{"id":618,"date":"2012-11-11T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-11-11T16:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=618"},"modified":"2019-11-26T11:56:37","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T16:56:37","slug":"the-color-purple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2012\/11\/11\/the-color-purple\/","title":{"rendered":"The Color Purple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark 12: 34-48<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the full service.<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the sermon only.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Two weeks after Halloween, 2012<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My Dear Wormwood,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again it is my pleasure to write your annual review, you devil you.\u00a0 No uncle was ever prouder of a nephew than I am of you, Wormwood. Look at the excellent, successful year you have had making devilry among the good people of planet earth.\u00a0 As chief representative of the fallen angels in this part of the universe, I have a close relationship with the Prince of Darkness Himself, our Father below.\u00a0 You may rest assured that news of your various nefarious victories will sink to his hellish level.\u00a0 You have a dark future ahead of you, Wormwood.\u00a0 Congratulations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In particular, your work in the United States of America, over the last decade or more, Wormwood, has been nothing short of masterful.\u00a0 I take my horns off to you, one devil to another, and salute your negativity.\u00a0 You have kept them fighting among themselves, morning to night, like children in a marketplace, solely sighting their own interests, assured that the one truth they each hold is the only truth in the box.\u00a0 Excellent, Wormwood, excellent.\u00a0 I could not have done better myself, even when I wore a younger devil\u2019s tail.\u00a0 Keep at it, nephew, keep at it, set them one against the other, a man against his own house, rich against poor, red against blue, radical against fundamentalist, personal ethics against social justice, doing against being.\u00a0 Oh the thrill we have to observe such mayhem!\u00a0 Good boy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With this letter, this annual post Halloween performance review, I enclose your official promotion, commendation, and ribbon as sub-demon of the year, with special commendation for inciting needless division.\u00a0 I bow my horns to you!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, Wormwood, it would not do for me, your affection Uncle, Screwtape, Superintendent of demons in the near Milky Way, to let you go without a little avuncular advice.\u00a0 Call it a little devilish Dutch uncle advice, to keep you on your way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Down below they celebrate this weekend, remembering those who protected the great hope of a land of the free, and a home of the brave, a community with liberty and justice for all, a place where those who have much might not have too much, and those who have little might not have too little.\u00a0 They remember their veterans, their self-sacrificing forebears and relatives.\u00a0 They reflect on those who road the waves of military service, and they do so with grace and affection.\u00a0 Ouch!\u00a0 Wormwood, my little devil.\u00a0 We cannot have this continue.\u00a0 It cools the fires of hell to hear such loving rhetoric.\u00a0 So, here are some bits of wisdom, for your future devilry, sent from your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Be most careful, Wormwood, not to let any of these groups you have so carefully set upon each other, with daggers drawn, get the idea that wisdom is justified by all her deeds, that wisdom is justified by all her children, that wisdom comes in more than one color.\u00a0 Make sure the blue stay blue, and the red stay red. Make sure people from Nebraska never talk to people from Rhode Island. Flee the color purple, Wormwood, with its recognition of dialectical thought, its movement toward full truth, its bow before the sin they all share.\u00a0 Keep them fighting.\u00a0 Keep the Presbyterians denouncing pride, and forgetting about sloth and falsehood.\u00a0 Keep the Methodists denouncing sloth, and forgetting about pride and falsehood.\u00a0 Keep the Lutherans denouncing falsehood, and forgetting about pride and sloth.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Excellent.\u00a0 Purple is dangerous to us.\u00a0 If the blue start seeing that the red have a point, here and there\u2014your cause is lost.\u00a0 If the red start seeing that the blue have a point, here and there\u2014your cause is lost.\u00a0 Keep them shouting at each other, like children in a marketplace, one group wanting to play weddings and another wanting to play funerals, pipes vs. wails, dances vs. weepings. Their Lord really had your number, there, my nephew.\u00a0 Take the purple out of their crayon boxes.\u00a0 You want gated communities, the demise of public schools, lines of suburban\\urban separation, racial disease and distrust, class separations, ideological fences, and a verbal war of all against all.