just as I
am. Religion should help me express hope. Religion should tell a story that I
believe is my story.”
And not long after that, I decided that I would do what I could to help
people experience in church what I experienced listening to the Gypsy
cast album or watching a performance of A Chorus Line.
Jesus was walking along, and he saw a man named Matthew. Matthew had a job
that others didn’t particularly view as noble. Matthew had friends who were
routinely judged harshly by members of the community. In fact, some of his
friends were just called “sinners” by those who felt qualified to make such
judgments. Matthew had a questionable job and questionable friends. And Jesus
looks at him and sees his sacred value… not the judgments of others, but the
reality of his sacred value and he says very simply and authentically, “Follow
me.” An invitation. No strings attached, no judgments, just an invitation…
Come with me. Follow me. Go with me. And Matthew did.
The final line of our gospel reading today says, “I’m here to call sinners,
not the righteous.” In light of how the rest of the passage reads, let me tell
you how I hear that…”I’m here to affirm the people you call sinners, not those
who are self-righteous.”
Now, not everyone agreed with this kind of “come as you are” hospitality.
And when the religious segregationists challenged Jesus on his choice to see
the good in everyone, he quoted the prophet Hosea. Hosea thought that God
desired mercy rather than sacrifice. Whenever Jesus quotes scripture, it is
usually to make a progressive, inclusive, liberating point. Jesus didn’t need
to sacrifice people who were different. He didn’t need to hurt anyone or
anything to please God; what God wants is love. Jesus saw the divine spark in
all people and he fanned that sacred flame as he said, “Follow me!” No wonder
they often did.
Our Lenten journeys can lead us to Easter joy. The Divine Voice is calling
us on that journey… calling toward promise and potential and possibility. That
voice comes to us in many ways. My heroes have always been divas. Maybe
your heroes were athletes, or instrumentalists, or drag queens, or teachers,
or preachers. But maybe what we saw in those heroes was possibility, and maybe
we intuitively felt that they were inviting us to follow our dreams and to
believe in ourselves. And maybe that’s how God speaks sometimes… maybe our
heroes were really the voice of God saying, “Come with me… yes, you, just as
you are. Come with me.” Others may not have seen our potential, but our heroes
helped us see it for ourselves. God was saying through them, as Jesus said,
“I’m here for you; follow me.” And we can. This is the good news. Amen.