In the name of the God of all creation. Amen.
Several years ago, as the debate about whether gay and
lesbian people were actually beloved by God or not was raging throughout the
Anglican Communion, Archbishop Desmund Tutu from the Anglican Church of South
Africa gave his unique, warm, voice to the subject. Versions of his words appeared in a number of
written texts – letters, speeches, sermons, books… But one of my favorites among them came from
a commencement address that he gave in 2012 at Gonzaga University in Spokane,
Washington.
I’ve actually quoted his words numerous times over the
years, but one of the benefits we have from having had our technology evolve so
necessarily over the past few months is, now I know how to share it with you,
directly – so you can hear this quote in his own words, with his own
inflections. So, hear now, the words of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
No one is outside this family. God’s family.
The first time I heard those words, it was like a revelation
for me. His pleading, repetitive, insistent leaning on the word “All: all,
all, all, all, all…” It was both prayer
and proclamation. All people were a part
of this family. All. Full stop.
All. Whatever qualifications you
may have considered applying – give it up.
This is for all. No questions
asked. God won’t have it any other way.
I could never hear the word “all” the same way again. Whenever anyone would try to divide us,
Desmond Tutu shared the wisdom of God which says that love beats division. And love is defined as “all”. It can’t be contained. It can't be split. It spills out past the divisions. It overflows so much that we can only imagine
it as “all”.
That’s what God’s love means. All.
Those words – that word, “all”, in particular – draped over
me again this week as I read the words of the Gospel. How Jesus, then, “went about all the cities and villages, teaching in
their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.” And, “when
he saw the crowds” – when he saw them all
– “he had compassion for them.”
In the past few weeks, as the Black Lives Matter movement
has again been in the public eye, the common retort keeps coming up: What about
‘All Lives Matter’? Why does it have to
just be ‘Black Lives Matter’?
But that’s a straw man.
It’s an alteration of the bigger point.
It’s a manipulation of one side that’s meant to sow division – and in
the most pernicious way: by masquerading as a point of false unity. The point of the Black Lives Matter movement
isn’t to say that all lives don’t matter – its point is to say that ALL lives do matter – even those that most often tend
to be left out. Even those who usually
aren’t counted among the “all”. It’s
saying that “all lives matter” only works if we hear “all” the way Desmond Tutu
says it – insistently. Prayerfully. Pleadingly.
“All” doesn’t work if it’s meant to quietly cut some out. “All” only works if we mean it, and if we
demand it. It only works if we mean the
“clever, and the not so clever”, “the beautiful, and the not so beautiful”, and
all the rest.
The mystery of God’s love is that it is all – overabundant, repetitive, pleading “all”. But at the same time, it’s also discreet. It’s person and individual.
What I love about Archbishop Tutu’s delivery here is that he
says “all” so many times that we can’t help but to hear it. He says “all” so many times that we can’t
help but to count ourselves within it.
He says “all” so many times that it isn’t just the big picture that
overlooks some, but it becomes the big picture that picks out every detail,
every personality – every beauty, and every pain.
There are times when the style of biblical storytelling
seems to me to convey more than the content, and today’s Gospel is one of those
times. The content is pretty
simplistic. Jesus went and did all these
wonderful things and then he sent others to do them, too. It’s a formula we’d be wise to remember and
follow. But the style tells a little
something more. The style starts with
the “all” – he “went about all the
cities and villages… curing every
disease and every sickness”. But then it unfolds into the particular. It doesn’t just flatly say that Jesus sent
the disciples. It names them. Individually.
Because it’s not just about the “all”.
It’s about the “all” that includes every individual.
As we hear those names, I hope we’ll hear our own. I hope we’ll hear it the way Desmond Tutu
can’t stop saying “all”. Those names
aren’t mentioned to say that that’s where the sending stopped. They’re given to us to show us just how
important individual ministries are, too.
How individuals’ callings are the stuff of “all”. They are the building blocks of the
compassion that Jesus had for all and modeled for us.
It could be true that “All means all”. But it will only really be true if we insist
on all meaning every last one. It will only really be true if we use every
“all” that we encounter not as shorthand for the ones we see, or the ones that
come to mind, or the ones we prefer – not as “broad strokes”, but as a tiny brush highlighting every
detail that makes up the big picture.
We can’t say “All lives matter” until we really understand
what “all” means. We can’t say it to
avoid talking about what’s uncomfortable.
We can’t say it to avoid offending anyone. It will only be true when we mean every last
one. Until then, we have to name the
forgotten ones; the vulnerable ones; the least and the lost whom Jesus
commanded that we seek out and love and have compassion for. Every last one.
Tutu’s speech ends: “God says ‘help me’… so that my children
will get to know: we belong in one family.
God’s family. The human
family. And no one – no one – is outside this embrace.” Not one.
May we be the help
that God needs. May we be the embrace that God offers.
Amen.
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