What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?

A sermon in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his call to be creatively maladjusted

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Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

January 19, 2025

“What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?”

1st Corinthians 12: 1-11 – Common English Bible

Brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts. 2 You know that when you were Gentiles you were often misled by false gods that can’t even speak. 3 So I want to make it clear to you that no one says, “Jesus is cursed!” when speaking by God’s Spirit, and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; 5 and there are different ministries and the same Lord; 6 and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. 7 A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good. 8 A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, 9 faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one Spirit, 10 performance of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different kinds of tongues[a] to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another. 11 All these things are produced by the one and same Spirit who gives what he wants to each person

“I am proud to be maladjusted.”  Martin Luther King, Jr., gave this speech to the American Psychological Association in 1967.  It’s a pretty provocative thing to encourage a group of psychologists to embrace the term maladjusted.   We pay a lot of money to therapists and counselors to help us achieve what we can call “normal.”  But, of course, the idea of normal can be just as perilous a concept as maladjusted.  Do we really want to adjust to something called “normal?”

Psychologist Jamie Walters said, “‘Normal’ is an amazing lie.  It doesn’t exist, which is why the pursuit of it is an exercise in futility, suffering, and diminishment.”[1]  It ends up meaning “fitting in, toning it down, shutting up…”  I like the descriptor, “you might be right, but tone it down.”  

One of my favorite actors is Stockard Channing.  She played Aunt Frances in the movie Practical Magic and said, “My dear girl, when are you going to understand that being normal isn’t a virtue.  It rather denotes a lack of courage.”

Well, Dr. King said, “I never intend to become adjusted to discrimination and segregation.  I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry.  I never intend to become adjusted to economic conditions that take from the many to give to the few.”  If that’s what normal is, I am proud to be maladjusted.  

He didn’t mean maladjusted in the dictionary sense – of being unable to cope or emotionally unstable.  Rather, he advocated for his audience to be creatively maladjusted and work to change what those in power define normal.

Years before, he gave a sermon in which he encouraged his congregation to become “transformed non-conformists.”  On its own, he said, being non-conformist isn’t a virtue.  He advised that non-conformity without transformation might just mean being an exhibitionist, simply to get attention.  Rather, Dr. King spoke of our Christian vocation by quoting a familiar passage from the Book of Romans:  “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Be not conformed.  Great line, but what does it mean?

The Common English Bible translates the verse this way:  “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is – what is good and pleasing and mature.”  I like that clarification:  don’t conform to the patterns of this world that cause the rich to get richer and the poor to be blamed for being poor as though that’s just how it is.  Oh well, or oops. Or like the violent enforcement of obscenely wealthy, straight, white, Christian, men on top.  This doesn’t happen by accident.  It’s by design.

Over and over, confronting such designed patterns to change them has been necessary to bring about more inclusion in our country.  When we think of Dr. King, for example, we often think of voting.  

At first, the United States experiment with democracy granted the right to vote only for a narrow subset — white male landowners.  The Constitution left it to states to determine who is qualified to vote.  Some states added a religious test to ensure that only Christian men could vote.[2]  During the early 19th century, state legislatures began to lift the property-owner requirement.  

Later, following the Civil War during Reconstruction, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified by the states, that ensured men could not be denied the right to vote because of their race, except it explicitly excluded Native American men.  However, many states rushed to add a range of barriers, such as poll taxes and literacy tests.  

Early in the 20th century, women still were only able to vote in a handful of states.  After decades of hard-fought organizing and activism, women nationwide won the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.  White women, that is.

The struggle for equal voting rights for all people of color continued until its climax in Selma on Bloody Sunday when advocates like Amelia Boynton Robinson were brutally attacked by state troopers.  She was beaten unconscious and suffered throat burns from tear gas.  John Lewis’ skull was cracked.  A shocked and horrified nation pushed a bipartisan Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965 – again, thanks to folks like Amelia and John and thousands of people who challenged the patterns, risking their lives.  And, of course, the civil rights leader we honor today, Martin Luther King, Jr.

But the pendulum swung backward in 2013 when the Supreme Court rolled back the protections of the Voting Rights Act, allowing states that once discriminated to reconstruct their restrictions because “we don’t need those anymore.”  In the aftermath, 23 states have since passed laws to make voting harder.  The Department of Justice described a new North Carolina law as being designed with “almost surgical precision” to hinder African American voting.  

Right alongside the reversal of voting rights, it’s not by accident that poverty and economic inequality are growing today even more extreme.  In 1967, Dr. King called out “the three evils of society,” that exist in a vicious cycle.  Namely, the “giant triplets of racism, militarism, and poverty.”  

We should not simply adjust to this reality.  In response, we should be Christians.  And what does it mean to be a Christian?  It is to follow Jesus who opened every door and overcame every barrier that caused separation one from another with such examples as the Good Samaritan.

What does it mean to be a Christian?  It is to be a creatively maladjusted transformed non-conformist.  Say that three times fast.  By the renewal of our minds, it is to refuse to accept, it is to interrupt patterns in which, for example, people are denied access to health care because they can’t afford it, or denied access to a good education because they live in the wrong zip code, or denied the right to live their God-given identity because someone else’s religious beliefs don’t like it.  Or throw up our hands at a warming earth.  Refuse to accept.  Interrupt the pattern.

Dr. King tells us exactly where to begin:  “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously” the giant triplets of evil in the world – “in a humble and loving spirit.”  He said, “The saving of our world will not come from the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but the creative maladjustment of the nonconforming minority.”  

As our country becomes even more divided, where division is celebrated because a divided people will look for blame in every direction except those trying to enrich themselves, we can learn from Dr. King how to engage with each other through lessons from the Six Principals of Non-Violence.  Here is a refresher: [3]

PRINCIPLE ONE: Nonviolence Is a Way of Life for Courageous People.  It is not a method for cowards but is aggressive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

PRINCIPLE TWO: Nonviolence Seeks to Win Friendship and Understanding.

PRINCIPLE THREE: Nonviolence Seeks to Defeat Injustice, Not People.

PRINCIPLE FOUR: Nonviolence Holds That Unearned, Voluntary Suffering for a Just Cause Can Educate and Transform People and Societies.

PRINCIPLE FIVE: Nonviolence Chooses Love Instead of Hate.

PRINCIPLE SIX: Nonviolence Believes That the Universe Is on the Side of Justice.  

The nonviolent resister has deep faith that God is a God of justice, to whom we pray, “whenever we settle for the way things are instead of the way you would have them be, forgive us.  Help us renew our minds so we can figure out your will, what is good and pleasing and mature.”

What does it mean to be a Christian? 

It’s to never become adjusted to a world in which white people are superior.  Or as Dr. King said in his time, adjusted to discrimination and segregation.  And to never become adjusted to religious bigotry.  And as he said, “I never intend to become adjusted to economic conditions that take from the many to give to the few.”  If that’s what we adjust to and accept as normal, then we need to pray.  

Join me in Rev. King’s prayer:

 One: O Thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being,

 All:  we humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our whole hearts, souls and minds, and we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loved us.

 One: We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ.

 All: We often give in order to receive. We often love our friends and hate our enemies.  We go the first mile but dare not travel the second. We forgive but don’t dare to forget.

 One: And so, as we look within ourselves, we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against you.

 All: But thou, O God, have mercy upon us. Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know your will. Give us the courage to do your will. Give us the devotion to love thy will.

 One:  In the name and spirit of Jesus, we pray. Amen

[1] Jamie S. Walters, “Why is Normal Not a Virtue?”
[2] The following section is informed by https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/voting-rights-timeline/
[3] https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/