(Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, Psalm 113,
I Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13)
Today we’re presented with a weird collage, an off-kilter kaleidoscope, of Scriptures: Jeremiah mourning the impending doom of his people; the letter to Timothy preaching what seems to be a very tame, domesticated, message that encourages kissing up to the powers that be, and Jesus’ famously difficult parable of the unjust steward – which seems to have 3 or 4 different lessons tacked randomly onto the end. If you came to hear a sermon that brings together this bizarre grouping of texts in perfect harmony – sorry to disappoint you – there may be someone out there who can do that, but that person’s not preaching here today. However, these texts, seemingly disconnected as they are, speak not only to their own time, but to our own. While I can’t bring these contrasting texts into perfect accord, let me try to unpack these them as best I can.
Jeremiah is the prophet whom God has saddled with the task of announcing to Judah its upcoming destruction. Jeremiah has tried – and tried – and tried to persuade Judah’s weak king, Zedekiah, and the political and religious establishment, but without avail. For his efforts, he’s been ostracized by family and friends, mocked, imprisoned. For this prophet, no good deed goes unpunished. In our reading today, it appears that some of Jeremiah’s fellow citizens at last see trouble on the horizon, and began to cry for God to save them – is not the Lord in Zion? Have we not always been told that God is on our side? They express their despair with seemingly deadpan words that form one of the saddest laments in the Bible: “the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” – Winter’s coming, and the cupboard is bare. But, for God, all this lament is too late – God gets his side of the argument in: “why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols.”
Given the treatment he has received, you might think that Jeremiah would become bitter, vengeful, willing to wash his hands of his disobedient people. If Jeremiah were of an especially nasty disposition, he might even cheer God on as destruction came on those who ignored his message. “Smite ‘em, Lord!” But that’s not how Jeremiah responds. Though he’s compelled to announce impending doom for his people, he takes no pleasure in the task. He stands with his people in their suffering – he literally wants to cry himself a river for what is about to befall his people. And in so doing, Jeremiah speaks for God. Even though God is about to deliver Judah into exile, he takes not the slightest pleasure in doing so. And, as future readings from Jeremiah will show, God is doing all this not to destroy his people, but so that a remnant may one day be restored to Judah. God’s punishment of Judah is not about being vindictive – God does not throw temper tantrums - but rather it is about getting peoples’ attention so that they may be restored to the path of faith. Because ultimately, even in this situation, God is in the salvation business – the same mission of salvation that God pursues to this day.
I say all this because in our own time, many self-appointed, self-anointed prophets speak harsh words in God’s name toward people who are at a safe distance from them. One might think of those who picket military funerals in order to express what they see as their righteous rage at various perceived national sins, or those who see certain illnesses, such as AIDS, as God’s punishment of those they consider especially revolting sinners. To those with whom they disagree, they say, “Turn or burn!!” In hearing these self-appointed and self-anointed prophets, we don’t get the slightest sense that they understand or identify with those they chastise. They speak of those with whom they disagree as if they’re some sort of lesser species of life, less than fully human. Their words, regardless how benign their intent, come across as mean-spirited, vindictive, hateful. This isn’t to say we are not to speak the truth in love – we are commanded to do that very thing, to speak the truth in love, even when it is painful - but part of that truth is that we are all sinners, that our own sin is as detestable to God as that of our neighbors, and it is only by God’s grace that we have a place to stand before God or any words at all to speak to our neighbor.
God’s love is not bounded by our categories. Last week, I mentioned the pastoral letter of our Conference Minister, the Rev. Dr. Russ Mitman, expressing his concern and disagreement with the pastor who threatened to burn copies of the Koran. Among Christians there is a wide range of views about where followers of Islam, people of the Koran, stand before God – and some Christians would say that followers of Islam are beyond God’s mercy. Traditionally, followers of Islam trace their lineage from Abraham, not through Isaac, but through Ishmael, the son of Abraham’s slave Hagar – remember that God also said that he would make a great nation from Ishmael. Because of this, many Christian readers of Genesis see Muslims as beyond the bounds of God’s grace. Some take the words of Scripture, “Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated” as a warrant to say that all followers of Islam are hated by God. I would challenge this view on several points: First, not all Muslims – perhaps not even most Muslims – claim Esau as an ancestor – remember, Esau was the elder son of Isaac, not Ishmael, just as Jacob, the favored one, was Isaac’s younger son. It is true that Esau married one of Ishmael’s daughters, but she was only one of Esau’s several wives. Esau was traditionally father of the Edomites, and there’s a variety of views concerning their outcome – some say they were the ancestors of some in Turkey and Jordan, some say they were the ancestors of the Idumeans who were absorbed into Israel, and some say they disappeared altogether, as the book of Obadiah prophesied. Secondly, I think it can justly be claimed that the words “Esau I hated” were primarily about whom God was going to use in bringing about the salvation of God’s people – in earthly terms, both Jacob and Esau prospered, but it was through the line of Jacob, not Esau, that Israel and Judah trace their history. In choosing Jacob, God rejected Esau. We might think of Jesus’ words in Luke 14:26 – “if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters – and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” We would not interpret this to think that we are to do ill or even wish ill toward our families or ourselves, but rather that we must be willing at any notice to set all these aside for the sake of the Gospel, if God so calls us.
Further, the later prophets – Isaiah, Hosea, speak of the nations – Gentiles - coming unto the Lord. Hosea speaks of those who were formerly considered “not my children” later being called “children of the living God.” We, every one of us here, are among those who in Paul’s words were grafted into the family of faith, not by birth but by faith. As one of my seminary professors said, salvation is not a matter of biology – not a matter of bloodlines – but rather a matter of pneumatology – the workings of the Holy Spirit. So when it comes to setting boundaries, to saying some are loved and others are hated, that is God’s business, not our own. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares, the wheat and the weeds, tells us that, in this life, it’s easy to confuse immature wheat with immature weeds, and vice versa. Only at the end will God sort the situation out. Separating wheat from weeds is above our pay grade, so to speak. As I’ve said before, in this life, God has appointed us to the invitation committee, not to the selection committee.
This is not to say that I endorse everything in the Koran. While the Koran speaks very highly of Jesus and accords Jesus the greatest respect as a prophet, it flatly rejects the idea of identifying Jesus with God. And on that point, Islam and Christianity part company. While I fully respect the rights of others to order their lives based on the Koran, to me it does not have the place of authority that our Bible, Old and New Testament both, has. All that said, it is not for us to say what plans God has for Muslims, in this world or the world to come. Again, that’s above our pay grade, at any rate certainly above mine. In the meantime, perhaps it is better for Christians to maintain respectful dialogue with Muslims than, in a show of contempt, to cut off all contact.
