I want to build off what Father Nick wrote about in last week’s newsletter, partly because I love hip-hop and partly because I have been watching the show Atlanta in my spare time. Atlanta, created by Donald Glover, on the surface, is a show about the career of a hip-hop artist – from struggling to start his career, all the way to post-stardom. But what the show is really about is a group of people starting their life on the bottom of the socio-economic ladder because of history, politics, geography and so many other factors. It is about how they navigate the world as African Americans, in spaces that are for them and spaces that are against them.

Atlanta does a good job at showing a nuanced prospective on race and justice in the US, and even compares it to the rest of the world. The show is a comedy, yet it masterfully grapples with complicated and painful issues. And I have learned a lot from watching it.

See, I am not African American nor am I White. I recognize that there is a lot I need to learn from both perspectives, and art is a great way to understand and gain perspective of a different culture. I feel especially called not just as a priest but as a Christian to try to understand the perspectives of others. I am called to engage with others just as Jesus does in his earthly ministry.

We hear Jesus doing this all throughout the Gospels. We heard it in the Gospel lesson last week, which was about parables. Each one of the parables, having to do with the Kingdom of God, uses culturally relevant metaphors for the time, like the work of farmers, or fishermen, or bakers. And so I began the sermon with a couple of parables explaining the Kingdom of God for our times, of finding that lost remote, of spending time with loved ones, and so on.

Extending the need for seeing others’ perspectives, even if we do not agree with it, even if we do not understand it, is vital to a Christian life. We are called to be in community. We are called to love each other, not despite our difference but even with disagreement. This is the big tent that not just Episcopalians believe in but is in the DNA of Christianity.

Community, fellowship, and church is easy when we view the world the same. But Jesus challenges us to move beyond what is comfortable. It is easy to put up fences and stick with those who have the same identity marker as us. But again, as Jesus himself showed us, we are called to move beyond. Jesus was baptized, not because he needed to be saved or welcomed in the church, but because he chose to go into the depths of what it means to be a human. In the muddy waters of the Jordan, to hang around with sinner, to answer questions of those who judged him and most importantly, to give radical love to all.

-Celal