Today at 5:30pm we begin our Evening Church Camp! We expect around 25 kids from St. Dunstan’s and beyond. The theme of our Church Camp this year is “Message Received: Hearing God’s Call.” And we will work with five wonderful stories from the Old and New Testaments, about people who received a call from God, and how they responded. For some reason, the story of David, Bathsheba, and Nathan isn’t on the list. Even though God definitely had a message for David, and David received it…

We were meant to have the first half of this story last week, but I took the liberty of skipping it then, and adding it to today’s lesson. It makes for a long reading, but certainly not a boring one. The story hangs together better when you hear it in one piece, and besides… I really could not figure out how to preach a children’s sermon on this story. Some concepts need to be explained by a parent…! Like adultery and premeditated homicide.

It’s not a particularly pleasant story, and at first glance it’s not perhaps particularly edifying. In reflecting on it together today, I’d like to look at Nathan, the prophet. His voice and his role. The great prophet Samuel has died; Nathan follows him as the prophet who speaks God’s words, welcome and often unwelcome, to the King.

Nathan’s words to the King on this occasion are certainly unwelcome. We don’t know exactly how the word of God came to Nathan on this occasion. Perhaps it came in a vivid dream, as it had before. Perhaps he simply heard the chatter on the street about this nasty business with Uriah’s wife, and his righteous anger boiled up within him, the spirit of God driving him to the palace to confront the king.

He surely knew the risks. David could easily have had him thrown in prison, or quietly killed. Remember King Herod summarily executing John the Baptist, a thousand years later and three weeks ago in the lectionary? How easy for David, powerful and successful, having once turned from righteousness, to shrug off God’s words and follow the path of self-will. But as far as we know, Nathan doesn’t hesitate – or hesitates only long enough to figure out the best way to show the King his sin. Nathan goes to the king and tells him to his face: You. Are. That. Man.

The court history contained in the books of Samuel and Kings gives us three stories about the prophet Nathan; this is the second one. We had the first one as a lectionary text a few weeks ago. King David wanted to build a temple, a fancy house for God –  or rather for the Ark of the Covenant, a powerful symbol of God’s presence for the people Israel. Nathan says, Sounds great, God will like that, go for it.

But then Nathan receives God’s word that night:  “Tell David the King that it is not he who will build me a house, but I will build him a house. Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel…”  Let’s just remind the King who’s steering this bus, shall we?… And Nathan carries that word to the King.

In that story Nathan speaks for God, simply conveying God’s message to the King. That’s the formal role of a prophet, the official definition: one who receives and speaks God’s word. But in today’s story, Nathan enlarges that role. Confronting David for his treatment of Bathsheba and Uriah, Nathan again speaks for God; but not just for God.

Nathan confronts David with the theft and rape of Bathsheba. And in doing so, he speaks for her. Bathsheba is voiceless and almost without agency, in this story. The only action she takes is to send that message letting David know that she is pregnant. Other than that, she is taken; she is sent home; and once Uriah is dead, she is taken again. Bathsheba’s consent, her yes or no to David, isn’t recorded – because it isn’t relevant. Women had little standing or voice to claim their own bodies. Consider: our society, even now, is still struggling to fully understand that in the hands of a powerful or influential man, a woman may appear to go along with things, yet still feel violated – and deserve our sympathy and outrage.

Nathan is outraged about Bathsheba. His parable casts her as the little lamb, sweet, innocent, beloved. And what happens to her at David’s hands is like a death. Like being slaughtered, and devoured.  An interesting side note: The third story of the prophet Nathan, found in the first chapters of the first Book of Kings, has Nathan working with and advocating for Bathsheba. King David is on his deathbed and his son Adonijah has decided he would make a great king, so he’s more or less declaring himself king, with a great banquet with all his friends and supporters. David had sworn that Solomon, Bathsheba’s second son, would be king. Nathan goes to Bathsheba and says, Listen, if this happens, if Adonijah claims the kingship, you and your son Solomon are as good as dead. And he strategizes with her to approach David and remind him of his oath to make Solomon his successor. Pressed by both Bathsheba and Nathan, David rallies to declare Solomon the next King and arranges to have him anointed and crowned.