In our reading from I Timothy, some strong words are used: it speaks of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. There it is - God desires everyone to be saved, desires everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth. It’s right there in the Bible, in black and white. Whether in the interaction of divine omnipotence and human freedom – including freedom to turn away from God - whether God’s desire is fulfilled, is not for us to know in this life. But we are to treat everyone as one whom God desires to save. The injunction to pray for those in authority, while it seems like cringing and fawning under oppression, actually serves two very different purposes. First, remember that this was a time of emperor worship, and for a believer in Jesus Christ, praying freely for the emperor was a very welcome alternative to praying under compulsion to the emperor. And secondly, it is presented as an evangelistic strategy, a way of winning over hostile “powers that be” to the Gospel. Because even those hostile “powers that be” are people whom God desires to save. This doesn’t mean we have to submit or enable, much less encourage, the evil done by those in power – only that we are to remember them to God in prayer.
Finally, we have the famously difficult parable of the unjust steward – in today’s language, you’d perhaps say the parable of the crooked accountant. I’m a beancounter myself at my day job, and unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily help in untangling this parable. The beancounter’s boss suspected his dishonesty, and told the man to turn in his books. With his back against the wall – not strong enough to dig ditches, too proud to beg – he found a way to save his own skin by writing off part of the balance of all his master’s debtors, thus earning their undying gratitude and, he hoped, their assistance during his impending period of unemployment. And the master, however reluctantly, had to give credit where credit was due; the crooked beancounter found a clever way to save his own hide at his employer’s expense. The master couldn’t very well undo what the beancounter had done without opening a can of worms and putting himself in an awkward position. And from the point of view of those in debt to the master, the beancounter had extended grace and forgiveness to them – even though it wasn’t necessarily his to give. And Jesus says that the children of this age are smarter in dealing with their own kind than the children of light. In other words, if only those called to spread the Gospel – and that’s all of us – were as inventive and energetic and driven in working for the salvation of others, as the crooked accountant was in saving his own skin; if only we were as energetic in extending grace and forgiveness as disciples of Jesus as the crooked accountant was in his own self-interest – what a different neighborhood, what a different world it would be.
So our Scriptures this morning give us three very different images – a tearful, grief-stricken prophet, a prayerful disciple, and a crooked but inventive beancounter – of God’s great love for us, and for our neighbors, of God’s desire for reconciliation with us all. In the time of trial, when we or our family or friends are faced with tragedy, never doubt that God stands with us in the time of trial, that when we weep over tragedy, God weeps with us. God has not promised a blissful, carefree life, but rather that God will be present in all our cares and trials. And as disciples of Christ, we are to be present with others in their cares and trials, in the name of Jesus. May it be so with us here at Emanuel Church. Amen.
*********************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Saturday, September 25 at 1pm for our 149th anniversary picnic, and on September 26 at 10 am for our 149th anniversary worship celebration. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Lost and Found
(Scriptures: Exodus 32:7-14 Psalm 51
I Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10)
The 1971 movie Harold and Maude – has it really been 40 years since the initial release? – tells the story of two contrasting characters: a young man obsessed with death, who attends funerals as a hobby and stages fake suicide attempts in order to annoy his mother, who strikes up an offbeat friendship with a zany 79 year-old lady – whom he met at a funeral - who lives to make the most of what time she has. At one point, Harold, the young man, gives Maude, the older woman, a coin from he’d gotten from an arcade. The coin is stamped “Harold loves Maude”. At the time, the two are standing on a bridge, and Maude throws the ring off the bridge into the water. Responding to Harold’s baffled look of shock and disappointment, Maude says, “So I’ll always know where it is.”
Today’s Gospel from Luke contains two of our most beloved parables, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. We’re reassured that God cares for us so much that, even when we have lost our way, God comes looking for us.
I’d like us to think about our own experiences being lost. Can you remember a time you got lost? Maybe you were walking with a family member or close friend, not paying attention to your surroundings, you get separated, and all of a sudden realize you don’t know where you are or how you got there. Maybe you were at a public event and, in the crowd, got separated from family members. Maybe you were driving someplace unfamiliar, and there weren’t enough landmarks to provide a sense of where you were. Maybe you even had one of those GPS devices, and the road indicated by the GPS turns out to be closed for construction, and, as the GPS device frantically says “recalculating” you try to find another way around. Or maybe, like an experience I had visiting church friends in Germany, you’re riding a transit system in an unfamiliar city, where the stops are being called out in a language we don’t understand – in my case, in Germany, to my untrained ears, the name of every stop sounded like some version of “gesundheit,” and as you go along, you become more and more worried that you’ve overshot our destination, or maybe you’d stepped onto the wrong bus or train to begin with.
What does it feel like, being lost? It’s unsettling! We feel disoriented, that we don’t understand or have any control over our surroundings. Maybe we panic, and our heart starts racing. We desperately want to get back to familiar territory. I don’t think most people intentionally try to get lost. Like the old saying about life, getting lost is something that happens while you were busy making other plans.
And sometimes we lose our way, not only in our travel, but in our lives. And it generally doesn’t happen intentionally – very few people set out with the purpose of making a mess of their lives, or wasting their lives, of flushing their lives down the toilet. Getting lost on our life’s journey is generally the sort of thing that happens gradually, a little every day. We set our priorities in ways that lead us further and further from the path of faith – we may not intentionally reject God, but rather we just happen to choose other things. Or maybe we avoid making any commitments – not to choose is also a choice – and in the name of leaving ourselves open to all possibilities, don’t embrace any of the options that life offers us. Life drifts along, day by day, and our choices take us further and further from the path of faith. Eventually we have a moment of insight, when we wonder “how on earth did I end up here.” This isn’t who I wanted to be when I grew up.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus is hanging out with those that his society considers riff-raff. The religious authorities grumble that Jesus has crummy taste in friends, that Jesus’ friends are stinking up the place. Jesus responds with what we know as the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
When we look for something or someone that’s lost, we don’t wait for the person or object to come back to us. We take the initiative to go looking, to try to find where the person or object is. And this is what Jesus did – he didn’t wait for the so-called sinners to find him – Jesus went to them, spent time with them, ate with them, hung out with them.
As God still does today. Many of the more revivalistic churches have a time in the service when people come to the front of the church to make a personal decision for Christ. While our tradition is a little bit different in some ways, we also have moments, such as baptism, confirmation, or just plain joining the church, when we come to the front of the church and make promises – or have them made on our behalf by our parents – to follow Jesus. And these are holy moments in the life of any congregation. At the same time, it may help our perspective to remember that long before we had the least inkling of a thought of choosing to follow God, God has already long ago chosen to seek us, to look for us, to draw us to Godself. It is only because of the choice God has already made to seek us and to claim us as God’s own, that we have any inkling of a desire to seek out God.
For those of us who have been found by God and have been walking the path of faith – be it for a lifetime of many decades or for just a little while – we can take comfort in knowing that, no matter how lost or confused or drifting or treading water or at sea we may find ourselves, God is always seeking us out – like Harold’s coin that Maude tossed in the water, no matter how we wander, God always knows where we are, always knows where to find us. As our reading of Psalm 139 from last week said, “where can I go to flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you’re there. If I find myself in the depths of hell, you’re there too.” Or as Paul said in Romans 8: “I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other thing else in all creation can separate us from the love of God.”
