The Church Has A Straight White Man Problem

1 Corinthians 12:12–27 (Common English Bible)
Christ is just like the human body — a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink.

Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell?

But as it is, God has placed each one of the parts in the body just like they wanted. If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? But as it is, there are many parts but one body. So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary.

The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we honor the most. The private parts of our body that aren’t presentable are the ones that are given the most dignity. The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other.

If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it. You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.

A few years ago, during the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Elizabeth Warren announced that she would be giving a speech in Washington Square Park in New York City. At the time, I conveniently worked at a church located on Washington Square Park in New York City. I was interested in Warren’s campaign and considering voting for her, so I figured I’d stick around after work to see what she had to say. Given that the church building looked directly onto the park, I thought I would be clever and avoid the crowd by finding some way to view her speech from the church.

Now, there was a window that spun open at the top of the wooden staircase at the main entrance, and I could have watched the speech from there. However, we were doing construction on the roof at the time, so that particular window was covered in scaffolding. Instead, I decided that I would use the scaffolding to my advantage.

At the front of the sanctuary were two closets, each containing a spiral staircase that led up to a series of small rooms. If you’re imagining something vaguely Harry Potter-related, then you’re not far off. In fact, these rooms were filled with a wide variety of creepy items including a toilet so small that it could only ever have been used for potty-training toddlers, a large bag of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, and a door that previously opened onto the roof of the building next door, but now opened straight into a brick wall. The only logical conclusion one could reach is that the rooms were once the living quarters of a collection of orphan ghosts, as if Newsies had somehow gone terribly wrong.

The room in the middle, directly above the sanctuary’s rose window, was primarily dominated by an HVAC unit mounted to the ceiling that came down about four feet above the floor, which made it difficult to navigate for adults, but of course posed no problems for the orphans, even if they weren’t ghosts.

Behind that unit was a window to the outside world. When you climbed out of that window, you found yourself on a bit of a terrace between the church building and the taller, newer building behind it. That terrace extended about 10 feet on either side, before it dropped off to another level much lower. Thus, in normal times, it was impossible to walk all the way to the side of the church building.

But, my friends, these were not normal times. Remember the building was covered in scaffolding, and the window was bisected by a wooden beam. So to exit the window, you had to slither your way out through the small space between the beam and the top of the window frame, and that’s exactly what I did. Then, because of the scaffolding, I was able to walk the full length to the edge of the building and look straight into the park, under the arch, and see Elizabeth Warren.

However, I’m using the word “see” loosely. I was so far away that when I took a photo of my view, I had to circle her so that my friends could even see where she was. Still, the speech was projected loudly through a variety of speakers and I could hear her just fine.

During the speech, Warren referenced another building in the neighborhood, just a few minutes’ walk to the east. That building was where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire occurred 108 years earlier. Those who paid attention in US History class will know of the incident to which I’m referring, but I’ll forgive you if you don’t remember trivial details from high school.

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of a building in New York City’s Greenwich Village. One day, a fire broke out in the factory, and the employees headed for the exits to save themselves. Unfortunately, the factory exits were locked, a common practice at the time to make sure that nobody took unauthorized breaks. Because there was no other way to escape the flames, a number of workers jumped out of the building, but none survived the fall. Ultimately, 146 people died in the fire, most of whom were female immigrants ranging in age from 14 to 23.

At this point, I reflected on both the miraculous interconnectedness and terrifying fragility of the human body. After all, I had used my body, each arm and leg, to climb up to the perch from which I heard Warren’s speech. And, just over 100 years earlier, people who worked in the exact same neighborhood sacrificed their bodies, jumping from a height not too dissimilar from mine, because the smoke of a fire filled the air their bodies needed to survive.

That brings us to the scripture reading, where Paul discusses the intricate connections of the human body and compares it to the body of Christ. The eye can’t say it doesn’t need the hand and the head can’t say it doesn’t need the feet. After all, what would the body be if it were all made up of just one part? It wouldn’t be good for much, now would it?

And yet, as we all know, the church in America throughout its history has largely been dominated by a single part — straight, white men. Despite the clear exhortations of Paul that the body of Christ be all-inclusive, these men maintained an iron grip on power, only releasing it when the pressure to do so became insurmountable. And so, for decades, we’ve missed out on the contributions of queer people, people of color, and women.

Just last week, I was reading about James Anderson Smith, known as the Father of Dallas Methodism because he was the first preacher to establish a Methodist church in Dallas County. Smith’s other life accomplishments included owning 19 slaves and fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

But let’s not be too harsh on Rev. Smith — how could he have known that slavery was wrong? After all, this was the 1850s and 60s, when slavery was quite common. It’s not as if the United Kingdom abolished slavery in all of its colonies in 1833. It’s not as if the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, wrote the following to slave owners in the 1770s, nearly 100 years earlier: “Have you no sympathy, no sense of human woe, no pity for the miserable? Immediately quit the horrid trade.”

Wait, I’m sorry; I’m being told that both of those things did happen, and James Anderson Smith was a terrible person. And this was the person who started the Methodist church in Dallas. You see, the roots of the tree are rotten and the foundation of the house is cracked. It’s no wonder that later generations of straight, white men spent so many years insisting that the body of Christ only needed their part and no other.

To pick a Methodist institution at random, look at Perkins School of Theology. In its history, Perkins has had 11 deans — all of whom were straight, white men. And so throughout history, the church has gone stumbling through the wilderness, not just with two left feet, but with an entire body of left feet.

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to insist that the body be made whole — that women be given equal attention as men, that people of color be given equal priority as white people, and that queer people be given equal weight as straight people. The body of Christ, the church, is not complete without all of its parts.

And yet, can we take a moment to acknowledge the ableism of this metaphor? While the body of Christ might be insufficient without full inclusion, the human body is no less valid if it doesn’t have hands or feet and no less complete without the ability to see or hear.

How ironic is it that in Paul’s attempt to extol the virtues of inclusivity that he manages to offend a certain subgroup of people — those with physical disabilities. Thank God that the Holy Spirit didn’t stop speaking in the 1st century and we can see ways in which the Bible’s authors were wrong or misinformed or simply ineloquent.

Let it be a lesson in humility for ourselves, as we work to widen the circle of inclusion, our descendants will certainly look back and see all of the ways we fell short. But let that not be an excuse to avoid the good, necessary, and difficult work of incorporating the diverse parts of God’s universal church.

At all times may we ask the hard questions — who isn’t here? And why aren’t they? And what can I do to make sure they’re included next time? God has created a human populace with beautiful, incredible diversity. What a shame it would be to rely on just one part of that body. Amen.

Note: This sermon was preached at Perkins School of Theology on Wednesday, September 6, 2023.