The Biblical text is clear that God favored Solomon as King. (By the way, this is why, within the terms of the text, the baby had to die – David and Bathsheba’s first son. Solomon, King of Israel, couldn’t be illegitimate. He couldn’t be that baby.  If that detail makes you stop and wonder, don’t wonder what kind of God kills a baby for its parents’ sins. Wonder how long after David and Bathsheba’s wedding baby Solomon was really born.) So: The Biblical text is clear that God favored Solomon as King. But it doesn’t tell us that Nathan was acting on God’s prompting in approaching Bathsheba and working with her to ensure that Solomon is able to claim his throne. Nathan has just never forgotten, in all these years, how much David owes to Bathsheba. And that the promise of the throne to Solomon was compensation of a sort for Bathsheba’s struggles and losses.

So in today’s story Nathan speaks for God; Nathan speaks for Bathsheba. And Nathan speaks for Uriah – who has also been rendered voiceless by this time. Uriah, a strong man, an ethical man, a straightforward man.  I like Uriah; don’t you? Sleeping at the palace gates with the servants, because he just doesn’t feel right about enjoying the comforts of home while his comrades in arms sleep on the ground out at the front? Poor Uriah. And poor General Joab, forced to risk and sacrifice his men because of the lusts and fears of his king, the king who stayed home at his comfortable palace in Jerusalem instead of coming out to lead his troops as a king ought to do.

Uriah stands for all those – soldiers and civilians – whose senseless deaths testify to the selfishness and hard-heartedness of their leaders, of those who command them and determine their fates. Don’t mishear me; there are noble deaths on the battlefield, no question. But Uriah’s death is not noble. It is a shame and a disgrace. Joab’s bitterness shows us that plainly. And Nathan tells it like it is, telling David: You murdered this man. Sure, you used the sword of the enemy to do it; but the blood is on your hands.

Nathan speaks for God, for Bathsheba, for Uriah. And Nathan speaks for the people. He sees, or God sees, or both Nathan and God see, that this a watershed moment in David’s kingship. Waaaay back in 1 Samuel 8, when Israel was calling for a king, even before King Saul, the prophet Samuel warned the people what kings do. Kings take. They take your sons as guards and warriors. They take your daughters as servants and cooks and concubines. They take your wealth to arm their troops, decorate their palaces. They take the best of your crops and your flock, for their banquet tables and storehouses.They take the best of your land to give away to their courtiers. You will become no better than slaves to the power, ambition, and greed of this King you want so badly. And the people say, Fine, whatever. Give us a King.

Samuel’s prophecy is the mirror that Nathan holds up to David today. You have become a taker. You have become that kind of king. For all your piety and righteousness, you have set your foot on a very slippery slope. Nathan’s words to David tell him that he has wounded his relationship with God, AND his relationship with his own people. He is in real and imminent danger of becoming the kind of king whose authority has everything to do with power and fear, and nothing to do with righteous rule and divine call. He calls David back to the straight and narrow path, to being the kind of King David intends to be, wants to be, a king chosen by God, beloved of God, ruling for God.

Nathan the prophet steps up to the risk and responsibility of speaking truth to power. I used to have a bumper sticker that said that: Dare to speak truth to power. It’s the kind of bumper sticker you have in your twenties, or your seventies. I can’t think of many times when I’ve lived up to its challenge.

But Nathan: he’s the real thing. Speaking truth to the greatest human power of his time and place, with insight, courage and savvy.  Speaking for God,  and also for those who couldn’t speak for themselves: Bathsheba, silenced by her gender and status; Uriah, silenced by his murder; the people of the kingdom, who had no approval polls or votes  to convey their dismay or concern to their king.

The prophet Nathan is an icon of a very important concept  for us as people of comparative privilege – mostly white, mostly straight, mostly educated,  mostly middle class or above.  The prophet Nathan is an icon of allyship.  Of being an ally to those without voice, without power.

Canadian educator Anne Bishop defines being an ally this way:  “People acting as Allies work to support diverse groups in [the] community with which they may not necessarily identify as members… Allies are people who recognize the unearned privilege they receive from society’s patterns of injustice, and take responsibility for changing these patterns. Allies include men who work to end sexism, white people who work to end racism, heterosexual people who work to end heterosexism, able-bodied people who work to end ableism, and so on.” (Source) 

Nathan is an ally. He is a man of education and status. He holds an important, recognized and respected position. He has the ear of the King.  And he chooses – in this story – to use the advantages, the privileges of his position, to say some uncomfortable things on behalf of others.  On behalf of women, the victims of war, and the common people, all of whom – for various reasons –  had very limited scope to speak for themselves.