At the same time, there are so many who feel lost – who, though God likewise knows right where they are, they have no idea where God is. The recent controversy over the food cupboard reminded me of all that challenges this community of Bridesburg faces – unemployment, alcohol and drug addiction, and, according to a neighboring pastor, a surprisingly high rate of suicide. All of which speaks to a loss of hope, a feeling of being lost, a feeling that God and life have abandoned us. Like the 99 sheep in Jesus’ parable, we at Emanuel may think, “well, we’ve been here on Fillmore Street for nearly 150 years; if they want us, they know where to find us.” But that’s not the point – Jesus is the good shepherd who persistently pursues those who are lost. As Jesus’ followers, we can do no less. Our mission here at Emanuel Church is not just to be a holy huddle, or a Sunday morning organ appreciation club. We’re not to be a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners. It’s up to us to seek those who are lost, to run the ambulance service that takes those who are hurting and in pain to the healing that many have found here.
In my short time here at Emanuel, I’ve already witnessed the kind of healing that can take place here. I’ve seen physical healing. I’ve seen peoples’ lives turn around. Small as we are, God is powerfully at work here in this place.
At the same time, our reading from I Timothy reminds us that at the very moments we may confidently assume that we’re doing God’s will, we may in fact be lost. Paul – or, as some scholars think, someone writing in Paul’s name – reminds Timothy that Paul was once a persecutor of Christians – a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. When Paul was doing these things, he did them in God’s name, thought he was doing God’s will. It took an encounter with the divine for Paul to reconsider what he was doing. For those of us who have been in the church a while, this can be a danger – we may be so accustomed to how we’ve experienced God in the past that when God does a new thing, we resist. I would liken this to the stories often told about men who, while driving in unfamiliar territory, stubbornly refuse to look at a map or ask directions, insisting that they knows exactly where they are, even though they’re far course. Perhaps this was the situation of those who questioned Jesus’ willingness to hang out with those considered undesirable. After all, when we’ve wandered off course, the shortest path back is to turn around and retrace our steps –but it takes humility to admit we’ve gone off course.
I distributed copies of a pastoral letter from our Conference Minister, the Rev. Dr. Russ Mitman, regarding the pastor in Florida who was threatening to burn copies of the Koran – I am sure that this pastor is sincere in his beliefs, that he thinks he’s doing the Lord’s will. But his is a misguided zeal, like Paul’s misguided zeal before his conversion, that uses hate and fear to try to dominate those they oppose. It has been said that once people begin burning books, they will end up burning people. We cannot hate and intimidate our neighbors into the path of faith – only love can light the way. Like those who grumbled against Jesus, the pastor in Florida and his supporters are tragically off course, even at the very moment when they feel most assured that they have found the right path.
So may we at Emanuel Church always keep our ears open to hear God’s call, especially when God wishes to lead us in new directions. As we’re surrounded with unfamiliar sights and sounds, we may become unsettled, disoriented, longing to return to familiar paths. May we keep always keep our ears open to God’s call, and our eyes on the prize of the high calling of living as disciples of Christ. Amen.
**************
Feeling disoriented? Come join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
I Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10)
The 1971 movie Harold and Maude – has it really been 40 years since the initial release? – tells the story of two contrasting characters: a young man obsessed with death, who attends funerals as a hobby and stages fake suicide attempts in order to annoy his mother, who strikes up an offbeat friendship with a zany 79 year-old lady – whom he met at a funeral - who lives to make the most of what time she has. At one point, Harold, the young man, gives Maude, the older woman, a coin from he’d gotten from an arcade. The coin is stamped “Harold loves Maude”. At the time, the two are standing on a bridge, and Maude throws the ring off the bridge into the water. Responding to Harold’s baffled look of shock and disappointment, Maude says, “So I’ll always know where it is.”
Today’s Gospel from Luke contains two of our most beloved parables, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. We’re reassured that God cares for us so much that, even when we have lost our way, God comes looking for us.
I’d like us to think about our own experiences being lost. Can you remember a time you got lost? Maybe you were walking with a family member or close friend, not paying attention to your surroundings, you get separated, and all of a sudden realize you don’t know where you are or how you got there. Maybe you were at a public event and, in the crowd, got separated from family members. Maybe you were driving someplace unfamiliar, and there weren’t enough landmarks to provide a sense of where you were. Maybe you even had one of those GPS devices, and the road indicated by the GPS turns out to be closed for construction, and, as the GPS device frantically says “recalculating” you try to find another way around. Or maybe, like an experience I had visiting church friends in Germany, you’re riding a transit system in an unfamiliar city, where the stops are being called out in a language we don’t understand – in my case, in Germany, to my untrained ears, the name of every stop sounded like some version of “gesundheit,” and as you go along, you become more and more worried that you’ve overshot our destination, or maybe you’d stepped onto the wrong bus or train to begin with.
What does it feel like, being lost? It’s unsettling! We feel disoriented, that we don’t understand or have any control over our surroundings. Maybe we panic, and our heart starts racing. We desperately want to get back to familiar territory. I don’t think most people intentionally try to get lost. Like the old saying about life, getting lost is something that happens while you were busy making other plans.
And sometimes we lose our way, not only in our travel, but in our lives. And it generally doesn’t happen intentionally – very few people set out with the purpose of making a mess of their lives, or wasting their lives, of flushing their lives down the toilet. Getting lost on our life’s journey is generally the sort of thing that happens gradually, a little every day. We set our priorities in ways that lead us further and further from the path of faith – we may not intentionally reject God, but rather we just happen to choose other things. Or maybe we avoid making any commitments – not to choose is also a choice – and in the name of leaving ourselves open to all possibilities, don’t embrace any of the options that life offers us. Life drifts along, day by day, and our choices take us further and further from the path of faith. Eventually we have a moment of insight, when we wonder “how on earth did I end up here.” This isn’t who I wanted to be when I grew up.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus is hanging out with those that his society considers riff-raff. The religious authorities grumble that Jesus has crummy taste in friends, that Jesus’ friends are stinking up the place. Jesus responds with what we know as the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
When we look for something or someone that’s lost, we don’t wait for the person or object to come back to us. We take the initiative to go looking, to try to find where the person or object is. And this is what Jesus did – he didn’t wait for the so-called sinners to find him – Jesus went to them, spent time with them, ate with them, hung out with them.
As God still does today. Many of the more revivalistic churches have a time in the service when people come to the front of the church to make a personal decision for Christ. While our tradition is a little bit different in some ways, we also have moments, such as baptism, confirmation, or just plain joining the church, when we come to the front of the church and make promises – or have them made on our behalf by our parents – to follow Jesus. And these are holy moments in the life of any congregation. At the same time, it may help our perspective to remember that long before we had the least inkling of a thought of choosing to follow God, God has already long ago chosen to seek us, to look for us, to draw us to Godself. It is only because of the choice God has already made to seek us and to claim us as God’s own, that we have any inkling of a desire to seek out God.
