I've already emailed this to various people...
But I liked it so much that I'm posting it here for posterity.
"The Gospel According to Edith Bunker"
by The Rev. Susan Russell
Norman Lear broke so much ground during the "All In The Family" years that it's probably impossible to measure the impact the historic sitcom had on our collective American consciousness. We had a chance to touch a part of that history recently when Mr. Lear showed us a clip from an old episode as part of a benefit evening -- a clip that made me long for the return of the wisdom of Edith Bunker to our public discourse.
The event was "It's About Love," an evening celebrating music, love and equality honoring Bishop Gene Robinson and bringing together voices opposed to writing discrimination into the Constitution through the proposed marriage amendment. When it came time for Mr. Lear's part of the program the lights dimmed, the video cued up and a murmur of delight rippled through the hall as the familiar opening of Edith and Archie at the piano invited us once again into All-In-The-Family-Land.
The clip was a 1976 episode I'd either missed or forgotten featuring Edith's visit to her cousin Liz's "roommate" Valerie soon after her cousin's funeral. She's gone to retrieve a silver tea set that was a family heirloom -- and in the course of a classically "Edithesque" conversation comes to a new understanding about the nature of Liz and Valerie's twenty-five year relationship -- a conversation that concludes with Edith embracing her cousin's grieving partner and saying, "Then you must keep the tea set -- you was really her next of kin."
It was an amazing thing to experience that vignette from the sitcom aired nearly thirty years ago -- to watch Edith go from incredulity to acceptance in a five-minute segment. It seemed so simple -- so obvious -- so inevitable: of COURSE Valerie was Liz's next of kin - and Edith's loving acceptance of that reality -- as soon as she understood it -- was a sweet and tender moment made all the more poignant by the sober realization that decades later we are still fighting for the right to have the reality of our relationships acknowledged -- protected -- blessed.
And then perhaps the most amazing part of a most amazing evening: Mr. Lear described for us the process that made that segment possible -- shared with us the motivation he used to direct Jean Stapleton in the scene we had just seen. "It's the same question we always asked ourselves when we were figuring out what Edith would do," he said. "The question was 'What would Jesus do?'"
Say what? Thirty years before the ubiquitous WWJD bracelets a Jewish TV producer was asking the question, "What would JESUS do?" in order to figure out what would Edith Bunker do? And the answer was she would love -- she would respect -- she would be open to having her mind changed about what she thought to be fact ("You two COULDN'T be like married -- youse both girls!") when she came face to face with what she knew to be true ("You was really her next of kin!")
Fact and truth. Peter knew for a fact that some food was clean and some unclean -- some people chosen by God and some not. Knew it for a fact until the Holy Spirit revealed the truth that NOTHING God has made is unclean -- and through his witness the Good News of God in Christ Jesus would become available to all people: not just the ones who kept kosher. Jesus knew for a fact that the Syro-Phonecian woman who knelt before him in the dirt begging him to heal her daughter was not one of the chosen people of Israel to whom he had been sent. But then when he saw the truth that God's love, healing and mercy was greater than even he had imagined, he changed his mind and healed her daughter.
That's what's missing in our public discourse right now -- the willingness to be open to truths that are greater than the facts in front of us. The fact is marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman. The truth is that we are being called to open our eyes and expand that understanding: the truth is that what matters is not the gender of the parties committing themselves "to death do us part" but the commitment, the love, the family values they incarnate.
Did healing the Syro-Phonecian woman's daughter somehow diminish the healing of Peter's mother-in-law? Did the baptism of Cornelius and his household destroy the sanctity of the baptisms that went before them? Did the twenty-five year love and commitment between Valerie and Liz undermine the marriage of Edith and Archie? If we answer "no" to all of the above, then we answer "yes" to a God who continues to challenge us to see old understandings through new eyes -- who offers us the chance to claim the tradition of being bearers of Good News that is ever bigger, broader and more inclusive that we might have asked for or imagined.
When we offer our voices in support of the full inclusion of all baptized into the Body of Christ AND of all the citizens into equal protection under the Constitution we are not abandoning our tradition but claiming it: taking our place along with Peter -- and Edith -- as we answer "yes" to a tradition embodied by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and embraced by the faithful disciples throughout the generations.