Being an ally often means helping to elevate the voices of those who are trying to speak their truth and their needs  in the public square, but aren’t getting heard. But it can mean speaking for those who really are voiceless,  because of their vulnerability or marginalization – like modern-day slaves, undocumented workers, refugees…

Being an ally means looking beyond the boundaries of our comfortable worlds and lives, and listening to voices we don’t usually hear,  sometimes voices that are uncomfortable to hear,  because they show us the dark side of our worlds and lives.  I’m sure it would have been easier and more comfortable for the prophet Nathan to just shrug this business off. Boys will be boys, kings will be kings. What can you do?

Being an ally means taking with utmost seriousness the Gospel’s mandate to see ourselves as brothers and sisters to people of all backgrounds and circumstances. To serve Christ, the Lord we love and follow, in our care for the excluded and the beaten-down.  In the words of one of our hymns, we sing and pray, “Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore.” In our Prayers of the People, we use the words  of another Biblical prophet, Jeremiah,  to ask God to help and inspire us to work and pray for the good of the city where we dwell, – the city, nation, world –  for only in its peace shall we find our peace.

Being an ally means noticing, caring, engaging.  Not with everything at once; there’s so much, I know that. But with something. As you are called.

Nathan heard his call from God. Message received.  He knew for whom, and to whom,  he was called to speak,  and what he needed to say.  David heard and received God’s message because Nathan first heard and received God’s call.   What call do you hear? Where is your care for a friend or family member, or the deep insistent tug of some struggle in our world,  calling you into allyship,  with a voice that might sound suspiciously like Jesus?

What’s your call?

This sermon is heavily indebted to a baccalaureate sermon preached by the Rev’d Canon Sam Wells, which you may read in full here. If you find inspiration herein for your own preaching or writing, please credit Canon Wells! 

The story of David and Goliath is a Sunday school classic.  And for obvious reasons: it’s a great story! An unarmed shepherd boy takes on a warrior-giant, in the name of God… and wins. If we had to say what the take-away is, we’d probably say something like this: if you trust in God, it doesn’t matter what’s stacked against you. Have faith and do what needs to be done.

But there’s an assumption there – an assumption that we are all Davids. Samuel Wells, an Anglican priest who was Dean of Duke Chapel during my year at Duke, preached an outstanding sermon on this story at a baccalaureate service in May of 2010. I’m going to share the gist of it with you today. I hope it’s something you need to hear. I know that, on the threshold of the emotional, mental, and physical demands of serving as a deputy to our church’s General Convention next week, I very much need to hear it.

Sam Wells starts with that point I just raised: we tend to identify with David.  America is a nation of underdogs.  Our popular culture is full of skinny little guys somehow triumphing over the huge, aggressive quarterback type, literally or metaphorically.  We love it when a small liberal arts college makes it to the Final Four.  We love movies where the small-town lawyer wins out over the huge polluting corporation.

Wells writes,  “In movies, athletics, business and politics,  we all feel the pull of that righteous cultural conviction: Stand up for the little guy.” Then he reminds his audience that, in fact, the school they are graduating from … is Duke. The Yankees of collegiate basketball. Hardly an underdog by any standard.  And he reminds them, too, that those movies where the plucky little guy – or girl  – triumphs over the huge, faceless corporation are made by huge, faceless corporations, who know exactly what we like.

Wells writes,  “We want our movies to be about David, but we spend our lives trying desperately… to be Goliath.”  We admire David’s resourcefulness and faith, but we spend our lives and resources and energies stockpiling what makes us feel strong and safe: SUVs, alarm systems, advanced degrees, 401ks… all the apparatus of a secure middle-class existence. If we were honest with ourselves, are there moments when we feel a little like David in Saul’s armor, so weighted down that we can hardly move?

Those Duke graduates Wells was addressing – they’d just spent four years, lots of time and effort, and a staggering amount of their parents’ money to acquire a degree from Duke.  Why? Because it gives you a chance to become Goliath. It gives you strength. Acclaim. Respect.  All the things Goliath had…  and David didn’t.

