This week I finished reading the book entitled Hamilton:The Revolution which describes what went into the creation of the play that has become an international sensation. The book describes the history of the play, the many people that went into making it a reality, the achievement of it, and the power of the statement it continues to make to many about what it means to be an American.
Truly, that most of the roles of the nation’s founders are played by people of various ethnicities alone was impactful. The actors themselves spoke of the power this had on their own sense of “belonging” in this nation. And audiences were left with a challenge to “not throw away their shot” at becoming an answer to the divisions experienced in our nation. Indeed, it helps that the story of Alexander Hamilton is the story of an orphaned immigrant, who ought to have died either in the hurricane that had hit the island where he was born or of the same illness that took his mom’s life yet he lived to change this nation.
The quotes and tweets of actors, the director, choreographer, costumer, set designer and author add power and heart to the challenges faced to produce this first-ever play of its kind. That every line is sung and in rap alone is remarkable. It was all written by Lin-Manual Miranda and evokes the emotion and power of that and this era of history.
Before every show, Chris Jackson, who played George Washington, would gather all his castmates and arrange them in a prayer circle beneath the stage. “Hey, every great team has a huddle, right?” he’d quip. He would tell them to breathe and breathe again, and then would offer a little benediction, half pep talk, half petition to the Almighty. He’d say, “Let’s be sure, that no matter what happens out there, I’ve got you. Let’s agree that for the next 2.5 hours this is the most important thing we will do in our lives. He closes with the hope that everyone in the audience, on the stage and in the orchestra pit would leave the theater a better person than they walked in.”
Lin-Manual Miranda says of his friend Chris, if he had wanted to be a pastor, he would have a megachurch.
Through a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, thousands of high schoolers came to see the production and left impacted by the lives depicted. Their teachers gave them various assignments to follow up on the experience. One teacher asked the students to debate various topics by using poetry and rap not prose as the medium. The teacher said the result was powerful as the students‘ creativity was placed on display.
The effort to produce this magnitude of a play took weeks of intense rehearsals. Reading this I was astounded at how malleable the entire project was right up to the critic performance on Broadway after which they could not make other changes.
But the thing which stood out the most, other than the genius behind it all was this one fact: this play illustrates that it was not through one person but through the combined work of many that this nation was built. It was not built through all one race and gender, but through the actions of all, working in unity that brought the nation (and the play) into being. Indeed, the unity of the nation is heightened by its diversity.
This one reality spoke to my heart as I read the book.
The UMC as a global denomination is facing division. We are needing to hear this message:
We need each other.
We are instantly impoverished when we cut off one viewpoint. Who has the corner on God or Jesus? Would any of us audaciously claim that our thinking is the only thinking possible on any one topic? Could it be this difficult journey of the UMC is an opportunity for us to rediscover the importance of each person, of each of us? I know that here at Westside we are richer because we have a breadth of theological understandings within our congregation. All of us have unique experiences with Jesus. And all of us have unique testimonies to share.
None of know what will happen in the UMC. On Sunday 1/26 we talked some about the possibilities. However, we don’t know what’s Coming.
We do know: God is good and that the church is of God. So the church is not in danger due to any human action. And we do know this too — we need to stick together to achieve anything.