For those of us who have been found by God and have been walking the path of faith – be it for a lifetime of many decades or for just a little while – we can take comfort in knowing that, no matter how lost or confused or drifting or treading water or at sea we may find ourselves, God is always seeking us out – like Harold’s coin that Maude tossed in the water, no matter how we wander, God always knows where we are, always knows where to find us. As our reading of Psalm 139 from last week said, “where can I go to flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you’re there. If I find myself in the depths of hell, you’re there too.” Or as Paul said in Romans 8: “I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other thing else in all creation can separate us from the love of God.”
At the same time, there are so many who feel lost – who, though God likewise knows right where they are, they have no idea where God is. The recent controversy over the food cupboard reminded me of all that challenges this community of Bridesburg faces – unemployment, alcohol and drug addiction, and, according to a neighboring pastor, a surprisingly high rate of suicide. All of which speaks to a loss of hope, a feeling of being lost, a feeling that God and life have abandoned us. Like the 99 sheep in Jesus’ parable, we at Emanuel may think, “well, we’ve been here on Fillmore Street for nearly 150 years; if they want us, they know where to find us.” But that’s not the point – Jesus is the good shepherd who persistently pursues those who are lost. As Jesus’ followers, we can do no less. Our mission here at Emanuel Church is not just to be a holy huddle, or a Sunday morning organ appreciation club. We’re not to be a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners. It’s up to us to seek those who are lost, to run the ambulance service that takes those who are hurting and in pain to the healing that many have found here.
In my short time here at Emanuel, I’ve already witnessed the kind of healing that can take place here. I’ve seen physical healing. I’ve seen peoples’ lives turn around. Small as we are, God is powerfully at work here in this place.
At the same time, our reading from I Timothy reminds us that at the very moments we may confidently assume that we’re doing God’s will, we may in fact be lost. Paul – or, as some scholars think, someone writing in Paul’s name – reminds Timothy that Paul was once a persecutor of Christians – a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. When Paul was doing these things, he did them in God’s name, thought he was doing God’s will. It took an encounter with the divine for Paul to reconsider what he was doing. For those of us who have been in the church a while, this can be a danger – we may be so accustomed to how we’ve experienced God in the past that when God does a new thing, we resist. I would liken this to the stories often told about men who, while driving in unfamiliar territory, stubbornly refuse to look at a map or ask directions, insisting that they knows exactly where they are, even though they’re far course. Perhaps this was the situation of those who questioned Jesus’ willingness to hang out with those considered undesirable. After all, when we’ve wandered off course, the shortest path back is to turn around and retrace our steps –but it takes humility to admit we’ve gone off course.
I distributed copies of a pastoral letter from our Conference Minister, the Rev. Dr. Russ Mitman, regarding the pastor in Florida who was threatening to burn copies of the Koran – I am sure that this pastor is sincere in his beliefs, that he thinks he’s doing the Lord’s will. But his is a misguided zeal, like Paul’s misguided zeal before his conversion, that uses hate and fear to try to dominate those they oppose. It has been said that once people begin burning books, they will end up burning people. We cannot hate and intimidate our neighbors into the path of faith – only love can light the way. Like those who grumbled against Jesus, the pastor in Florida and his supporters are tragically off course, even at the very moment when they feel most assured that they have found the right path.
So may we at Emanuel Church always keep our ears open to hear God’s call, especially when God wishes to lead us in new directions. As we’re surrounded with unfamiliar sights and sounds, we may become unsettled, disoriented, longing to return to familiar paths. May we keep always keep our ears open to God’s call, and our eyes on the prize of the high calling of living as disciples of Christ. Amen.
**************
Feeling disoriented? Come join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Sunday, September 5, 2010
A New Identity
(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Psalm 139
Philemon 1:1-25 Luke 14:25-33)
Today’s service is built partially on a theme of the Labor Day weekend. The focus text is Paul’s letter to Philemon, one of those small epistles tucked away in the back of the New Testament, that we normally don’t think about a whole lot. It’s a short letter, all of one chapter long. Unlike most of Paul’s letters, it’s written not to a church or group of churches, but to an individual – though since the church is mentioned, it’s sort of Paul’s equivalent of sending an email to Philemon, with a copy going to Philemon’s church. And from your experience, you usually do that in order to enlist the cc’d people to strongly encourage or even embarrass the primary recipient into doing what you ask.
Although Philemon is a short letter, it’s created a great deal of controversy through the centuries. The occasion for the letter is that a runaway slave, Onesimus, came to Paul, was converted to the way of Jesus, and asked Paul’s help in dealing with his master. Unlike many of Paul’s letters, which can be as subtle as a brick bat, this letter overflows with diplomacy, tact, artful persuasion rather than straightforward command. In secular terms, Philemon holds a much more exalted and prominent position in society than Paul does. However, Paul is Philemon’s mentor in the faith – in a sense, Paul is Philemon’s spiritual father. Paul sends the runaway slave, Onesimus, back to his master, Philemon, with this artfully composed letter which does not command, but strongly suggests, that Paul would like Philemon to liberate Onesimus and send him back to assist Paul in his work. Here are some of the persuasive devices Paul uses: Paul reminds Philemon that Paul was his mentor and father in the faith, that Philemon owes his salvation to Paul’s ministry. Paul refers to himself as being “now an old man” – as in “have mercy on an old man and do what he asks”. There are a number of puns and plays on words, which get lost in translation into English: the slave’s name, Onesimus, was a common slave name meaning “Useful”. At one point, Paul says that the slave named Onesimus, or Useful, was formerly Useless to Philemon – because he ran away – but now as a follower of Christ he was useful to both Philemon and to Paul. The word Paul used for “useless” was “achrestos”, and another synonym Paul used for “useful” was “euchrestos”. And both words sound a lot like Christos – the Greek word for Christ – so following the way of Christos helped Onesimus move from being “achrestos” – useless - to being “euchrestos” - useful.
A key to understanding this letter is that, as a Christian, Onesimus’ status with respect to Philemon had changed. Slavery among Jews and Greeks had both similarities and differences from slavery in the American South. Roman slaves were used for anything from backbreaking manual labor to being household servant who handled their masters’ affairs. Some slaves could manage property on behalf of the master, or even own property themselves, and it might be possible for a slave to purchase his or her freedom. Despite all this, a slave was basically seen as, to use a phrase from Aristotle, a “living tool” – hence the slave’s name, Onesimus, or “Useful”. You would say that a tool or machine is useful, but you would rarely use that word to describe a person, unless that person were being manipulated and used as a tool – for example, sometimes political commentators deem those with whom they disagree as “useful idiots” being duped by demagogues. For their part, Jews were milder in their approach to slavery. They would take foreigners, non-Jews, as slaves. But given their historical memory of themselves being slaves in Egypt, Jews were not to take other Jews as slaves on a permanent basis, but were to release them on the 7th year of their servitude.
But now that Onesimus is a new believer, Philemon must relate to him, not as a living tool, but as a brother in Christ. Onesimus is to be seen, not as a thing, but as a human being, on the same level with Philemon. There’s a reality of equality in Christ that supercedes the social institutions of the day.
