Antisemitism : We Must Not Be Silent Proper 26C

 Antisemitism: We Must Not Be Silent

Where to begin? Kristallnacht – the Nights of Broken Glass, November 9-12, 1938 as right-wing Nazis destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses, urged by Hitler and his officers, to stage it to appear as “spontaneous demonstrations,” resulting in violence and death to Jews in cities throughout Germany? The August 10-11, 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, where young white men and women marched through the night streets chanting Nazi slogans: “Blood and Soil,” and “Jews will not replace us!” while carrying Nazi and Confederate flags? Or, last week, Kanye West tweeting, “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE…You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda”? [i]

 

For centuries it has been like what the Hebrew prophet, Habakkuk, 600 years before Christ, cried out to the Almighty: we see destruction and violence, wrong-doing and trouble, strife! “So, the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails.” Help us, Lord![ii] The Lord God YHWH responds, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” [iii]

 

The message from YHWH is plain to those of us who claim to live by our faith: Erect a billboard, and write it plain and write it large so that anyone driving or running by will be able to read it: Antisemitism is a Problem for Us All !

 

There have been mixed corporate responses to West. The sportswear company, Adidas, immediately cancelled West’s estimated $1.5 Billion contract, and took all his licensed merchandise off the market. Twitter and Instagram took down and blocked his accounts. Yet, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, posted, “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend.”[iv]

 

The facts. Since Charlottesville, attacks on synagogues and Jewish citizens have been steadily increasing. Historically, antisemitism is often accompanied by attacks on other minority groups. In the U.S, there have been increased attacks on Muslims, the LGBTQ community, Asians, businesses in majority black neighborhoods, and other minority groups and individuals, according to the U.S. Justice Department’s and Anti-Defamation League’s listings of Hate Crimes just for 2022. [v]

 

It is imperative for the Church to be involved, as some of our New Testament texts, and preaching throughout the Church’s history by figures like Tertullian, Origen, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Martin Luther on up to our day, has been used to justify antisemitism. Christians as early as 1349 in Strasbourg, France, have led pogroms, organized massacres, rounding up Jewish citizens, killing them and destroying their towns and neighborhoods. I’ve known Jewish people in our time who were chased by Chrisitan youth during Holy Week every year accused of being Christ killers. And many Christians were complicit, or worse, silent, throughout the years of the Nazi Final Solution: The Holocaust. [vi]

 

Fortunately, for Episcopalians, The Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin, Sr., Canon Missioner and Minister of Equity & Inclusion, Washington National Cathedral, recently posted an essay, Sorry, Kanye West. You’re wrong about ‘the Jews’. [vii] He observes that often we tend to look past such incidents as simply another celebrity or politician saying something outrageous. Yet, he points out that: “Equally troubling, however, was the scene that played out on a Los Angeles overpass where his supporters raised their arms in a Nazi salute and unfurled banners that said “Kanye is right about the Jews. No. No. No.”, he writes, “Kanye is wrong about “the Jews.” He goes on to remind us that such figures of faith as Martin Luther King Jr, and Elie Wiesel warn that silence is not taking a neutral stance. I’ve heard Elie Wiesel repeatedly say, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” People of faith must speak out against hatred, division and strife.

 

I have spent much of my undergraduate years, seminary, and life in parish ministry, attempting to erect that billboard to make it loud and clear, “Antisemitism is a problem for us all!” I have invited Holocaust survivors and their families to speak to congregations. We have engaged in Jewish-Christian Dialogue in our communities. Yet, here we are several generations later, and there are those who either think The Holocaust is a hoax, or have simply never heard about it, let alone learn the lessons we need to learn. Looking through years of my papers and sermons on the subject, I ran across the story of a university teacher I had read about in Harper’s Magazine, who, when teaching college freshmen about Nazi Germany was met with students who could not understand what Hitler had done wrong. One of her students described Hitler in a term paper as “a kid with a dream, who, like a really big-time rock star, enjoyed a pretty good run at the top of the charts.” This was in the mid-1980s!

 

The Good News is that when I posted Hamlin’s essay on Facebook page, a former member of a parish I serve commented: “Yes, it is VERY dangerous. My grandfather was German and he told me the early signs of the rightism which surfaced there when the German people were starving and vulnerable. This kind of propaganda finds victims at a nation’s most vulnerable times, then the hate starts to spread like a cancer! We must ALL be aware!! LOVE is the ONLY answer during these turbulent times. Love will cause helping, understanding and sharing and ultimately win over evil and hatred. We need AWARENESS.”