But we love David, in this story – cute, plucky, teenage David, whose call to kingship is still a secret between himself and Samuel. It’s hard to say whether he has more faith in God or in himself, but either way, he’s an appealing character here, even in his slightly obnoxious cockiness. But what happens next? Where does the story go from here, as it unspools in the chapters and weeks ahead?

David defeats Goliath. The people swing behind David and support him. Saul, increasingly unhinged, loses the people’s confidence. There’s a bitterly-fought civil war between Saul’s people and David’s – the lectionary skips that! Eventually, sure enough, David becomes king.  And… power does to David what power tends to do to people.

David becomes Goliath. He becomes a bully. He becomes a taker. He becomes a cynical manipulator, a merciless powerbroker.  He becomes a man whose own power is everything to him. David becomes Goliath. 

Wells asks the graduates to reflect, as they stand on the cusp of a new life, on whether that’s the direction they want to go,  or whether they want to chart a different course. Most of us don’t stand at such a turning point, this particular Sunday in June 2015. But it’s never a bad time to ask ourselves what we trust. What we rely on. Where we turn,  when we feel in need of strength, of power.

Wells calls our attention to those five stones, the five smooth stones that David gathered from the riverbed for his sling, his only weapon. He uses those stones to count off the sources of David’s power. Listen.

Here’s the first stone, the first source of David’s power: He trusts the value of ordinary days and ordinary work. He has spent his young life, at this point, keeping the sheep and running errands for his father and brothers. Wells writes,  “Some parts of every life, and every part of some lives, are unrewarding, unregarded and unattractive.” We all spend some hours of our days and some years of our lives doing stuff that doesn’t feel important or meaningful – or maybe it feels important to us, but nobody else seems to think so. Stuff like caring for young children. Being unemployed or working a humble job. Tending to your own health or that of a family member.  Taking care of home, garden, pets, all those tasks that become undone again the moment you wake up in the morning.  David is proud of how those years have shaped him. He knows that mundane and humble work has been training for what’s ahead. It’s grounded and strengthened him, and made him who he is.  That’s the first source of his power: his confidence that his life has prepared him for this moment, that ordinary days and humble work have blessed him.

Do you find power there?

Here’s the second stone – in Sam Wells’ words, David has made friends with the outdoor world. He’s not a technology guy.  Skip the armor and the sword, which where the ICBMs of his era. David knows about sheep, and lions. He knows about riverbeds, smooth stones, the trajectories of projectiles. He’s developed some skills, some competence and confidence that you’ll never get in job training, in a lab or an office. Wells writes,  “If you want to be like David, ask yourself,  ‘When was the last time I felt the joy of nature and sharpened my wily wits by spending some time in the fields, in the streams, in the mountains?’… David learns from his outdoor life the wisdom of the owl, the cunning of the fox, the agility of the wildcat, the sharp eye of the eagle. That’s where he gets his power.”

Do you find power there?

Here’s the third stone. David knows himself. Saul tries to make David into a mini-me: here, put on my armor; here, wear my helm; here, strap on my sword. None of it fits, and wearing it makes David unable to use the skills he has. David knows he’s not going to win by being Saul, nor by being Goliath. He tells Saul, You do you, man. But it’s not my thing.  Wells asks,  “If you’re feeling burdened and heavy laden right now, is it because you’re wearing someone else’s armor? Are you trying to be someone you’re not and never will be? … Don’t be a second-rate version of someone else. Strive to be what only you can be.” David knows his strengths, and he knows his weaknesses. He knows the only way he’ll prevail here is by being who he is and doing what he does.

Do you find power there?

Here’s the fourth stone.  David knows God.  Wells writes, “David knows Goliath is not God. Goliath is the reality in front of him right now, and that reality is big, ugly and intimidating. But David knows what’s in front of him isn’t ultimate reality.”

Wells makes a provocative and powerful suggestion here: he says maybe a big reason that Christianity has lost so much cultural favor in this country is that Christians turned Jesus into Goliath. Into a “My way or the highway” bully, forceful and arrogant. But Jesus isn’t Goliath. God isn’t Goliath.  And Goliath isn’t God. David knows that. He knows that divine power, holy power, looks and sounds and acts differently than human power.  He knows that the deep order of the universe, the heart of reality,  the bend of the great arc, is not about history’s Goliaths. It’s about the slow and subtle and mysterious workings of a different kind of power, a paradoxical strength. David finds power in his knowledge that Goliath’s power, as overwhelming as it seems,  is limited.  God’s power is different. God’s power is more.