The letter generates controversy because of its treatment of the institution of slavery. In two letters, Galatians and Colossians, Paul declares that there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free – that all are one in Christ, with no divisions. So why did Paul not just make a straightforward demand, as Philemon’s spiritual advisor, that Philemon liberate Onesimus, now brother in Christ to both Philemon and to Paul? In part, it seems to have been a concession to the reality that slavery was an entrenched institution, which most people, Jew and Gentile alike, assumed was entirely acceptable. All cultures and societies have their blind spots, and acceptance of slavery was a blind spot in this society. In addition, it’s likely that Paul thought that Jesus was going to return very soon, and so he did not see a need to militate against the institution of slavery.
Indeed, the fact that Paul hints and recommends and persuades, but does not demand, that Philemon release his slave, was used for many years as a proof text that slavery was acceptable in God’s eyes. There are accounts from the mid 19th century, before, during, and shortly after the civil war, recounting instances when white pastors would occasionally, in a gesture of goodwill, lead services for slaves. Inevitably the white pastors chose the book of Philemon as their text, and the interpretation was that runaway slaves should be returned to their masters, as Onesimus was sent back to his master by Paul. It is a bitter irony – and a testament that human sinfulness can twist even Scripture itself for evil purposes - that Paul’s letter, written in an attempt to liberate his friend and coworker Onesimus, was used to uphold bondage and forced servitude, so much so that many black preachers for decades after liberation from slavery would never go anywhere near the book of Philemon. For slaves and recently freed blacks, the book of Philemon became a text of terror. What was written by Paul in an attempt to liberate a new convert to the way of Jesus and to share the Good News of Christ, became, through human sinfulness, bad, bad, Bad News for slaves in the American south and elsewhere.
On this Labor Day weekend, while we can be grateful that slavery is no longer accepted in this country or in most countries, underground forms of slavery still exist – among the most extreme and the most despicable is the trafficking of women and even children for sexual gratification. Beyond that, there are many places in the world, including this country, where men, women, and children work in conditions of near-slavery, where migrant workers – documented and otherwise - do backbreaking work harvesting fruit and vegetables, where people work to produce cheap clothing in sweatshop conditions. If you look at the labels for your clothing, you’ll find some of them may have been made in Bengladesh, or the Marianas Islands – and they were likely made in what we would term sweatshops. Those low, low clothing prices at the local Big Box store may have a very high price indeed to the people making them. So in a way, through our decisions regarding what we buy or don’t buy, we all participate to a greater or lesser extent in keeping the system of exploitation going. As an alternative, some churches have made a decision to buy what is called “fair trade” coffee – it’s a bit more expensive, but it ensures that the workers who picked the coffee beans were paid a living wage. It may seem like only a small gesture, but it’s something, a way of saying that we support a living wage for coffee field workers. Even in this country, in the current bad economy, workers face ever-more exploitative conditions, as employers avoid pay raises, cut benefits, and cut corners on health and safety laws. Why do they do it? In today’s lousy economy, well, they do it because they can. After all, if someone complains, there are lots of other folks perfectly willing to take the same job and allow themselves to be exploited, without complaint. All of this points toward the mindset that undergirded slavery in ancient times, the mindset of seeing those who serve us – the maid at the hotel, the waiter or waitress at the restaurant, the bank teller – as “living tools,” interacting with them not as human beings, but as annoyances we have to put up with in order to have our own needs met. The 20th century German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber characterized our ways of interacting with others as a choice between what he called “Ich und Du” - “I and You” relationships, versus “Ich Es” or “I-It” relationships. And we make this choice many times every day.
The church has a thing or two to say about this mindset. Paul implored his wealthy friend Philemon to relate to Onesimus, not as a living tool, but as a fellow human being, as a brother in Christ. In the same way, God calls the church to remind employers and customers to remember the humanity of the people with whom we interact. God calls us to work to overcome conditions of exploitation. In a small example, within the past few years, a coalition of churches worked to organize the Allied Barton security guards who work at Penn, Temple, and many other universities and at many Philadelphia museums. Many of these guards were given virtually nothing in the way of benefits, vacation, sick time. Due to the efforts of these churches, some of these guards for the first time received perhaps 3, 4, 5 days sick leave per year. It’s not an enormous first step forward, but it’s something. And in our own personal lives, we can support continued exploitation of vulnerable workers, or we can support improvement in their conditions, just by the choices we make concerning where we shop, what brands we buy, the hotel chains at which we stay. As the old saying goes, we can make the choice of supporting the union label, of buying union-label goods and patronizing unionized establishments – or not. And this choice has not only financial and social, but theological implications.
So what ever happened to Onesimus? Here's where I give you what radio commentator Paul Harvey used to call, "the rest of the story," at least as understood by many Bible scholars. We don't know for sure if it's the same person, but a person named Onesimus is mentioned in Colossians 4:9 - he's referred to as "the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you". There is, in fact, a strong tradition that Onesimus, the freed slave, is the same Onesimus who was later consecrated as Bishop of Byzantium, and martyred during one of the persecutions of Christians in Rome. He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, among others. All this from Philemon’s act of freeing the slave Onesimus. It's amazing how powerful can be the simple act of treating our fellow human beings as beloved of God.
Paul writes: “Perhaps this is the reason Onesimus was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.” May we treat our co-workers, our employees, if we have them, those who serve us at restaurants and stores, those who produce our food and clothing, not as slaves, not as living tools, but as our brothers and sisters in Christ. May God’s love be manifest here in the sanctuary of Emanuel church, and as we go forth from this place into our daily lives. Amen.
************
Please join us for worship at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Philemon 1:1-25 Luke 14:25-33)
Today’s service is built partially on a theme of the Labor Day weekend. The focus text is Paul’s letter to Philemon, one of those small epistles tucked away in the back of the New Testament, that we normally don’t think about a whole lot. It’s a short letter, all of one chapter long. Unlike most of Paul’s letters, it’s written not to a church or group of churches, but to an individual – though since the church is mentioned, it’s sort of Paul’s equivalent of sending an email to Philemon, with a copy going to Philemon’s church. And from your experience, you usually do that in order to enlist the cc’d people to strongly encourage or even embarrass the primary recipient into doing what you ask.
Although Philemon is a short letter, it’s created a great deal of controversy through the centuries. The occasion for the letter is that a runaway slave, Onesimus, came to Paul, was converted to the way of Jesus, and asked Paul’s help in dealing with his master. Unlike many of Paul’s letters, which can be as subtle as a brick bat, this letter overflows with diplomacy, tact, artful persuasion rather than straightforward command. In secular terms, Philemon holds a much more exalted and prominent position in society than Paul does. However, Paul is Philemon’s mentor in the faith – in a sense, Paul is Philemon’s spiritual father. Paul sends the runaway slave, Onesimus, back to his master, Philemon, with this artfully composed letter which does not command, but strongly suggests, that Paul would like Philemon to liberate Onesimus and send him back to assist Paul in his work. Here are some of the persuasive devices Paul uses: Paul reminds Philemon that Paul was his mentor and father in the faith, that Philemon owes his salvation to Paul’s ministry. Paul refers to himself as being “now an old man” – as in “have mercy on an old man and do what he asks”. There are a number of puns and plays on words, which get lost in translation into English: the slave’s name, Onesimus, was a common slave name meaning “Useful”. At one point, Paul says that the slave named Onesimus, or Useful, was formerly Useless to Philemon – because he ran away – but now as a follower of Christ he was useful to both Philemon and to Paul. The word Paul used for “useless” was “achrestos”, and another synonym Paul used for “useful” was “euchrestos”. And both words sound a lot like Christos – the Greek word for Christ – so following the way of Christos helped Onesimus move from being “achrestos” – useless - to being “euchrestos” - useful.
