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“Created To Be Disruptive”
July 28, 2024 - Cobleskill United Methodist Church-Pastor Anna Blinn Cole
Luke 5:17-26
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 5:17-26
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
One day, while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting nearby (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven you.’ Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, ‘Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven you”, or to say, “Stand up and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the one who was paralyzed—‘I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.’ Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God. Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today.’
If this is your first Sunday with us this summer, we’re picking up themes during our sermons from the camp curriculum being used at our church camp this summer. It’s a Created to Be series. We’ve done Created to be Free, Created to be Authentic, and Created to be Disciples so far. I led these day by day when I served as Chaplain at Skye Farm a few weeks ago. But today’s theme, Created to be Disruptive, hit a little differently. It feels a little confusing for most of us who aren’t disruptive on a daily basis. I remember the Middle School group I was leading Bible Study with, though, and they weren’t confused at all about disruption. In fact, they thought it was pretty cool.
The theme comes out of the Bible passage we just explored during our story time on the rugs, about friends disrupting a big event just so Jesus would care for their friend. And about how Jesus’ ministry, illustrated in this one story, was about disrupting the status quo. Finding all the bad rules in his society and in his faith tradition and breaking them. In today’s passage, the people in charge tried to tell him he did not have the authority to forgive sins and heal a crippled man’s body. And yet Jesus proved them wrong. It’s almost like his ministry needed to be disruptive to break through. The world around Jesus was a world where hurting people were not invited in. It was a world where religious laws and proper behavior were more important than actual people, especially people that didn’t fit in.
John Lewis, the civil rights activist turned Congressman from Georgia, coined the phrase “good trouble” in reference to the work he did as a student organizing and leading non-violent actions that disrupted the status quo. Why was he disruptive? Because the status quo wasn’t letting everyone in. The status quo said that some people were more worthy of rights than other people. Specially, the status quo dehumanized people simply because of the color of their skin. And so Lewis and others in the civil rights movement organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and bus boycotts for buses that made black people sit in the back. This was good trouble. And sometimes it’s exactly what’s needed to break-through. When there are unjust laws, they need to be broken.
I spent some time with my family on Friday watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics. It was a really beautiful celebration of sports and culture and solidarity. In these games it really does feel like the world gathers and there’s something that holds us all together.
Perhaps that’s also why the Olympics have been the stage for provocative art and actions. People or actions that disrupt the business as usual of the Olympics get a lot of attention and sometimes this can be good. Other times disruptive actions have hurt people and they are not good. But today I wanted to highlight a few of the disruptions that we look back on now and see as “good trouble.” Disruptions that moved the needle, even if just a little, in how the world treats itself.
1906 Irish triple-jumper Pete O’Connor protests being labeled as a British athlete rather than an Irish athlete and climbs a flagpole with an Irish flag after being awarded his gold medal. This effort to articulate identity, reminded those who watched his disruption that empires, like Britain in the early 20th century, don’t speak for everyone. That some, in fact, many felt oppressed by their rule.
1936 Jesse Owens, German Olympics. The USA was going to boycott, but decided to compete instead. Despite a flood of Nazi propaganda that championed so-called Aryan superiority, Jesse Owens, a black athlete from Ohio won four gold medals literally before the eyes of Adolf Hitler, disrupting a false narrative that said he wasn’t good enough.
1968 Two black track and field Olympians, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, win gold and bronze for the United States, but bow their heads and raise their fists during the national anthem as a protest of racial inequality in their homeland. They are kicked off the US team and sent home. It was a relatively small act of disruption and yet combined with the reaction it caused, it was no-doubt a moment of reckoning for this country, where racial inequality was rampant.
Among these individual examples, there have also been many examples of entire countries boycotting the games or being expelled from the games as a way of disrupting the status quo. Notable examples include the exclusion of countries that break rules around doping, and countries that are engaged in human-rights abuse, like South Africa through the 70s and 80s and Russia today.
And one more example that I think is worth mentioning. In the 2020 games, held in 2021 because of the pandemic, Simone Biles shocked her country and the whole world with a disruption no one saw coming. She backed out of the competition because the pressure of the mental game had started to undo her. And so rather than force her body and mind to perform and potentially be hurt when they weren’t ready, she stepped back. Her disruption was so that she could be restored in body and mind.
We are created to be disruptive when the situation around us is harmful to ourselves or to others. We are created to be disruptive when walls have been put up that separate us from God.
The problem with disruption, though, is that it’s difficult to do in a way that doesn’t cause more harm. If you’re trying to disrupt an unhealthy or unfair situation to make a point about it being unhealthy or unfair, the disruption cannot then add to the problem. It cannot create more harm or it has lost its effectiveness. If the friends on the roof had been less careful, they might have hurt people in the room in the process of trying to help their hurting friend.
Good trouble, holy disruption, requires discernment and prayer. Perhaps that’s why John Lewis and Martin Luther King’s movement was so rooted in the church. A church where they learned about Jesus and the non-violence he taught.
Standing up to injustice doesn’t take violence, or a large army, or a lot of money. It takes creativity and bravery. And it takes just one person who has the courage to stand up and say no to actions that hurt people.
The enormity of the world’s problems can seem so huge. And yet God didn’t ask us to fix everything. God asks us simply to do something.
In an ancient collection of Jewish teachings called the Talmud, it says this in reflection on Micah 6:8
In a world of enormous grief and injustice, how are you being called to make good trouble? What if your one action, what if your one voice, saying “no” to something you know is not right, gave someone else the bravery to also say no, and then someone else to say “no”?
I think I saw this on the bumper of a car recently:
When hate speaks loudly, love must not be silent.
May it be so.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Anna
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