Do you find power there?

Finally… here’s the fifth stone.  The fifth source of David’s power… is simply that he recognizes that power is the issue here.  He sees Goliath’s power, and he knows the sources of his own power –  the graces of an ordinary life; the gifts of the natural world;

knowledge of self and knowledge of God. He knows he needs to muster those resources to walk safely through this challenge. To prevail, for himself and for his people and for his God.  As David stands over the giant’s corpse,  we see that the power in this story lay, in Wells’ words,  “not in Goliath’s bravado but in David’s skill; not in Goliath’s muscle but in David’s faith; not in Goliath’s plausibility but in David’s truth; not in Goliath’s armor but in David’s wisdom.”

Can you find power in daily living, in ordinary tasks? Can you find power in the generous gifts of the natural world?  Can you find power in knowing yourself deeply and truly? Can you find power in knowing that God’s love and purposes arch boldly over our human moments of struggle or perplexity?  Can you find power in simply taking a step back to name the power dynamics of the situation in which you find yourself – the situation of a moment or a year or a lifetime – facing honestly the powers at work around and sometimes against you, and reminding yourself that you, too, have power? The kind of power that can’t be taken from you – the kind that you can only lose by forgetting you have it.

Looking forward into David’s life and kingship,  Wells writes, “David lost sight of [this kind of] power, later on.  Most of us do, for a season.  And when we lose sight of that power,  that’s precisely the moment when we’re drawn to Goliath. In the end Goliath’s problem is not that he’s too strong but that he’s too weak. The more we try to become Goliath, the weaker we become. It shows we’ve lost sight of where true power lies.”

Here’s what I ask of you, friends, as I prepare to set out for General Convention. Where there will be the joy of gathering as a church from all corners of our nation, and beyond; of spending time with old friends and making new ones; of being part of discerning and shaping our denomination’s future.  Where there will also be the physical struggle of long, long days of meetings and legislative sessions and intense conversations; the mental struggle of organizing time, forming opinions, and keeping up with it all; the emotional struggle of staying grounded in my own convictions, experience, and faith, and staying open to new ideas and learnings, when conversations get heated and visions clash.

I ask that you pray, for me, for our bishop Steven, for the other deputies from this diocese and for all the bishops, deputies, and others attending our Convention, that we may resist the power of Goliath – the power of force, might, and arrogance, the sneering power that belittles the opponent – and put our trust instead in the true sources of holy power, in David’s five smooth stones.

And I pray for you, friends, that in whatever ordeals, strains, struggles or decisions you face, you, too, may trust deeply that the power you need is already at hand; and may find that to be abundantly true.  Amen.

The Sayers essay quoted below is published with a number of her other essays in the compilation “Letters to a Diminished Church,” W Publishing Group, 2004. The wording has been altered slightly in places to make it easier for oral presentation to an American audience. 

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 2 Cor 5:17-21

Here’s the same text rendered in casual American English, by Eugene Peterson in The Message, a Bible paraphrase:

“God has given us the task of telling everyone what God is doing. We are Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; God is already friends with you.”

This portion of Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth reminds me of a quotation from Stanley Hauerwas, scholar, teacher, iconoclast, and sharp-tongued pacifist.  It’s from a talk he gave in 2011 and it’s one of a number of snippets of text posted around my workspace in my office, so that when my eye – and mind – wander from a task, they may fall on something that reminds me of my true work. Here’s the line from Hauerwas: “The church is a prophetic community necessary for the world to know that God refuses to abandon us. We are God’s hope for the world, and you are a servant of that hope.”

The church is a prophetic community necessary for the world to know that God refuses to abandon us. We are God’s hope for the world, and you are a servant of that hope. God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. We are ambassadors for Christ.

It is quite clear, in the Scriptures, liturgies, and teaching of the church, that we are called, as followers of Christ, to proclamation. To speaking out God’s good news. To telling other people about the grace and hope and life we have received, by turning to God and living a life of faith. To preaching, in word and action, our countercultural conviction that there is love for us when we feel least lovable, that there is hope for us when we feel most hopeless, that there is a better way for us, a new path, even when we feel the least in control of our lives -and also even when we feel the most in control.