A key to understanding this letter is that, as a Christian, Onesimus’ status with respect to Philemon had changed. Slavery among Jews and Greeks had both similarities and differences from slavery in the American South. Roman slaves were used for anything from backbreaking manual labor to being household servant who handled their masters’ affairs. Some slaves could manage property on behalf of the master, or even own property themselves, and it might be possible for a slave to purchase his or her freedom. Despite all this, a slave was basically seen as, to use a phrase from Aristotle, a “living tool” – hence the slave’s name, Onesimus, or “Useful”. You would say that a tool or machine is useful, but you would rarely use that word to describe a person, unless that person were being manipulated and used as a tool – for example, sometimes political commentators deem those with whom they disagree as “useful idiots” being duped by demagogues. For their part, Jews were milder in their approach to slavery. They would take foreigners, non-Jews, as slaves. But given their historical memory of themselves being slaves in Egypt, Jews were not to take other Jews as slaves on a permanent basis, but were to release them on the 7th year of their servitude.
But now that Onesimus is a new believer, Philemon must relate to him, not as a living tool, but as a brother in Christ. Onesimus is to be seen, not as a thing, but as a human being, on the same level with Philemon. There’s a reality of equality in Christ that supercedes the social institutions of the day.
The letter generates controversy because of its treatment of the institution of slavery. In two letters, Galatians and Colossians, Paul declares that there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free – that all are one in Christ, with no divisions. So why did Paul not just make a straightforward demand, as Philemon’s spiritual advisor, that Philemon liberate Onesimus, now brother in Christ to both Philemon and to Paul? In part, it seems to have been a concession to the reality that slavery was an entrenched institution, which most people, Jew and Gentile alike, assumed was entirely acceptable. All cultures and societies have their blind spots, and acceptance of slavery was a blind spot in this society. In addition, it’s likely that Paul thought that Jesus was going to return very soon, and so he did not see a need to militate against the institution of slavery.
Indeed, the fact that Paul hints and recommends and persuades, but does not demand, that Philemon release his slave, was used for many years as a proof text that slavery was acceptable in God’s eyes. There are accounts from the mid 19th century, before, during, and shortly after the civil war, recounting instances when white pastors would occasionally, in a gesture of goodwill, lead services for slaves. Inevitably the white pastors chose the book of Philemon as their text, and the interpretation was that runaway slaves should be returned to their masters, as Onesimus was sent back to his master by Paul. It is a bitter irony – and a testament that human sinfulness can twist even Scripture itself for evil purposes - that Paul’s letter, written in an attempt to liberate his friend and coworker Onesimus, was used to uphold bondage and forced servitude, so much so that many black preachers for decades after liberation from slavery would never go anywhere near the book of Philemon. For slaves and recently freed blacks, the book of Philemon became a text of terror. What was written by Paul in an attempt to liberate a new convert to the way of Jesus and to share the Good News of Christ, became, through human sinfulness, bad, bad, Bad News for slaves in the American south and elsewhere.
On this Labor Day weekend, while we can be grateful that slavery is no longer accepted in this country or in most countries, underground forms of slavery still exist – among the most extreme and the most despicable is the trafficking of women and even children for sexual gratification. Beyond that, there are many places in the world, including this country, where men, women, and children work in conditions of near-slavery, where migrant workers – documented and otherwise - do backbreaking work harvesting fruit and vegetables, where people work to produce cheap clothing in sweatshop conditions. If you look at the labels for your clothing, you’ll find some of them may have been made in Bengladesh, or the Marianas Islands – and they were likely made in what we would term sweatshops. Those low, low clothing prices at the local Big Box store may have a very high price indeed to the people making them. So in a way, through our decisions regarding what we buy or don’t buy, we all participate to a greater or lesser extent in keeping the system of exploitation going. As an alternative, some churches have made a decision to buy what is called “fair trade” coffee – it’s a bit more expensive, but it ensures that the workers who picked the coffee beans were paid a living wage. It may seem like only a small gesture, but it’s something, a way of saying that we support a living wage for coffee field workers. Even in this country, in the current bad economy, workers face ever-more exploitative conditions, as employers avoid pay raises, cut benefits, and cut corners on health and safety laws. Why do they do it? In today’s lousy economy, well, they do it because they can. After all, if someone complains, there are lots of other folks perfectly willing to take the same job and allow themselves to be exploited, without complaint. All of this points toward the mindset that undergirded slavery in ancient times, the mindset of seeing those who serve us – the maid at the hotel, the waiter or waitress at the restaurant, the bank teller – as “living tools,” interacting with them not as human beings, but as annoyances we have to put up with in order to have our own needs met. The 20th century German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber characterized our ways of interacting with others as a choice between what he called “Ich und Du” - “I and You” relationships, versus “Ich Es” or “I-It” relationships. And we make this choice many times every day.
The church has a thing or two to say about this mindset. Paul implored his wealthy friend Philemon to relate to Onesimus, not as a living tool, but as a fellow human being, as a brother in Christ. In the same way, God calls the church to remind employers and customers to remember the humanity of the people with whom we interact. God calls us to work to overcome conditions of exploitation. In a small example, within the past few years, a coalition of churches worked to organize the Allied Barton security guards who work at Penn, Temple, and many other universities and at many Philadelphia museums. Many of these guards were given virtually nothing in the way of benefits, vacation, sick time. Due to the efforts of these churches, some of these guards for the first time received perhaps 3, 4, 5 days sick leave per year. It’s not an enormous first step forward, but it’s something. And in our own personal lives, we can support continued exploitation of vulnerable workers, or we can support improvement in their conditions, just by the choices we make concerning where we shop, what brands we buy, the hotel chains at which we stay. As the old saying goes, we can make the choice of supporting the union label, of buying union-label goods and patronizing unionized establishments – or not. And this choice has not only financial and social, but theological implications.
So what ever happened to Onesimus? Here's where I give you what radio commentator Paul Harvey used to call, "the rest of the story," at least as understood by many Bible scholars. We don't know for sure if it's the same person, but a person named Onesimus is mentioned in Colossians 4:9 - he's referred to as "the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you". There is, in fact, a strong tradition that Onesimus, the freed slave, is the same Onesimus who was later consecrated as Bishop of Byzantium, and martyred during one of the persecutions of Christians in Rome. He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, among others. All this from Philemon’s act of freeing the slave Onesimus. It's amazing how powerful can be the simple act of treating our fellow human beings as beloved of God.