\u00a0 Children in the marketplace, as their Savior, said, yes, Wormwood, well done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is an example.\u00a0 I hear the good hearts of their leaders saying many and caring things about children and the poor, those left out.\u00a0 Like that poor woman in the Bible, who gave all she had.\u00a0 Wormwood, this is peril for us!\u00a0 Be on the qui vive!\u00a0 If that country ever got behind that idea, and every one had medical care, education, and respect\u2014oh, it worries me.\u00a0 Keep them pinned down, keep their leaders pinned down, Wormwood, in tragic conflict, in financial red ink, in culture wars.\u00a0 And be vigilant!\u00a0 Sometimes they get the idea! I read in one of their papers about an 11 year old Boy Scout lost in the mountains.\u00a0 (Did you have something to do with that, Wormwood?\u00a0 Creative move there,\u00a0 my boy).\u00a0 But after all astute creative devilry, 3000 searchers looked for four days until they found him!\u00a0 The lost was found.\u00a0 That really frosts me.\u00a0 Oh, the joy they had in it, too.\u00a0 It frosts my preserves, Wormwood.\u00a0 It is like the joy a Christian has at bringing a friend, relative, or neighbor to church to experience love.\u00a0 There is no greater joy!\u00a0 It makes my blood freeze.\u00a0 The rescuer said, \u201cI feel relieved and happy.\u201d\u00a0 Oh Lordy.\u00a0 That really takes the cake.\u00a0 See, if they really start watching over one another in love, like that old Englishman John Wesley said, we would be out of business in your part of the hemisphere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another example, Wormwood.\u00a0 We head devils hate to hear about people moving from poverty to well-being.\u00a0 All this generosity talk\u2014perish the thought!\u00a0 All this liberty, equality, fraternity palaver\u2014I thought we rid ourselves of that in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 My boy, we want a permanent underclass, so that we can then use it to foment revolution.\u00a0 But this country and its churches, especially those pesky Methodists, have always championed social mobility, like that in the churches of Paul, way back when.\u00a0 His urban Christians were status inconsistent, and so are the living churches today.\u00a0 That Paul was a thorn in my flesh, that Apostle to the Gentiles, but we got him at last.\u00a0 We need to keep people in their place.\u00a0 I tell you, nephew, it bothers me when I read about a young woman, Della Mae Justice, who was a 15 year old foster child living in a hut with a dirt floor, until her uncle came and found her and took her into his own home.\u00a0 He was an attorney in Kentucky.\u00a0 She said it was like little Orphan Annie going to live with the Rockefellers. Listen to this Wormwood, and see if doesn\u2019t freeze your blood:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not easy.\u00a0 I was shy and socially inept.\u00a0 For the first time, I could have had the right clothes, but I didn\u2019t have any idea what the right clothes were.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know much about the world, and I was always afraid of making the wrong move.\u00a0 When we had a school trip for chorus we went to a restaurant.\u00a0 I ordered a club sandwich, but when it came with those toothpicks on either end, I didn\u2019t know how to eat it, so I just sat there, well, staring at it and starving and saying I didn\u2019t feel well.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her uncle educated her at Berea College, a school set up especially for hard working, children of the poor who want a fine education.\u00a0 Now she is an attorney in his firm.\u00a0 Wormwood!\u00a0 Be on the lookout!\u00a0 This kind of story will find its way into a pulpit if it is not snuffed out.\u00a0 See who have on our side in the newspapers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A story like that brings a tear to the eye, a warmth to the heart, a willingness to give, even if you only have a widow\u2019s might.\u00a0 Such gospel is our undoing.\u00a0 A story like that is your undoing, Wormwood.\u00a0 Come on my boy, have you begun with flesh to end with the spirit?\u00a0 You can do better, I mean worse, I mean, well you know what I mean<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What would happen down there if this kind of idea, took hold?\u00a0 You would have middle-aged parents whose own children have grown up adopting others!\u00a0 Starting new families!\u00a0 Taking the poor into their homes!\u00a0 Giving like that poor widow did! You would have adoption outpacing abortion, so that abortion was not only safe, legal and rare, but rare, rare and rare!\u00a0 You would have liberty and justice!\u00a0 There would be understanding and space for gay children! Our lost cause would be lost.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wormwood!\u00a0 Perish the thought, Wormwood, perish the thought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And this matter of war.\u00a0 Good bit of work, there, Wormwood.\u00a0 Now, if you can just keep the purple crayon out of the box.