"From Mozart to Kinky Boots and Beyond"
Scripture - Acts 7:55-60
Sermon Preached by Randall T. Clayton
Sunday, May 18, 2014

A friend recently gave me a comic strip in which one man tells the other, "Writing hymns is harder than I thought. I can't think of anything that rhymes with €˜hallelujah' except €˜glad I knew ya,' and €˜we'll tattoo ya.'" While lyrics to hymns often do rhyme, hymn writing is more complex than just coming up with rhyming words. I mean, the music needs to somehow fit the words. You wouldn't want a hymn, for instance, about the resurrection set to a dirge. When the right music gets set to the right lyrics, music becomes a vital way in which we sing our story, sing God's story, proclaim God's promises, and remember the hope we have through Jesus Christ.

As we worship this morning, hopefully, Mozart's music is inspiring us, moving us, and causing us to see and understand in new ways, God's love and care for us.

Recently I had the opportunity to see the Tony award winning Broadway musical, Kinky Boots. The music in that show is nothing like Mozart's mass. Cindy Lauper, who composed the music for Kinky Boots and Mozart, who composed the music for today's mass, had very different ideas of music. Yet both used music to tell a story.

Based on real life, Kinky Boots is the story of Charlie, whose family has owned and operated a factory which produced men's shoes in a small town in England for several generations. When Charlie's father dies and he's forced to come back home to run the factory, he suddenly realizes that the factory is near bankruptcy. Although they have been known for the quality of the shoes they produce, their shoes are stodgy and old fashioned and the market has dried up for them. Charlie is forced to start giving his employees the "pink slip" - 2 weeks more and that's it. But he struggles mightily with doing that partly because he grew up with all of his employees, and he knows that the food on their tables, and the roofs over their heads, and the clothes on their backs come from the wages they earn at his factory. Without his factory, they will face financial ruin.

In the meantime, Charlie is inadvertently involved in a street altercation which results in his meeting a drag queen whose stage name is Lola. Charlie notices that she and her backup group of drag queens, called her "angels", are performing in high heels that were made for a woman, not a man. Not being designed to carry the weight of a large male, the shoes are unreliable and uncomfortable. When he asks Lola why she wears these, Lola tells him that this footwear is essential to the costume she is wearing and the act she is performing. When she tells him that he would be surprised at the number of men who were longing for sturdy, high heeled women's footwear, he begins to ponder the possibility that perhaps there might be a niche market for the production of women's shoes made for a man to wear. Wanting to save his factory, he enlists Lola's help, and together they begin to produce Kinky Boots-thigh high, fire engine red, shiny leather boots with spiked heels designed to be worn by a man.

But even though the factory's future hung in balance, Charlie has trouble getting his workers to make the transition from the production of stodgy men's shoes to women's shoes made for men. His workers struggle with their prejudices, they give Lola a hard time, they let the quality of their work slip and the production line moves at a crawl. Something new and unfamiliar to them was uncomfortable and they fought it. They preferred to hang on to old ways, it might seem, even when those old ways were quite literally dying out.

Eventually, the factory workers get on board with the production of Kinky Boots. And the music that Cindy Lauper wrote to tell this story is thus often strong, upbeat, and in the end, it becomes music that makes the audience want to stand up, clap their hands, and tap their feet. But as a friend of mine says of that music, it's also music that is provocative, music that demands a response from the listener.

While it's unlikely that anyone in the history of Westminster Church has used the words "kinky" or "drag queen" from this pulpit as much as I have already used them today, I think it's also unlikely that if the passage of scripture we read a few minutes ago were set to music, the songs would make anyone want to clap hands or tap feet.

Stephen had been one of 7 men appointed by the apostles during the earliest days of the church to be responsible for making sure the widows got food and church's assistance to those in need got distributed fairly and equitably. All of the 7, according to Luke in Acts, were of good standing, full of the Spirit and wisdom too.

As Stephen engaged in these ministries of compassion, he was not shy about finding opportunities to share what he had seen and witnessed of Jesus Christ. And between his outpouring of compassion and the witness that he proclaimed, many people became upset. They declared he was uttering blasphemy; they proclaimed he was destroying time honored traditions; he was tinkering with the worship service they loved; and they felt certain that God wasn't doing anything that new or that unexpected in their midst.

Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin to answer their charges. In his defense, if you could call it that, he preached a sermon -- a long and somewhat convoluted sermon. The gist of the sermon was that time and time again, the people had rejected the new things God was doing in their midst; that time and time again, the people missed seeing what God was up to. Then Stephen ended the sermon with what was surely perceived as an insult by those sitting in judgment upon him: "You stiff necked people, uncircumcised of heart and ears...." And looking at them straight in the eye, he told them point-blank, I'm not the one who is breaking the law. No, it is you who received the law but did not keep it.

Sealing his fate as a martyr as soon as the sermon ended, he had a vision and he chose to share it with his judges. "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." Hearing Stephen say that Jesus was right up there with God was too much for them. It was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. They covered their ears, rushed at Stephen, drug him out of the city, threw stones at him until he died. And Luke tells us that a man named Saul stood by, approving of their actions, holding onto their coats as the mob hurled stone after stone at Stephen.

With ears closed to the possibility that perhaps God had a fresh word for a new day, with eyes shut to any possibility that the future might not be just like the past, with hearts closed to what God had in store, they branded Stephen a blasphemer and did away with him in short order.

If we set Stephen's story to music, we would probably choose sad, heavy, maybe even discordant music. It might be upsetting, unsettled, even angry music. In many ways it would be music very different than that of the show, Kinky Boots.

But like the music in Kinky Boots, the music for Stephen's story would need to be provocative because I think the story provokes us to ask ourselves: Are our ears really open to God's fresh word for this new day? Are we keeping our eyes open to the possibility that the future might not be just like the past? Are our hearts really open to whatever, whatever, God has in store for us and our world, to whatever God calls us to be and to become?

Not only would the right music for Stephen's story need to somehow provoke us to examine our own lives, but like the music of Kinky Boots, it would also need to have some strong hopeful notes woven all through it. While Stephen's story is indeed tragic and terrible, Stephen faced his death with courage, with trust in God's love. He faced his death very much like Jesus faced his. Yes, even as rocks hitting his flesh and bones, he prayed to God, asked for God's forgiveness for those hurting him, much as Jesus had done on the cross. Stephen bore witness to God's love and trusted that love and care even at the moment of his death. And that's hope. It's real Gospel hope even in the face of the worst that humans can do to one another.

And then there's Saul: approving, standing by, guarding the coats of the stone throwers. Clearly he was at least complicit in this ugly, horrible scene of mob violence; acts that I believe were rooted in a failure to hear God's fresh word for that new day. But God did not give up on Saul. God's relentless love pursued him, and it will not be too much longer before Saul the Christian martyr-maker turns completely around, and becomes known as Paul...Paul the prolific planter of churches, Paul the developer of Christian disciples.

God did not give up on Saul. And God does not give up on us.
Hope, real Gospel hope, abounds!

 

Prayers of the People ~ Gregory Knox Jones

God of Grace, you have shared your vision of a world where the hungry sit down to an elaborate feast and receive more than enough to fill them; where the ill leap like gazelles and dance late into the night; and where the blind gain 20/20 vision to see not only what is, but also what can be.

God, forgive us for reducing your grand vision for the world to something small and predictable and uninspiring. Forgive us for hopes that are miniscule and manageable and focused only on ourselves.

Pry open our eyes so that we may glimpse your dream of a world where everyone enjoys justice, receives respect and experiences generosity because every relationship is founded on compassion and a fervent desire to live together in peace.

God, our fear of change tempts us to become content with our life as it is. Nudge us out of our complacency and makes us discontent with a less than abundant life. Breathe new energy into our muscles that have grown weak and our wills that have grown indifferent. Open our hearts to your transforming Spirit so that we may embrace your summons to become more like Christ in all we say and do.

Spirit of hope, fill us with confidence that anticipates a glorious coming day and a determined will committed to working with one another to make your vision a reality.

We pray in the name of the one who taught us to pray together, saying, "Our Father..."