 

Habakkuk comes to such an Awareness. The prophet understands that the Lord urges us to take sanctuary in the vision - If it seems to tarry, wait for it; salvation will surely come… Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. A faith in which Love is at the center. As the priest Saint Maximillian Kolbe, who gave his life in Auschwitz to save another man’s life, put it: Hatred Destroys, Love Alone Creates. Like Kolbe, Habakkuk, and Jesus, we cannot remain silent. This is our Faith – it is the Faith of Jesus the Jew. If we make one choice today in the midst of ongoing hatred, division, and strife, let it be Love. Amen.

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[i] Twitter, Instagram, Block Kanye West Over Antisemitic Posts,  https://apnews.com/article/twitter-inc-entertainment-music-ba5c710ec59d195fe4d83cb2c9343589

[ii] Habakkuk 1:2-4 NRSV

[iii] Ibid Habakkuk 2:1-4

[iv] Ibid apnews.com

[v] https://www.adl.org/blog/six-facts-about-threats-to-the-jewish-community; https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/news

[vi] McClaren, Brian D., Do I Stay Christian (St Martin’s, NYC: 2022) pp. 13-20.

[vii] Hamlin, Leonard L., October 26, 2022 https://cathedral.org/press-room/sorry-kanye-west-youre-wrong-about-the-jews/?fbclid=IwAR28PsThIepmyhCTVQHOKdTECROMrYdVdN8LqENyxXT7Dmh9vfJcrlVGwvs

Faith, Hope, and Charity Proper 25C

Faith, Hope, and Charity   Proper 25C

One day I was alone in a large Episcopal church in the Diocese of Rochester, NY. I was inspired by several stained-glass windows. One of the largest depicted Lady Charity, larger than life, ready to step out of the window, with a banner waving around her with the words from the 13th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, “Faith, Hope, and Charity.” I recalled Mrs. King in high school, who assigned us to memorize that chapter in the “King’s English.” It being the mid-sixties, a number of us petitioned permission to memorize the Revised Standard Version which replaces “charity” with “love.” I now find myself siding with Mrs. King - for charity better describes the kind of love the Bible encourages: having empathy and compassion so as to do something helpful for others, whether or not you even like them, let alone love them.

 

This Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost we pray, “Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity.” Note that we pray for “us,” not “me” or “myself.” Like our sister faith, Judaism, Christianity from its very outset is a communitarian faith - we pray for ourselves collectively, and for our neighbors as well. Jesus teaches us to pray to “Our Father.” Today we pray for “us”  to experience an increase of the gifts of faith, hope and charity. These are gifts of the Spirit, not something we can make on our own. We can accept these gifts or not.  Paul urges us to abide all three, but, he concludes, “the greatest of these is charity.”[i]

 

Our story about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14 invites us to be charitable. It takes place in the Jerusalem Temple. Jesus often reminds people that for the past 500 years this Temple at the heart of Israel’s life of faith was to be “a house of prayer for all peoples.” [ii] The Pharisee is part of a group of Israelites who were intentional in following the commandments of God, and were looked up to and consulted by others in matters of faithful living. We would expect to find him in the Temple to pray or even to offer the appointed sacrifices. These prayers and sacrifices were always understood to be offered on behalf of all people, Jews and Gentiles alike: Gentiles being non-Jews, including foreigners and strangers.

 

Those listening to Jesus tell this story would likely be surprised to find the Tax Collector also praying in the Temple. He might be a Jew or a Gentile, employed by Rome to collect the Roman tribute taxes. They were viewed as sinners, as collaborators with the occupational forces that at the time, controlled Israel as part of the Roman Empire. Tribute had to be paid to Caesar who was understood to be Divine, God. This was problematic for Jews to have to acknowledge Caesar as God. As the tax collectors were not fairly compensated for their work, they often had to add surcharges to pay themselves, making many of they wealthier than most of the people of the land. These taxes were often tolls to transport goods to market, and even in the form of taking a percentage of the goods themselves. The tax collectors were not popular at all.

 

The Pharisee, says Jesus, prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of whatever I acquire.” [iii] Though it may at first strike us as rather self-righteous, the general thrust is gratitude, and thanking God for the commandments that keep him on the “right path.” Like we might say, “There, but by the grace of God, go I.” It is astonishing that he singles out the other man in the Temple, our tax collector. But it is even more astonishing that he fasts twice a week, and tithes ten-percent of all that he acquires – both of which are practices beyond those required by the commandments themselves! He is faithful.

This may be the heart of the story since it was believed that those who followed the commandments, or even exceeded them, could in a sense “store-up” protection to impact the lives of others in the community. The Pharisee lives the life of faith as outlined in the covenant commandments, and beyond. This may benefit others in the community.