Paul writes: “Perhaps this is the reason Onesimus was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.” May we treat our co-workers, our employees, if we have them, those who serve us at restaurants and stores, those who produce our food and clothing, not as slaves, not as living tools, but as our brothers and sisters in Christ. May God’s love be manifest here in the sanctuary of Emanuel church, and as we go forth from this place into our daily lives. Amen.
************
Please join us for worship at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Saturday, September 4, 2010
You're Invited!
Scriptures: Jeremiah 2:4-13, Hebrews 13:1-16, Luke 14:1-14)
Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel makes me glad we have a coffee hour after church most Sundays...because listening to it might make us hungry. It’s centered around eating – which, in Jesus’ time as now, can be an act with great social significance. Consider how, in our culture, eating dinner can mean anything from a holiday dinner with family, to a big mac purchased at the drive-through at McDonalds which we eat in the car, to pizza with some friends while watching a football game on TV, to lunch in the company cafeteria – with or without coworkers - to a “dinner and movie” date, to a dinner as part of a job interview, to a meal after a funeral. Just as it was in Jesus’ time, so it is now - food is a huge part of our culture.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner. We’re told this dinner is taking place on the Sabbath. Before we, the readers of Luke’s Gospel, can become too comfortable in commending the Pharisee for his hospitality, Luke slide us a word of warning – he tells us that the Pharisees are watching Jesus closely. So the atmosphere at this dinner is tense – this feels perhaps more like dinner with a job interviewer than like pizza and football with your buddies.
And, from the viewpoints of his host, Jesus’ behavior at the dinner is a bit like that of the proverbial bull in a china shop. He’s not especially careful of offending his host; in fact, as often happens in the Gospels, in his truthtelling, Jesus is pretty much devoid of tact. A person with dropsy is there, whom Jesus heals – but not without first getting in some digs at the Pharisees about the propriety of healing on the Sabbath. He makes some tactless observations about fellow dinner guests who are jockeying for the seats nearest the head table. And then he all but tells his host that he invited the wrong dinner guests, that he should have invited the poor, the lame, the blind, and the maimed. I wonder if, by now, the host is regretting having invited this troublemaker named Jesus.
Jesus cautioned against jockeying for the best seats when we’re at a banquet. I can make personal testimony to the hazards of accepting that invitation to “come up higher,” of being in a prominent seat, being “on display”. When I was more active in leadership in the Philadelphia Association, I visited a number of independent churches, many but not all of them African-American, seeking affiliation with the United Church of Christ. When I visited, I always tried to slide into a back pew. But often, especially in African-American churches, there’s a tradition of having a representative from another congregation or church body sit up at the altar – so I’d get that invitation, “friend, come up higher,” which I have always found incredibly uncomfortable. After all, what if I start to I start to fidget or I sneeze, or I get a nosebleed? Or heaven forbid, what happens if I doze off during the sermon? Probably one of my most awkward experiences was in visiting a church in North Philadelphia, in which it was the church’s custom for the pastor and any other worship leaders to process in – not just walking, but in a sort of choreographed, synchronized strut, almost a combination of a march and a line dance. They insisted I join their procession – but I have two left feet, so I ended up feeling – and looking - like a drunken Mummer as I stumbled my way up to the front….and things just went downhill from there.
But beyond that individual jockeying for position, larger, more prominent congregations face hazards from which, perhaps, we’re safeguarded here at Emanuel. More prominent congregations are blessed with abundant resources, and their names can open doors for them in the community. But there’s also a hazard of pridefulness, of feeling entitled to certain considerations because one is a pastor or lay leader or member of a prominent, “tall steeple” congregation. “We deserve such and thus, because we’re First Church.” Congregational identity can move away from being centered around Christ, to being centered around the church’s reputation. It’s a subtle form of idolatry. And if misconduct occurs, larger churches may be tempted to sweep things under the rug, so as to avoided damaging the church’s reputation. At least part of this dynamic touches on what has taken place in numerous incidents of child abuse, among the churches, protestant, catholic churches, orthodox, independent. So along with the frustrations of being the small neighborhood church that we are, there are some benefits as well – we are what we are, and we will be whatever God calls us to become. We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not, but rather we can just be the people God is calling us to be.
Jesus tells his hosts, when throwing a banquet, to invite the poor, needy, and handicapped. Now normally when we spread a banquet, we invite our friends, or people we would like to be our friends, people we would like to impress. At a wedding banquet, for example, the bride and groom may invite their close friends, but if it’s a well-off family, the parents may invite business associates and other people with whom they wheel and deal. But once again, Jesus is turning upside down – or more likely right side up – the ways of the world. Remember that all this – the dinner party, the healing of the man with dropsy, and Jesus’ teaching – took place on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was and is intended as a time of rest, of healing, of restoration. Many of these same poor, needy, handicapped people would have been barred or at least put off at a distance in going to the Temple on the Sabbath to worship. But Jesus is doing away with all these distinctions of class and socioeconomic position: All are invited. All are welcome at the table, especially those who are hungry, those who are needy, those who rarely get an invitation anywhere, except maybe to hit the bricks and go elsewhere. We’re to offer our hospitality, not to those we want to impress, but to those who truly need it. This is what Sabbath healing and restoration looks like.
For in truth, Jesus is making a larger point about the Kingdom of God. Many Jewish writers envisioned the Kingdom of God as a wonderful feast, to which the worthy would be invited. A few verses before today’s reading, in a portion of the 13th chapter of Luke that’s not in today’s lectionary, Jesus is preaching about the Kingdom of God – or to use inclusive language, the Reign of God. Someone asks him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” And then Jesus goes on to talk about the heavenly banquet – where many who assumed they were on the invitation list – because they are always on every invitation list – find the door – a narrow door, Jesus tells us - shut against them, while, many others from the north, the south, the east, and the west come and sit down to dine with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets.
You’re invited! I’m invited! We’re invited! This is the banquet to which God invites all of us, and to which God commands us to invite others. We’re invited! Make no mistake: there will be a motley crowd at the heavenly banquet. When we hear and respond to God’s invitation to the heavenly banquet, we bring our baggage along – our limitations, our brokenness, our sinfulness. But as we walk with Jesus, our lives are transformed so that we can leave our baggage and our brokenness behind.
You may remember this line from the musical Mame: “Life’s a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Indeed, many are starving – physically, mentally, spiritually – for the life Christ offers. You may have heard the sermon illustration – I know I’ve used it at least once or twice – about a man who had a near-death experience, and was given vision of hell and of heaven. In hell, people were seated around a banquet table, overloaded with the tastiest, most appealing food imaginable. The people were equipped with long spoons – too long for them to reach their mouths with them. So the people around the table starved in the midst of plenty. In the man’s vision of heaven, he saw the same table, same abundant spread of wonderful food, same long spoons with which people couldn’t reach their own mouths. The difference is, in heaven, while nobody could feed himself, everyone all fed each other.