"The Gospel According to Edith Bunker"
by The Rev. Susan Russell
Norman Lear broke so much ground during the "All In The Family" years that it's probably impossible to measure the impact the historic sitcom had on our collective American consciousness. We had a chance to touch a part of that history recently when Mr. Lear showed us a clip from an old episode as part of a benefit evening -- a clip that made me long for the return of the wisdom of Edith Bunker to our public discourse.
The event was "It's About Love," an evening celebrating music, love and equality honoring Bishop Gene Robinson and bringing together voices opposed to writing discrimination into the Constitution through the proposed marriage amendment. When it came time for Mr. Lear's part of the program the lights dimmed, the video cued up and a murmur of delight rippled through the hall as the familiar opening of Edith and Archie at the piano invited us once again into All-In-The-Family-Land.
The clip was a 1976 episode I'd either missed or forgotten featuring Edith's visit to her cousin Liz's "roommate" Valerie soon after her cousin's funeral. She's gone to retrieve a silver tea set that was a family heirloom -- and in the course of a classically "Edithesque" conversation comes to a new understanding about the nature of Liz and Valerie's twenty-five year relationship -- a conversation that concludes with Edith embracing her cousin's grieving partner and saying, "Then you must keep the tea set -- you was really her next of kin."
It was an amazing thing to experience that vignette from the sitcom aired nearly thirty years ago -- to watch Edith go from incredulity to acceptance in a five-minute segment. It seemed so simple -- so obvious -- so inevitable: of COURSE Valerie was Liz's next of kin - and Edith's loving acceptance of that reality -- as soon as she understood it -- was a sweet and tender moment made all the more poignant by the sober realization that decades later we are still fighting for the right to have the reality of our relationships acknowledged -- protected -- blessed.
And then perhaps the most amazing part of a most amazing evening: Mr. Lear described for us the process that made that segment possible -- shared with us the motivation he used to direct Jean Stapleton in the scene we had just seen. "It's the same question we always asked ourselves when we were figuring out what Edith would do," he said. "The question was 'What would Jesus do?'"
Say what? Thirty years before the ubiquitous WWJD bracelets a Jewish TV producer was asking the question, "What would JESUS do?" in order to figure out what would Edith Bunker do? And the answer was she would love -- she would respect -- she would be open to having her mind changed about what she thought to be fact ("You two COULDN'T be like married -- youse both girls!") when she came face to face with what she knew to be true ("You was really her next of kin!")
Fact and truth. Peter knew for a fact that some food was clean and some unclean -- some people chosen by God and some not. Knew it for a fact until the Holy Spirit revealed the truth that NOTHING God has made is unclean -- and through his witness the Good News of God in Christ Jesus would become available to all people: not just the ones who kept kosher. Jesus knew for a fact that the Syro-Phonecian woman who knelt before him in the dirt begging him to heal her daughter was not one of the chosen people of Israel to whom he had been sent. But then when he saw the truth that God's love, healing and mercy was greater than even he had imagined, he changed his mind and healed her daughter.
That's what's missing in our public discourse right now -- the willingness to be open to truths that are greater than the facts in front of us. The fact is marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman. The truth is that we are being called to open our eyes and expand that understanding: the truth is that what matters is not the gender of the parties committing themselves "to death do us part" but the commitment, the love, the family values they incarnate.
Did healing the Syro-Phonecian woman's daughter somehow diminish the healing of Peter's mother-in-law? Did the baptism of Cornelius and his household destroy the sanctity of the baptisms that went before them? Did the twenty-five year love and commitment between Valerie and Liz undermine the marriage of Edith and Archie? If we answer "no" to all of the above, then we answer "yes" to a God who continues to challenge us to see old understandings through new eyes -- who offers us the chance to claim the tradition of being bearers of Good News that is ever bigger, broader and more inclusive that we might have asked for or imagined.
When we offer our voices in support of the full inclusion of all baptized into the Body of Christ AND of all the citizens into equal protection under the Constitution we are not abandoning our tradition but claiming it: taking our place along with Peter -- and Edith -- as we answer "yes" to a tradition embodied by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and embraced by the faithful disciples throughout the generations.