 

Like our tax collector, who stands away from others and prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” This would equally astonish those listening to Jesus tell the story. For the tax collector appears to recognize that his collaboration with the Empire subjugating the people of Israel is a real problem for the entire community. Like the Pharisee, he acknowledges God’s mercy – the mercy that has led the Pharisee to go beyond the requirements for the life of faith. Our tax collector hopes that God’s mercy might find a way to forgive him, and may even lead him to give up his collaboration. He knows the Pharisees are faithful, and perhaps he will benefit from his good deeds. This, no doubt, is his hope.

 

The real surprise comes in the conclusion, which is most often rendered, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." [iv] The usual interpretation is that the tax collector is “justified” for admitting his sinfulness, rather than “exalting himself,” as one might interpret the Pharisee to have done. The Greek, however, is ambiguous. Instead of “rather than,” it could also be translated “because of” or “on account of”, or even, “along side the other.” These alternative translations remind us that in communitarian communities like Judaism and Christianity, just as one person’s sin can create a stain on the entire community, so one person’s righteousness can save it. [v]

 

Here is where divine charity is demanded of us all. The parable leaves it up to us to ponder: is it the Pharisee’s going beyond the requirements that justifies the tax collector? Or, is it the tax collector’s honesty and contrition that justifies a Pharisee who could appear to be praising himself instead of God? If we were, however, to judge either one as better than the other, we find ourselves trapped by the parable! And if we dismiss them both we are also trapped! To be honest with ourselves, we must confess that we are happy when we are saved, but less happy if salvation is given, like the gifts of faith, hope, and charity themselves, to those people we do not like, even if our dislike for them seems justified by good reasons.

 

The stained-glass window of Charity is only visible when light shines through it. Otherwise, it looks like dark glass. Charity, the love God urges us to share with all people, is only apparent when we allow the light of compassion, empathy and love to shine through our lives in how we judge and treat one another. The charitable translation, then, is that Jesus concludes, “To you I say, descending to his house, this one is justified alongside that one. Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” [vi] Both prayers are heard. Faith, Hope, and Charity, abide these three; but the greatest of these is Charity!

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[i] 1 Corinthians 13

[ii] Isaiah 56:7

[iii] Levine, Amy Jill, Short Stories by Jesus (HarperOne, New York:2014) translation, p.183.

[iv] Luke 18:14

[v] Ibid Levine, p.211.

[vi] Ibid, Levine, p.183. 

Let's All Emulate The Wrath of God Proper 24C

 Let’s All Emulate The Wrath of God     Proper 24C

“The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst.

Lord, give us mercy to bear your mercy.” [i] It’s as Jonah and much of the Bible reminds us, our God is a “gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.”[ii] This is good news!

 

Yet, wrestling with Luke’s presentation of a parable about a Widow and an “Unjust Judge,”         (Luke 18:1-8) leaves one feeling a bit like Jacob who wrestled with a man all night long: he leaves limping, but with a new name, Israel (he who wrestles or strives with God), and a new understanding of what it means to be a person of God -  "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." (Genesis 32:22-33) Luke wants the parable to somehow be about prayer, justice, and/or faith – concluding, “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?” If we are meant to find examples, or even one example, of how to live a faithful life in this parable, the answer to that most important question would be a resounding, “No!”

 

There is a judge, who neither fears God, nor has any respect for people. Luke calls him an “unjust judge.” At first glance, however, and based on numerous judgments in our judiciary, we might find it refreshing that this judge does not appear to allow religion or public opinion influence his judgments.

 

Enter, the widow. This is no weak and vulnerable widow without resources, the type for whom the God of the Bible repeatedly reminds us deserves special attention and care from the community of God’s love. This widow has the luxury of time to repeatedly, day after day, harass and even threaten our judge. She has a self-righteous anger and seeks vengeance against an undisclosed opponent. Our text in the NRSV translation has her seeking ‘justice,’ but Amy Jill Levine[iii] and Richard Swanson[iv], among many others, are both quick to point out that the word translated justice ought to be “vengeance.” As in, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”[v]  “Avenge me against my opponent,” or, “Avenge me from my opponent.”

 

The judge wants nothing to do with the widow. Still, she badgers him day after day after day. Finally, he says, “Though I do not reverence God, nor respect people, yet, because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her vengeance.” Swanson offers the more colorful and accurate translation: “But because this widow will beat me up, I will avenge her, so that she won’t come, in the end, and give me a black eye!”[vi] For the Greek translated as “bothering” is literally a boxing term – to wear out, to beat up, to give a black eye. He is feeling battered, and threatened, and against his better judgement he caves in to her demand. Not for the sake of justice, but for his own self-preservation.