There are so many ways to put words to that Good News – and not only words, but actions and symbols and songs. There are many, many ways to proclaim the Good News. But we are called – asked – ordered – to proclaim it. By Paul: Be ambassadors for Christ. By Jesus: Be my witnesses, to the ends of the earth. By our Book of Common Prayer, right there in our baptismal covenant: Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ? By the words of the prayer we say together after the Eucharist: “Now send us forth, a people forgiven, healed, renewed, that we may proclaim your love to the world.”

Anybody squirming yet? … This call to proclamation does not always sit comfortably with us Episcopalians. We tend to be ill-at-ease with evangelism – or as many of us prefer to call it, The E-Word. We don’t care for the idea of being all up in other people’s faces about Jesus or God. Now, there are some substantive reasons for that. For one thing, we are an open-minded faith that believes in many paths to God, and we don’t assume our neighbors are doomed to Hell if they happen to be Presbyterian or Catholic or Jewish.

For another thing, we are an incarnational faith, that sees God’s presence in the world around us, as I mentioned last week. So we don’t believe that an act of service  or a deep conversation or an hour spent on your knees in the garden has to have Jesus stamped all over it in red ink to be holy.

But let’s be frank – a big part of our reluctance to proclaim the Gospel is because it’s hard to be “out” as a Christian in our workplaces and neighborhoods, among our acquaintances and even our friends and family. As my friend Rob the strategic marketing guy says, Christianity has a huge brand problem. People think a lot of awful things about Christians. Christians are superstitious, sanctimonious, anti-science, incapable of critical thought, moralizing, punitive, bossy, judgmental, hypocritical, and really just not the kind of people that you’d want to chat with over a coffee or a beer.

One of the questions I’ve been asking folks in recent weeks is, Have you ever talked about St. Dunstan’s to someone who doesn’t attend? Your answers have followed two strong themes. You talk about your church to people, who seem like they might need what it could offer: a sense of community, unconditional love, a safe space to question, heal, seek and grow. And you talk about your church to people who wonder out loud, What the heck is up with those Christians, anyway? You gather your courage and you say, We’re not all like that. And you talk about belonging to a faith community that’s inclusive and welcoming and smart and curious.

I love that. I love that people are speaking up for St. Dunstan’s, speaking up about the Episcopal Christian way, in those moments. AND… I know it’s hard. I know there are probably lots of moments when you back away from those conversations. Because you’re not sure how it will be received, or because you just don’t have the energy or the words right now. I certainly do. I have a clergy friend who ALWAYS wears his clergy collar when he’s traveling, and welcomes the opportunities to start conversations about faith with strangers on an airplane or a bus. I cannot imagine doing that. Let’s just put in our earbuds and agree not to make eye contact. It’s tough to put yourself out there – to out yourself as a Christian – when our brand image is so bad, and when the starting point has to be, But not THAT kind of Christian. 

That problem is not new, though it’s taken different forms over the decades and centuries. One of the ways that we here at St. Dunstan’s are working towards knowing our own tradition more deeply is by remembering the lives and work of some of the saints who have gone before us, and their witness to the faith, in whatever form it took. Who here knows the name Lord Peter Wimsey? Lord Peter is not a saint, as he would be the first to admit. He is a fictional detective, and the best-known creation of the British writer Dorothy Leigh Sayers, who lived from 1893 to 1957. Sayers is not on our calendar of saints for some reason, though several of her friends and contemporaries are – Evelyn Underhill, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton. Her birthday was June 13, so I’m taking the liberty of claiming and commemorating her, this Sunday.

Sayers’ mystery novels are what most people know about her, if they know anything, and they’re certainly how I came to know and love her. But she was much more than a novelist. She wrote broadly on politics, feminism, and faith. She translated Dante, and wrote a fantastic, funny, engaging play about the life of Jesus; one of these years we’ll stage it here! Her work on human creativity and the doctrine of the Trinity is well-regarded and delightful.

We tend to carry a vague idea that it was easier to be Christian back in the first half of the 20th century, because everyone was Christian then, right? But that isn’t necessarily true – and it certainly wasn’t true in the intellectual, academic, and activist circles of Sayers’ social world, which may have had a lot in common with the intellectual, academic, and activist circles of our lives in contemporary Madison, Wisconsin. She found, as we often do, that the Christianity most people think they’re avoiding isn’t the Christianity that we claim and strive to follow.