\u00a0 My own fear is that there will emerge a consensus across the land on how to fix this problem.\u00a0 Here is my thought:\u00a0 keep the blue critics stuck in their anger over things, they judge, should never have happened\u2014that will keep them from facing clearly new situations with resolve, humility, and imagination; and keep the red supporters stuck in defense of past confusions, misinformation and misjudgment\u2014that will keep them from finding the resolve, humility and imagination needed to change course to attend to new duties.\u00a0 Especially– keep them from talking with each other to find the purple ground\u2014divide and conquer, Wormwood, divide and conquer.\u00a0 Otherwise they may find a way to gather the will of the nations to bring peace to their world and time.\u00a0 That would be our purple defeat, the defeat of all our devilry.\u00a0 Confusion, and miscommunication, and mistrust\u2014these are your best allies, my shrewd nephew.\u00a0 They must not be allowed to remember history and its lessons.\u00a0\u00a0 When Elie Wiesel said two weeks ago, \u2018we face the enemy with memory\u2019\u2014Wormwood, he is talking about. Get at that work on weakening memory! You help them forget the lessons of the past.\u00a0 The last thing on earth the Prince of Darkness (who writes my performance review, as you know) is just, participatory, and stable world community.\u00a0 Peace abroad would let America would be free, purple crayon in hand, to draw a picture of a nation where all, meaning all, have a place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or look at their stumbling around about their country\u2019s budget.\u00a0 I have to hand it to you, you young devil you, you have even made them forget that to balance a budget you have to raise more and spend less money!\u00a0 How did you accomplish that?\u00a0 But now, I hear rumblings, Wormwood.\u00a0 I have a sad feeling that they will find a way to work together, to compromise, to see the larger picture, to work for the good of the whole\u2014oh, you know how I despise all this sappy, caring, loving, pragmatic, effective public leadership!\u00a0 How much more savory, and sour, a fiscal cliff!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me be blunt, Wormwood.\u00a0 When you see red and blue talking to each other, get moving!\u00a0 When you see a red woman and a blue man determined to think together, learn from each other, and work side by side, and they have lunch at a table adorned in purple, burn the restaurant.\u00a0 We just cannot have that kind of synthesis going on! Thesis, yes.\u00a0 Antithesis, yes.\u00a0 But no Synthesis. Red we can stand, blue we can handle.\u00a0 It is the color purple that is our downfall.\u00a0 We cannot afford that kind of creativity, new creation, new thinking.\u00a0 I read that Cornel West and Billy Graham were going to have lunch to talk theology.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I mean, Wormwood.\u00a0 Burn that restaurant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me be blunter, Wormwood.\u00a0 When you see a church, the last place people actually gather if they gather at all, that is both red and blue, and putting on a robe with a purple hue, weaken that church.\u00a0 A denomination that stands for children, for the poor, for social mobility, for justice, but also for personal morality, financial responsibility, moral strength, individual piety–for Biblical, dialectical thought, not just the thunderbolts from far left and right–drain that saving swamp, Wormwood.\u00a0 What you have done to the Methodists in the Northeast, eliminating half their membership in a generation, you need to do across the country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me be the bluntest I have been, Wormwood.\u00a0 I have one specific request, dear nephew.\u00a0 Keep your eye on that chapel in Boston, Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 They look purple to me.\u00a0 They are growing.\u00a0 They are building.\u00a0 They are blue and red together.\u00a0 They love students.\u00a0 They are learning to tithe.\u00a0 They are starting to invite.\u00a0 Work on them, Wormwood.\u00a0 Make them fear the unknown. Make them tentative.\u00a0 Make them forget the student programs.\u00a0 Make them accentuate gender, race, ethnic, class divisions. Make them disagree wherever they can.\u00a0 Set them on each other, red on blue, blue on red.\u00a0 I will check your work at our next annual early November, post-Halloween review.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remember our theme song from William Blake:\u00a0 When Satan first the black bow bent, and the moral law from the gospel rent, he turned the law into a sword and spilt the blood of mercy\u2019s Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark 12: 34-48 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. Two weeks after Halloween, 2012   My Dear Wormwood,   Again it is my pleasure to write your annual review, you devil you.\u00a0 No uncle was ever prouder of a nephew than I am of you, Wormwood. Look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2499,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/2499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}