 

Therefore, there is no justice in this story. There is no compassion. There is no fairness. There is no mercy, and no evidence of steadfast love. The judge is bullied by this widow into giving her what she wants: vengeance. And as to prayer, it seems to suggest that if we bully God in persistent prayer we will get anything we want – which of course is ridiculous, and in this case is vengeance. We can be certain that vengeance is not what constitutes the kind of faith the Son of Man wants to see on Earth when he returns – the Son of Man who repeatedly relents from punishment and vengeance.

 

Where does this leave us? Why does Jesus tell us this story? Parables are meant to shock us with their unexpected details of the story. Shock us to look at ourselves, the world around us, and our faith, in a new and different ways. The widow seeks vengeance. The judge colludes with her vengeance. The unknown adversary is the recipient of vengeance, and for all we know may have been seeking vengeance against the widow. It is a cycle of systemic vengeance that knows no gender or class boundaries and eventually sucks everyone into its wake.[vii] There is no one to root for and no one to emulate. It begins to sound all too familiar.

 

Such demands for vengeance confront us every day, if not in our own hearts, then in the headlines that assault us with the same persistence as the widow’s harassment of the judge. People demanding the death penalty, often for others whom they do not even know. Prisoners released when it is found the were wrongly convicted in the first place, based on new evidence or wrongful representation, and yet there are those who petition the court to keep them in prison. Any one of us might be among those demanding vengeance if a member of our family was a victim of violent crime. Not to mention the daily demands for and acts of vengeance against all sorts of groups competing for power of some kind.  

 

The parable, then, seems to challenge us to find our own moral compass. Do I want to be in the widow’s company? Do I want to let myself be manipulated into vengeance or violence by others like the judge? Why do we want one person or group to succeed and another to fail? Does the end ever justify the means (as it does in this story)?[viii]

 

Taking such a moral inventory, if we are honest with ourselves, and if we are lucky, we ought to remember that Jesus seeks no vengeance. Because Jesus knows that our God, his Father, is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.” Being made in the image of God; walking in the way of Jesus; simply being a compassionate human being, perhaps reading a story like this one about a widow and a judge ought to shock is into emulating the characteristics of God which the Bible appears to champion from beginning to end.[ix] If so, that would truly be Good News!

 

Perhaps the best takeaway from this story is exactly what Maggie Ross asserts at the outset: that our God exhibits the kind of persistence and perseverance the widow exercises, but in a positive way for us all when she writes, “The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord, give us mercy to bear your mercy.”

 

For it will only be in our exercising works of mercy and love, not vengeance, that will assure the Son of Man that he will find faith on Earth when he returns! Amen.

 

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[i] Ross, Maggie, The Fire of Your Life (Paulist Press, New York: 1983) p.137.

[ii] Jonah 4:2b

[iii] Levine, Amy Jill, Short Stories by Jesus (HarperOne, San Francisco: 2014) pp.239-265.

[iv] Swanson, Richard W., (Pilgrim Press, Cleveland: 2006) p.321..

[v] Deuteronomy 32.35 (KJV)

[vi] Ibid, Swanson p.321.

[vii] Ibid, Levine, p. 265.

[viii] Ibid, Levine, p. 265

[ix] Jonah 4:2b, Psalm 103:8, Nehemiah 9:31; Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:5; Psalm 86:15; Joel 2:13

All Sickness Is Homesickness Proper 23C

 

All Sickness Is Homesickness

We find ourselves living in a world that seems increasingly scary and unfamiliar. As every day we pump more and more fossil fuel pollution into the Earth’s atmosphere, the climate responds with more violent weather like hurricane Ian, rising sea levels, and rising sea temperatures, all threatening lives of creatures on land, in the air, and in the sea. Apocalyptic warnings that Russia might deploy ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ in its brutal attacks on Ukraine threatens the whole world. And here ‘at home’ in the United States we are increasingly a people divided: red and blue, conservative and liberal, north and south, ultra-wealthy and the rest of us – to the point that families and friends are divided in ways that have not been seen since the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. We feel we are no longer at home. We feel as if we are in Exile, or captivity.

 

Much of our time and energy tends to be focused on division, argumentation, name-calling, and finding ways to discredit, mock, and disparage ‘the other’ – and one another. This use of our time and energy drains us, only making us feel even less and less ‘at home’ in this world anymore. We have lost our focus on the Holy, the Divine or Spiritual dimension of life – what some call God and God’s purposes. Out of fear of a world seemingly out of control, and of others who are utterly unlike ‘us,’ we tend to ghettoize God, the Divine, the Holy as our own possession, bending those purposes, the will for salvation – salvation, or healing, or liberation, which is meant for the whole world and everyone and everything therein – and make outrageous claims that such salvation, healing and liberation is exclusively ‘ours.’