In an essay called “The Dogma Is the Drama,” Sayers addresses exactly this issue, and tries to lay out the true heart of Christianity, the real good news, as she understands it, in the face of public views of Christianity as dull, conventional and rather repressive.

As our commemoration of the life, work, and witness of Dorothy Leigh Sayers today, and as encouragement for the socially-risky business of proclaiming our faith, let me read to you a portion of Sayers’ essay, “The Dogma Is the Drama.”

“It would not perhaps be altogether surprising if, in this nominally Christian country where the Creeds are daily recited, there were a number of people who knew all about Christian doctrine and disliked it. It is more startling to discover how many people there are who heartily dislike and despise Christianity without having the faintest notion what it is. If you tell them, they cannot believe you. I do not mean that they cannot believe the doctrine; that would be understandable enough, since it takes some believing. I mean that they simply cannot believe that anything so interesting, so exciting, and so dramatic can be the orthodox creed of the Church….”

Sayers then proceeds to offer up a short “examination paper,” in question-and-answer format, laying out what the general public apparently believes about Christianity:

“Q: What does the Church think of God the Father? A: He is omnipotent and holy. He created the world and imposed up on humanity conditions impossible to fulfill; he is very angry if these are not carried out. He sometimes interferes by means of arbitrary judgments and miracles, distributed with a good deal of favoritism. He likes to be flattered and is always ready to pounce on anybody who trips up over a bit of difficulty in the Law, or is just having a bit of fun. He is rather like a dictator, only larger and more arbitrary.

“Q: What does the Church think of God the Son? A: He is in some way to be identified with Jesus of Nazareth. It was not his fault the world was made like this, and unlike God the Father, he is friendly to humanity and did his best to reconcile humans to God. He has a good deal of influence with God, and if you want anything done, it is best to apply to him.

“Q: What does the Church think of God the Holy Spirit? A: I don’t know exactly. He was never seen or heard of until Pentecost. There is a sin against him that damns you forever, but nobody knows what it is.

“Q: What was Jesus Christ like in real life? A: He was meek and mild and preached a simple religion of love and pacifism. He had no sense of humor. Anything in the Bible that suggests another side to his character must be an addition. If we try to live like him, God the Father will let us off being damned hereafter and only have us tortured in this life instead.

“Q: What is meant by the Atonement? A: God wanted to damn everybody, but his vindictive sadism was satisfied by the crucifixion of his own Son, who was quite innocent, and therefore, a particularly attractive victim. He now only damns people who don’t follow Christ or never heard of him.

“Q: What does the Church think of sex?  A: God made it necessary to the machinery of the world, and tolerates it, provided that the people involved a) are married, and b) don’t enjoy it.

“Q: What is Faith? A: Resolutely shutting your eyes to scientific fact.

“Q: What is the human intellect? A: A barrier to faith.

“Q: What are the seven Christian virtues? A: Respectability, childishness, mental timidity, dullness, sentimentality, judgmentalism, and depression of spirits.

“Q: Wilt thou be baptized into this faith? A: No thank you!”

Sayers concludes,

“I cannot help feeling that as a statement of Christian orthodoxy, these replies are inadequate… But I also cannot help feeling that they do fairly accurately represent what many people take Christian orthodoxy to be…. Somehow or other, and with the best intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore – and this in the name of One who assuredly never bored a soul, in those thirty-three years during which he passed through the world like a flame….  Let us, in heaven’s name, drag out the divine drama [of Jesus’ true life and teaching] from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it… We do Christ singularly little honor by watering down his personality till it could not offend a fly…

“It is the dogma, [the Gospel itself,] that is the drama – not beautiful phrases nor comforting sentiments nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death – but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world, lived in the world, and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the non-believers, and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that a person might be glad to believe.”

Let us pray.

Almighty God, you spoke the universe into being and made us to hear and tell the story of your love. Give us the courage, insight, humor, and passion that we might, like your servant Dorothy, proclaim that story still, in faithful witness to our hope in you; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit is glorified in the telling. Amen.

Thanks to the good folks at Key Hall for posting this wonderful prayer, which fits our celebration of the life and witness of Dorothy Sayers so well!