My prayer is that people will come to Emanuel Church from the north and south and east and west, and that our time together is like that heavenly banquet, where longtime members and new members alike feed and care for one another. May it be so among us. Amen.
***********
Feeling spiritually hungry? Come visit us at Emanuel United Church of Christ, 2628 Fillmore St (off Thompson). We worship at 10 a.m. www.emanuelphila.org
Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel makes me glad we have a coffee hour after church most Sundays...because listening to it might make us hungry. It’s centered around eating – which, in Jesus’ time as now, can be an act with great social significance. Consider how, in our culture, eating dinner can mean anything from a holiday dinner with family, to a big mac purchased at the drive-through at McDonalds which we eat in the car, to pizza with some friends while watching a football game on TV, to lunch in the company cafeteria – with or without coworkers - to a “dinner and movie” date, to a dinner as part of a job interview, to a meal after a funeral. Just as it was in Jesus’ time, so it is now - food is a huge part of our culture.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner. We’re told this dinner is taking place on the Sabbath. Before we, the readers of Luke’s Gospel, can become too comfortable in commending the Pharisee for his hospitality, Luke slide us a word of warning – he tells us that the Pharisees are watching Jesus closely. So the atmosphere at this dinner is tense – this feels perhaps more like dinner with a job interviewer than like pizza and football with your buddies.
And, from the viewpoints of his host, Jesus’ behavior at the dinner is a bit like that of the proverbial bull in a china shop. He’s not especially careful of offending his host; in fact, as often happens in the Gospels, in his truthtelling, Jesus is pretty much devoid of tact. A person with dropsy is there, whom Jesus heals – but not without first getting in some digs at the Pharisees about the propriety of healing on the Sabbath. He makes some tactless observations about fellow dinner guests who are jockeying for the seats nearest the head table. And then he all but tells his host that he invited the wrong dinner guests, that he should have invited the poor, the lame, the blind, and the maimed. I wonder if, by now, the host is regretting having invited this troublemaker named Jesus.
Jesus cautioned against jockeying for the best seats when we’re at a banquet. I can make personal testimony to the hazards of accepting that invitation to “come up higher,” of being in a prominent seat, being “on display”. When I was more active in leadership in the Philadelphia Association, I visited a number of independent churches, many but not all of them African-American, seeking affiliation with the United Church of Christ. When I visited, I always tried to slide into a back pew. But often, especially in African-American churches, there’s a tradition of having a representative from another congregation or church body sit up at the altar – so I’d get that invitation, “friend, come up higher,” which I have always found incredibly uncomfortable. After all, what if I start to I start to fidget or I sneeze, or I get a nosebleed? Or heaven forbid, what happens if I doze off during the sermon? Probably one of my most awkward experiences was in visiting a church in North Philadelphia, in which it was the church’s custom for the pastor and any other worship leaders to process in – not just walking, but in a sort of choreographed, synchronized strut, almost a combination of a march and a line dance. They insisted I join their procession – but I have two left feet, so I ended up feeling – and looking - like a drunken Mummer as I stumbled my way up to the front….and things just went downhill from there.
But beyond that individual jockeying for position, larger, more prominent congregations face hazards from which, perhaps, we’re safeguarded here at Emanuel. More prominent congregations are blessed with abundant resources, and their names can open doors for them in the community. But there’s also a hazard of pridefulness, of feeling entitled to certain considerations because one is a pastor or lay leader or member of a prominent, “tall steeple” congregation. “We deserve such and thus, because we’re First Church.” Congregational identity can move away from being centered around Christ, to being centered around the church’s reputation. It’s a subtle form of idolatry. And if misconduct occurs, larger churches may be tempted to sweep things under the rug, so as to avoided damaging the church’s reputation. At least part of this dynamic touches on what has taken place in numerous incidents of child abuse, among the churches, protestant, catholic churches, orthodox, independent. So along with the frustrations of being the small neighborhood church that we are, there are some benefits as well – we are what we are, and we will be whatever God calls us to become. We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not, but rather we can just be the people God is calling us to be.
Jesus tells his hosts, when throwing a banquet, to invite the poor, needy, and handicapped. Now normally when we spread a banquet, we invite our friends, or people we would like to be our friends, people we would like to impress. At a wedding banquet, for example, the bride and groom may invite their close friends, but if it’s a well-off family, the parents may invite business associates and other people with whom they wheel and deal. But once again, Jesus is turning upside down – or more likely right side up – the ways of the world. Remember that all this – the dinner party, the healing of the man with dropsy, and Jesus’ teaching – took place on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was and is intended as a time of rest, of healing, of restoration. Many of these same poor, needy, handicapped people would have been barred or at least put off at a distance in going to the Temple on the Sabbath to worship. But Jesus is doing away with all these distinctions of class and socioeconomic position: All are invited. All are welcome at the table, especially those who are hungry, those who are needy, those who rarely get an invitation anywhere, except maybe to hit the bricks and go elsewhere. We’re to offer our hospitality, not to those we want to impress, but to those who truly need it. This is what Sabbath healing and restoration looks like.
For in truth, Jesus is making a larger point about the Kingdom of God. Many Jewish writers envisioned the Kingdom of God as a wonderful feast, to which the worthy would be invited. A few verses before today’s reading, in a portion of the 13th chapter of Luke that’s not in today’s lectionary, Jesus is preaching about the Kingdom of God – or to use inclusive language, the Reign of God. Someone asks him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” And then Jesus goes on to talk about the heavenly banquet – where many who assumed they were on the invitation list – because they are always on every invitation list – find the door – a narrow door, Jesus tells us - shut against them, while, many others from the north, the south, the east, and the west come and sit down to dine with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets.
You’re invited! I’m invited! We’re invited! This is the banquet to which God invites all of us, and to which God commands us to invite others. We’re invited! Make no mistake: there will be a motley crowd at the heavenly banquet. When we hear and respond to God’s invitation to the heavenly banquet, we bring our baggage along – our limitations, our brokenness, our sinfulness. But as we walk with Jesus, our lives are transformed so that we can leave our baggage and our brokenness behind.
You may remember this line from the musical Mame: “Life’s a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Indeed, many are starving – physically, mentally, spiritually – for the life Christ offers. You may have heard the sermon illustration – I know I’ve used it at least once or twice – about a man who had a near-death experience, and was given vision of hell and of heaven. In hell, people were seated around a banquet table, overloaded with the tastiest, most appealing food imaginable. The people were equipped with long spoons – too long for them to reach their mouths with them. So the people around the table starved in the midst of plenty. In the man’s vision of heaven, he saw the same table, same abundant spread of wonderful food, same long spoons with which people couldn’t reach their own mouths. The difference is, in heaven, while nobody could feed himself, everyone all fed each other.
My prayer is that people will come to Emanuel Church from the north and south and east and west, and that our time together is like that heavenly banquet, where longtime members and new members alike feed and care for one another. May it be so among us. Amen.
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Feeling spiritually hungry? Come visit us at Emanuel United Church of Christ, 2628 Fillmore St (off Thompson). We worship at 10 a.m. www.emanuelphila.org
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