 

Along comes the prophet Jeremiah – a child prophet really, in the mold of the young Samuel. The people Israel have been carried off to Babylon. They are strangers in a strange land – resident aliens far away from home, and the security of the Holy City of Jerusalem and its Temple which lies in ruins. We try to imagine what Exile must feel like. Psalm 137 describes them being forced to entertain their captors! We imagine it might be easy to give up, assimilate, disappear. Or, to be constantly planning an escape, as their forebearers did from Egypt long ago, and prepare to return to Jerusalem at a moment’s notice.

 

Instead, Jeremiah sends them a letter, advising them to settle in, build, plant, multiply, to seek the welfare of Babylon, and even to pray for its prosperity. Pray for the prosperity of their captors! Pray for the common good, rather than demonize ‘the other.’ Remember, says Jeremiah, those days in the wilderness where we were taught to love God and love neighbor – and that all are neighbors, even these Babylonians. Stay true to the traditions we have been given, even so far from home and all that home means. Make a home in the wilderness of Exile. “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” [i]

 

Indeed, thanks to a generous Gentile ruler, Cyrus of Persia, many of the exiles returned to Jerusalem several generations later, while some remained in Babylon and flourished there. It was a revelation that when God sent an anointed one, a messiah, it was a Gentile. Upon returning and rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple, liturgical texts like Psalm 66 proclaimed a new understanding that their deliverance was ultimately for the sake of the whole world. That God’s promises to father Abraham was that his descendants would be a blessing to the whole world – to all peoples, to all creatures, to the very Earth itself. [ii] At all times, they sang, God’s welfare, God’s salvation is for all peoples, even our captors as well as those who liberated us.

 

“Be Joyful in the Lord, all you lands! … Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people… you let enemies ride over our heads; we went through fire and water; but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.” We can go home again. And we can make a new home, even in Babylon, when we refocus our selves on the God who is our very home!

 

Then there is this episode in Luke. Written after the Second Temple had been demolished by Rome, Jesus, we are told, is in a no-man’s-land between Galilee and Samaria. Those who were ritually impure due to a skin disorder see him. They are in Exile. They cannot go home. Keeping their distance, they call out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” [iii] They know him. He simply tells them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they go, they are made whole again. One stops, returns to Jesus, falls to his knees and praises God with a loud voice. He recognizes the Holy, the Divine, has restored him. And we are told that he is a foreigner, a Samaritan.

 

Of the ten, only this foreigner, this Samaritan, gives thanks, and knows that it is the God of Abraham, the God of Jeremiah, the God of Psalm 66 who has liberated him from exile. And Jesus sends him “on your way.” Not “my way,” but on his way. Which is not the way of Jerusalem in the south, but to Mount Gerizim in Samaria in the north. Do we hear that Jesus says, we are to go on “our way”? That is, there is no one way. There is the way of Babylon. There is the way of Samaria. There is the way of the Buddha. There is the way of Lao T’zu. There is the way of Mohammed. As well as the way of Israel and Jesus.

 

We can be at home wherever we are when we make our home with the Holy, the Divine, the God of exodus, exile, and liberation. Once, like the Samaritan, we recognize the force, the energy, the spirit that means to liberate us from whatever exile we experience or place ourselves in, we can go home on ‘our way.’ And like the Samaritan, we will acknowledge the source of our homecoming. What these texts mean to help us see is expressed in this poem:

 

What is happiness to you and me?

Is it sitting under a shady tree?

Is it looking up at a blue sky,

Or thinking of peace which is long past due?

Is it putting a smile on a lovely face

By extending your hand regardless of race?

Happiness comes to you and me

When we give of ourselves to others for free.

-        Robert H. Chiang, 1978

 

When we extend our hand, regardless of race, of party or tribal affiliation, of nationality, or economic status, or any of the many ways we divide ourselves from one another, and even from ourselves, happiness is ours, “When we give ourselves to others for free.” No cost. No debt. No exile. We will find our home, our rest, in the Holy, the Divine, the source of All. Amen.

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[i] Jeremiah 29:7

[ii] Genesis 12:1-3

[iii] Luke 17:11-19

Faith, Hope, and Laughter Proper 22C

 

Faith, Hope and Laughter   

The disciples ask Jesus for more faith – to increase their faith. The very idea is meant to make us laugh![i] While their boat founders in on a stormy sea, Jesus chides them for having such little faith. When they complain that there is not enough food to feed 5,000 people, he chides them for having such little faith. They have been traveling with him for 17 chapters now and they still do not get it! That’s funny!

