Calling all ‘holy troublemakers’
CSW delegate preaches sermon on disrupting the status quo
NEW YORK — Sometimes, it’s necessary to get into “good trouble,” even if you’re a woman who was raised to be a conformist.
So says the Rev. Lyn Oakley, an east Tennessee pastor, speaking in the Tillman Chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City on Friday.
“If you're serious about doing what is right, if you were raised to care about right and wrong, eventually you're going to bump into something that is wrong, and we all have a choice in that moment,” said Oakley, pastor of Washington Presbyterian Church near Knoxville. “Stay quiet, stay respectful, stay in your place that was already carved out for you, or pursue justice, and risk being called 'trouble.'”
Those who fight against injustices in society join a pantheon of troublemakers that includes Sojourner Truth, John Lewis, Dorothy Day, the Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon and many others.
“They were raised, I'm guessing, or formed to care about what is right, and when they took that formation seriously, it disrupted the status quo,” Oakley said. “This is the lineage we stand in, and Scripture gives us our own examples,” including Tamar and the Syrophoenician mother who refused to accept her daughter’s exclusion as final.
“If you lose sleep over what is unfair, if you feel that tug in your spirit when access is denied for you or your siblings, you are already … in the lineage,” Oakley said. “When you made the choice to come here, you were in the lineage.”
She also noted that achieving justice takes action. “Access is not granted because we politely request it. Access is granted because someone, somewhere, decided that justice matters more than comfort.”
Oakley delivered the sermon on the final day of worship for many Presbyterians taking part in a joint delegation to the 70th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. (Watch here.)
The Presbyterians, accompanied by the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations and Presbyterian Women, led worship on March 13 for Ecumenical Women, a coalition of more than 20 Christian organizations that advocates at the UN for gender equality.
CSW’s focus this year has been on improving access to justice for women and girls.
In addition to Oakley’s sermon, the morning worship included hymns such as “We Are One in the Spirit.” There also was a time of confession acknowledging the times when participants had chosen “comfort over courage” and benefitted from unfair systems.
Oakley began her sermon by talking about her family upbringing and its emphasis on conformity, which included not disobeying her grandmother, not embarrassing her family and not being too nosy.
However, “our anchor text today (Deuteronomy 16:20) says justice and only justice you shall pursue so that you may live ...,” Oakley said. Justice is not “reputation management,” she noted. It’s also “not keeping everybody happy,” even one’s own family.
She also noted how crucial justice is, saying, “Justice is how communities stay inhabitable. Justice is how land remains livable. Justice is how people breathe.”
Sojourner Truth displayed a willingness to fight for justice when she “stood up in a room full of men and asked, 'Ain't I a woman?'" Oakley said. "She wasn't trying to cause chaos. She was insisting on truth, and truth unsettles systems that are built on lies — lies that say you aren't worthy,” Oakley said. “Why are you not worthy? Because you're a woman, because you're of color, because you're one of our LGBTQIA siblings.”
How to respond in such situations?
“You take note, you study the system, you understand the room you walk in, but you do not let injustice tell you who you are or where you belong,” Oakley said.
She directed the crowd to say out loud, “I'm a holy troublemaker,” and then to turn to some of their neighbors and say, “You are a holy troublemaker.”
She also encouraged them to wear that label proudly.
“If the world feels a little more unsettled by injustice and a little more hopeful for life because you showed up, then thanks be to God,” she said.
In the Bible, there are multiple examples of disruption of the status quo.
“We are rooted ..., rooted in a God who hears Hagar in the wilderness, rooted in a God who sides with widows, rooted in a God who rolls stones away from tombs,” Oakley said. “If resurrection is anything, it is the ultimate ‘good trouble’ — a sealed grave disrupted, a closed future reopened, a silenced voice speaking again.”
So take heart. “Maybe you were raised to stay out of trouble, but you're also raised to tell the truth, to protect the vulnerable, to do what is right, and when you take that seriously, when you pursue justice, you may very well find yourself in trouble,” Oakley said. “ I hope you do. I've got bail money.”
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