Arthur Poulin - Unsplash
Sept 1 Sermon: Naked Truth (Cartoons and Christianity)
I would like to share with you part of a poem by John O’Donohue (who is responsible for almost all our prayers today):
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.
As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
To hear in the depths the laughter of God.
I love thinking about the laughter of God!
If I told you there was a very unappreciated, even perhaps maligned form of art – anyone have any idea what it might be???
On Saturday mornings in my family growing up you could find us hovering by the front door – like vultures waiting for their victim. In our case it was the delivery of the Toronto Star we awaited, not for the articles, but for the extensive colourful comics section. Do you have a memory of them being referred to as “the funnies”?
Cartoons usually distill their content down to a single pointed message. Sometimes it is funny, but it almost always brutally honest. I am a big fan of the cartoon that can deliver that punch line in just 1-2 frames. Gary Larsen was a master of this in his long running series, the Far Side.
Anyone who has visited my various homes in the last 25 years will have found the same comic strip on the front of my refrigerator at the top. Where some people here might live their lives by a line from the bible, Koran or other ancient text, I have tried to live my life based on this comic strip < Pontius comic > . For those of you who maybe can’t read it, this is the Pontius Puddle comic from the July/AUG 1999 ISSUE OF THE Observer magazine. One character says “Sometimes I’d like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice when he could do something about it”. The other character asks, “What’s stopping you? “. The answer, “I’m afraid God might ask me the same question?”
That’s everything. I could just stop talking now and say that’s the Sermon’s over. Thank you for your time and let’s go have coffee.
Really, to me this comic strip sums up Christ’s message in the new testament. It is brutally direct and honest. In TWO FRAMES!!! This has comic has held me accountable for my life’s actions for a quarter of a century. I also think this particular strip also reflects United Church theology – we don’t hold God accountable for all the awfulness that happens in our world, but we should be hearing a call to action. This is a repeated and overlying theme in the gospels.
Recently I picked up some of my backdated copies of Broadview Magazine. For anyone that is not familiar with this publication, it has experienced many name changes, but it first published in 1829 (and is the oldest continuously published magazine in North America, and the second oldest in the English-speaking world. 195 years!!! It is affiliated with the United church of Canada. Sadly this same church, our larger church, significantly reduced funding to Broadview several months ago. It has excellent articles that delve deep into challenging social issues; I would HIGHLY recommend it! But what I just discovered is that it contains a new comic near the back by the Naked Pastor. As intriguing as this pseudonym is, the creator, David, a former Presbyterian Pastor, says that the idea behind the name is “to seek to tell the naked truth”. The Naked Pastor’s mission is that people “feel seen, loved and accepted not matter who they are, who they love or what they believe”.
Here is the Naked Pastor’s take on LGBT community in the Fall issue of Broadview (A rainbow sheep enters a church and another sheep tells them “you are not welcome here”, so Jesus leaves with the rainbow sheep and then the sheep left ask “Where did Jesus go?”). How many of you sat in United Church Pews in 1988 when the ordinance came down from General council that homosexuals could be ordained? That was a defining moment in modern United church history because it asked us 2 questions: 1. how we were going to interpret the bible – were we going to interpret literally or instead understand the broad context of the writing? 2. how we accept people on the fringe of the society. Were we going to stand with the LGBTQ2+ community? Which for me in the same breath, also meant, were we going to stand with tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers etc. Those were the people that Christ left the traditional synagogues to stand in solidarity with. Bravo United Church of Canada for standing with Christ in this.
Our church has done a good job in our affirming ministry. It became very trendy for a while to have homosexual friends. Honestly, we became the bell of the ball for a while. But that was so yesterday – most of the party invitations have dried up! What we now need to ask ourselves now is how are we doing with the other groups in that LGBTQ2+ community? I say PLUS because there are infinite ways to define our sexuality and our identities. Have we, in THIS church, fully accepted and supported ALL members of the spectrum of humanity (I include those suffering from mental illness, those with drug addictions, visible minorities or even lawyers?)? In the June issue of Broadview The Naked Pastor challenges us to the next level with this cartoon (A baby lamb with the Trans-colours is being lifted joyously into the air by a rainbow and normal coloured sheep) indicating that the Trans-community are at the place homosexuals were at in the past. Being trans-friendly is trendy now, but that doesn’t mean we are doing a good job (?) and honestly I don’t know if we are or are not – I would have to ask some Trans people. Have we engaged in those conversations? Where I think we definitely still have work to do is with welcoming all gender identities – identities that are more fluid than the pink and blue represented by the trans flag (they are the muddled colours on the outside), gender identities where pronouns are more blurred. Many of us here are probably unsure what to do with gender fluidity and maybe even uncomfortable with this group. I think that is our upcoming challenge and we should welcome and embrace that challenge just as we did with homosexuality back in 1988.
In the Apr/May 2024 Broadview magazine, this cartoon was featured (Jesus is saying to a crowd “ when I said ‘go out and change the world’, I meant into a better place”). It is really dangerous to even get me started about this cartoon. We could look at this one as individuals. We could look at it as a society or more specifically as a settler society. We could look at it from an ecological point of view. We could look at it from so many different social justice perspectives. But maybe what we really need to do is put the shoe on the other foot and look at it from the point of view of the receiver of the changed world. If you were first nations how would you see this cartoon? If you are a visible minority? If you are an endangered species? If you are poor? If you have a drug addiction? If you are the planet itself? If you are mentally ill? Are we ready to face our own naked truth here? The corollary question to this cartoon is what positive change can we do and when are we getting started? I hope the answer is today, because the time to change the world for the better is always NOW.
The final cartoon (Jesus looks into a mirror and sees a lot of people in it): We sometimes talk about having Christ in us. But what if Christ did a self-examination and found us in him? Honestly that takes my breath away. What if I were divine?! THAT changes everything! What then becomes my responsibility in who I am in this world and how I act? And if this cartoon rings true, then, as the saying goes, We are NOT alone – ever. So coming back to my first cartoon, If my life is sacred, then God has every right to ask me what I am doing for the world.
Did you ever think anyone would set cartoonists up as the gold standard for honesty? I think they are. Are we each ready to face our Naked Truths? Are we as a church ready to face our naked Truths? Karen a couple of weeks ago suggested Comox United needs to do some honest self-examination. Are we asking and answering ourselves as honestly as cartoonists do about our motives and our actions? What if we each lived such that our lives could be laid bare with the brutal honesty of a cartoonist. That is the challenge, the way we are supposed to live!