 

Remember Abraham. Abraham is nearly 100 years old when God says he will have a son. Sarah is nearly 90. Abraham finds it so funny we are told he falls on his face with laughter! [ii] Another version of the story says Sarah is hiding in the tent and when she overhears the news, and she is the one who nearly dies of laughter. God asks her about it, and she denies it. “No, but you did laugh – and I want you to name the boy Isaac.” Which in Hebrew means, “laughter.” [iii]

 

Why do they laugh? Because they know only a fool would believe that a woman with one foot in the grave would have the other in the maternity ward! Because God seemed to believe it. Because they half-believed it themselves, and laughing is better than crying. They laughed because if it really came to pass, they would truly have something to laugh about! [iv]

 

In Hebrews 11:1 we learn that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The disciples probably know the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac. And if not, surely Jesus does. It has been suggested that faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, as a process, a gut-feeling, not a possession. Faith is often on-again, off-again, rather than once-and-for-all. For doubt is a dimension of faith. Some have said doubt is the ants-in-the-pants of faith. Just ask Isaac as he lies tied up on top of a bundle of firewood on top of a mountain, what was going through his mind regarding faith – he who was named, “laughter.”

 

As such, faith is not a commodity that can be bought and sold, though many have tried and do try to sell it. One cannot have more or less faith. As a kind of hope, faith cannot readily be proved, like say, that light travels faster than sound. Like faith, we cannot prove the great of greatness, nor the beauty of the beautiful. Despite five so-called proofs for the existence of God, they will never prove to unfaith that God exists – they only describe the existence of the God in whom we already have faith.

 

I wish we could see the disciples’ faces when Jesus says, “You don’t need more faith! A mustard seed’s amount of faith will more than suffice! That is all our father Abraham had. Yet, it was enough to begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat twelve sons, eleven of whom sold the youngest, Joseph, off to some Egyptians. And yet, it was Joseph who saved Jacob and the twelve tribes from starvation, once again giving God the last laugh!

 

When Jesus tells us and anyone who will listen that the Kingdom of God is at hand – some of us take it on faith that he is right. Others may laugh, but that’s the nature of faith. When you travel with Jesus you come to know that things can, and will, and do change – for the better. A poem by a French Jesuit priest I keep in the back of my prayer book describes the reality of our Good News faith:

 

 

Les Arbres dans la Mer

       By Didier Rimaud, SJ

 

Look, the virgin has a child, a man from God,

Heaven is with us, mankind is not alone any longer

If you only had a little faith, you would see

Trees in the sea, Beggars become kings, the powerful made low,

The treasures that we share.

 

Look, the water changes into wine, the wine becomes blood,

The bread multiplies, the people aren’t starving any more

If only you had a little faith you would see

Trees in the sea, the desert full of flowers, harvests in winter

Graneries overflow

 

Look, the lame walk, the blind see,

The deaf hear, the people aren’t ill any longer.

If only you had a little faith, you would see

Trees in the sea, executioners without work, handcuffs rusty,

Prisons useless.

 

Look, the cross is empty and bare,

Your tombs have fallen and man stands.

The people are not afraid any longer.

If you only had a little faith, you would see

trees in the sea, guns buried, arms put away,

Mountains dance.

 

We pray today that our God is “always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve.” We cannot accumulate more faith, we do not deserve more faith, and Jesus makes clear that we do not need more faith. Faith is given, and we can choose to receive it, or not. Yet, wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’s name, he is in the midst of us. His table is always open to all who will approach it in faith, where he is both guest and host. He serves all at his table, freely gives us bread which is his Body, so that we might become his Body upon which others will feed. We are no longer alone. The cross is empty and bare. We need no longer be afraid. With just a mustard seed’s tiny bit of faith, we will begin to see the treasures that we share.

 

As we respond with all that we are and all that we have, the world will be changed. It is already changing as we allow ourselves to be changed, laughing all the way at the very thought that we have been entrusted with life in God’s kingdom! Amen.

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[i] Luke 17:5-10

[ii] Genesis 17:17

[iii] Genesis 18:8ff

[iv] Buechner, Frederick, Wishful Thinking (Harper&Row, New York:1973) p.25ff

Proper 21 C Invisible Ones

 Invisible Ones

 

Jesus tells his disciples a story about a dishonest property manager, concluding: “No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”[i]

 

Some Pharisees evidently are among his disciples, and they ridicule him. He calls attention to their love of wealth and reminds them of what prophets like Moses and Amos have warned in the past: those who lounge around on beds of ivory, eating the finest foods, drinking the finest wines, will be the first to go into exile, and all their “revelry” shall cease.[ii] Then, like any self-respecting rabbi, he tells yet another story, this time about a rich man who dressed in the finest and latest fashions, and feasted “sumptuously” every day, and a poor man named Lazarus who lay outside the rich man’s gate, covered with sores, who longed to eat just whatever falls from the rich man’s table - the scraps the dogs would eat before going out to the gate to lick poor Lazarus’s sores.

