The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



Proper 9, Year A, July 3, 2011, St. Ann’s Church Nashville

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matt. 11:25).

“Grassroots” : a quick look in Wikipedia reveals that the term is linked to Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge, who at the birth of Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party in the early twentieth century is supposed to have said “This party has come from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of people’s hard necessities.” The notion is that the “grassroots” grow somewhere else than in corporate boardrooms, the ivory towers of academe, or the infamous “smoke-filled rooms” where political deals are made. The grassroots are more basic than this, more modest, a place where people dwell in the real world closer to the urgent necessities of living.

“Grassroots” as a metaphor works from the bottom up, not the top down. In a democratic society almost every political movement wants at the very least to seem to be grassroots, though it pays for us to be fairly discerning about what truly is grassroots and what just appears to be so. And we should probably not lose sight of the fact that not every grassroots movement is necessarily a good one.

Our Gospel reading today reminds us that Jesus’ movement was from its beginnings a grassroots movement of the most authentic sort. The contrast that Jesus makes in our reading is between “the wise and the intelligent” and “infants”: not literally children but anyone who was of no account in the eyes of the authorities. That of course included children who didn’t count for much in the ancient world, but it also included most everyone else. The wise and intelligent are the religious authorities who study and interpret the Law, sufficient credential (at least in their own eyes) for wisdom and intelligence. The religious authorities of Jesus’ day had a term for the sort of people that Jesus gathered around him: “the people of the land” or as we might say “country bumpkins.”

But it’s exactly these people, not a part of the political, academic, or cultural elite, who are the ones to whom the Father chooses to reveal himself. It’s here that Jesus gained his first followers. Our reading establishes his reputation for hanging out not just with a bunch of hayseeds from Galilee but with marginal folk of all sorts, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, people who cooperated with the Roman occupation authorities and with folks who broke the religious law. Jesus was grassroots enough to hang out at the local block party where there was plenty of piping and dancing and even some imbibing (as he himself alludes to). Maybe a good thing to remember on this 4th of July weekend, where I think there’s going to be some of this happening right around here, and maybe in your neighborhood too.

This grassroots characteristic from Jesus’ time stuck with the early Church. “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth,” the Apostle Paul writes to the Church in Corinth. Paul makes the theological point that God’s purpose was to choose those who were lowly to demonstrate God’s power and grace, even to a bunch of country bumpkins like us.

So the question is, who doesn’t want to be wise and intelligent? Who doesn’t want to be an insider, to have the inside track? Who doesn’t want to have power and access? Show me a grassroots movement and I’ll show you a movement that wants to possess these things, that wants to turn the grassroots into something else. History shows that revolutions tend to become entrenched, yesterday’s outsiders inevitably become today’s insiders, and so history goes. Jesus is getting at something else with his grassroots movement, and that is a community with enough humility to embrace the way of the cross. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

The way of the cross takes us through death to resurrection. It’s the practical embodiment of a life lived from the bottom up, because you cannot get any lower or more basic than the crucifixion. Paul talks in First Corinthians about how God uses “things that are not” (1 Cor. 1:28) to work his will, and I believe he’s talking about the crucified Messiah himself who literally is “nothing” when his body is brought down from the cross. Now that’s “grassroots”, but it yields new life for those who have the humility to trust in him.

Those being confirmed and received today are walking in this way of the cross, having enough humility to stand up today and encourage all of us by their willingness to become a part of this grassroots movement, more profound than any political power grab. You are witnessing to the power of the Gospel, which uses even folks like us to advance this project. You are witnessing to the power of God to turn even folk like us into the building blocks of the kingdom. You are showing us the way, from the grassroots up.

- The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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