 

Both men die. Lazarus is carried away to be with our Father Abraham, and the rich man descends to torment in a flaming pit. He sees Lazarus with Abraham and begs for Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool his dry, hot tongue. Abraham says, no. You had your chances to use your wealth on behalf of others like Lazarus and others who suffer every day just outside your gate. As a result, there is now a great chasm set between you and them which no one can cross. Then please, send a Lazarus to warn my brothers so that they don’t make the mistakes I have. No, like you, they have Moses and the Prophets. They ought to listen to them. No, but if you send someone from the dead to warn them, they will listen. Abraham said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."[iii]

 

We may have noticed a few things. Poor, suffering Lazarus has a name, while the rich man does not. Lazarus represents those who Moses and the Prophets call widows, orphans, and resident aliens – a phrase in Hebrew literature of the day that means all those who are without resources. Those who tend to be what bluesman Charlie Musslewhite calls “the invisible ones” [iv] - those homeless, poor, and destitute people we often tend to walk on by. Our nameless rich man represents those who gather more and more wealth, possessions and resources while Lazarus sits right outside their door remains invisible. Despite all the commandments from Moses and the Prophets to care for all those without resources no matter who they are or from wherever they may come.

 

In one sense, Amos and Luke seem to raise the question: Just how many “invisible ones” must there be before a nation realizes it is already in exile?

 

This past week we have been blessed with an example of just what Jesus is getting at in this all-too-common story. Some 50 immigrants, many escaping the brutal Communist regime in Venezuela, and in the U.S. legally seeking asylum, were picked up and place on planes courtesy of the Governor and people of the state of Florida, flown and dropped off on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. They had been promised to be sent to Boston where there were to be jobs and shelter awaiting them, but alas, there they were on a small island they knew not where.

 

Without hesitation, members of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown on the island, joined by other resident volunteers, offered them food and shelter for a few days while a more appropriate solution could be found on the mainland. It seems the commands of Moses, the Prophets, and the invitation of Jesus to “follow me,” is alive and well at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. This, in fact, is why churches exist at all – to sustain a faithful understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, and to live accordingly – what it means to love God and love Neighbor.

 

 

It is quite simple, really. The story means to convey the urgency for all of us to render the invisible ones visible, and to meet their needs with compassion and respect. This is what it means to be people of faith. There is nothing to believe. Rather, the life of faith, the spiritual life, calls us to love God and love our neighbor. And as Jesus constantly reminds us to sing, “all are neighbors to us and you.”[v]

 

Everything one needs to know in this little story of life itself is that “Lazarus” is always lying at our doorstep, and if we would pay attention to Moses, the Prophets and Jesus, we would know just what to do – how to respond to any and all who are in need, no matter who they are, or from wherever they have come. For all of us one day, at one time or another, will be Lazarus ourselves.

 

The question the story asks the Pharisees and all of us is: Will we be like the rich man? Or, are we ready to follow Jesus? God bless our sisters and brothers in Christ in Edgartown, Massachusetts, for reminding us who we are and whose we are. We are those people called to love God and love our neighbor – especially those like Lazarus, the invisible ones of all kinds, who are at the gate and just outside our door every day. Amen.

 

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[i] Luke 16:13

[ii] Amos 6:4-7

[iii] Luke 16:19-31

[iv] Musslewhite, Charlie, Delta Hardware  Invisible Ones

[v] Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love:  Hymnal 1982 #602

Proper 19C Come And Join The Party Every Day!

 

Come and Join The Party, Every Day!

“The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord, give us mercy to bear your mercy.”[i] - Maggie Ross

We think we know some things about God because…well because people have told us things like, “The God of the Old Testament is a wrathful avenging God, while the God of the New Testament is a God of Love.” We accept such facile descriptions until suddenly, one might say “by the Grace of God,” we hear or read something that completely changes our experience of the divine in our lives. These words by Maggie Ross, which, thank God, I read in 1983 just as I was about to leave seminary for a life in the church. Maggie Ross changed my understanding of the God of the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.

 

Take the little scene from Genesis 32:7-14. No sooner had YHWH rescued these people from a life of slavery in the Empire of Pharaoh, and provided daily bread and quails, and water spouting from rocks, when, the moment Moses ascends the mountain to get the rules of a relationship with God and with our neighbors, they form a golden calf, an idol, and begin to worship it. God is not pleased and suggests that he and Moses just leave them in the wilderness and go find some new people. Moses, who until now claims not to be much of a public speaker, suddenly becomes the world’s first defense attorney and argues that 1) this will not look good on your resume, and 2) any people you try to find to replace these folks will not sign up to be the next crowd you decide to abandon at the first sign of trouble. Sure enough, it is as Jonah proclaims in Nineveh, “I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.”[ii] Our God, the God of the Bible, does not give up on us, which makes one wonder, why do we do often give up on our God?

 

Then Jesus spending time with a crowd of tax collectors and sinners, is criticized by some of his religious and cultural opponents: Pharisees and scribes who claim to know more about God than Einstein knows about relativity. Hear them sneer as they say, “This man welcomes ssssssssinnersssss and eats with them!” Evidently, they are not so familiar with Genesis, Jonah and every where else in the scriptures that their God is described as gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. Overhearing their concerns, Jesus tells them three stories, two of which are about a shepherd and a woman who have lost one sheep and one coin respectively in Luke 15:1-10.

 

Neither the shepherd nor the woman has a moment’s hesitation as they abandon all other responsibilities to find the one sheep and the one coin. After which they both throw a party. Not just a party, but an extravagant and joyous party the likes of which has never been seen on earth or in heaven! And it is safe to say that the party costs far more than whatever a single sheep or coin was worth.

 

This, says Jesus, is what our God is like. Try to imagine how his critics must have heard this. God is like a shepherd? Shepherds were considered so unreliable and outside the boundaries of civil life that they were not allowed to testify in legal proceedings. While women were barely treated as second-class citizens – in fact not citizens at all. You had to be male and a land-owner to be a citizen. We can assume the critic’s minds were blown, all their assumptions swept aside like the woman sweeping every corner of her house with her broom! How dare he suggest our God is like a shepherd or a woman! People still have trouble with this to this day, despite every Christmas accepting that the very first people in Luke’s story of Jesus are the shepherds proclaiming the birth of the Christ Child! And so many other stories in which God is depicted “like a nursing mother caring for her children,”[iii] and like a mother hen gathering her chicks.[iv] It’s like Maggie Ross says, God’s relentless compassion pursues us even when we are at our worst! And when God finds us, God and the angels throw a party. Which my late friend and mentor, Gordon Cosby describes like this:

 

When we hear the invitation to claim our membership in God’s family, it’s like we’ve stumbled onto a Grace Party. We can hardly believe our good fortune. The sights and sounds of it are pure delight. Abundance characterizes the whole shindig. The most delectable manna is falling everywhere, and wine overflows as though from an Artesian well. Everyone is eating and drinking endlessly, yet not being harmed because this food and wine are not of the world but of  New Life.

 

And get this: Everyone’s invited! That’s the really good news. No one has to crash this party, there’s no limit to how many of my friends I can bring along with me. Or, my enemies for that matter. It’s such a blast that I want everyone to come – those with wealth or not a penny to their name; those who are down and out or who thought they had some power. I do notice, though, that the so-called nobodies seem to be having the most fun. It takes others awhile to lay down everything they brought with them and start to play.

 

What are people doing at this party? That’s the funny thing – We’re not ‘doing’ much at all. We’re just being. We’re being our real selves, relaxed and eager to help out with whatever the host asks of us. Love is flowing all over the place. Whatever you need, we’re ready:

 

Do you want someone to listen? We’ll hear whatever you need to say.

Are you bleeding from wounds of the past? We’ll soothe and bandage your wounds.

Do you need to be held for a while, just being quiet in a safe place? Not a problem. We have all the time in the world.

Looking for respect, even reverence? You’ll get such a dose of it you’ll wonder if you can take it all in.

 

In fact, there’s so much peace and joy at this party that it can be hard to absorb. Some of us just aren’t able to let in this much unimpeded Love and Goodness. That’s right. The host isn’t pushy. We can come and go as many times as we need to until we can handle this much joy.

 

This is simply the nature of a Grace Party. None of us is here because we deserve to be. We haven’t earned any of it. And although some of us might keep turning down the invitation, the host will never stop inviting. And neither will we who have decided to stay. We’ll be spreading the news of this unbelievable Feast everywhere we go. Come to the party! It won’t be the same if you’re not there.[v]

 

These three little episodes with Moses and Jesus are meant to radically change forever how we understand our relationship with God and others – all others. And Jesus says repeatedly, the time is now! Right now! Come! Come and join the party, every day! It won’t be the same without you! Amen.

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[i] Ross, Maggie, The Fire of Your Life (Paulist Press, NYC: 1983) p.137

[ii] Jonah 4:2b NRSVUE

[iii] 1 Thessalonians 2:7

[iv] Luke 13:31-35

[v] N Gordon Cosby, The Church of the Saviour, Washington, DC