Second Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 5 June 6 2021

 

Second Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 5 June 6 2021 

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15), Psalm 138, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, Mark 3:20-35 

 

You know those cliche sayings like, “We weren’t sisters by birth, but we knew from the start, fate brought us together to be sisters by heart” – and friends that feel more like family than family sometimes does. Today we might refer to “our tribe” or even more simply, “our people.” That’s who Jesus is referring to when he talks like this, and he talks like this a lot in Mark’s gospel. Mark is saying that the people who populate Jesus’ ancestral lineage are not his true kin. His real family is constituted by behavior, not blood. Those who pay attention to Jesus’ proclamation about the imminent reign of God and govern their lives according to its transformative, countercultural mandates are his real family. No matter how true this is, it’s hard to hear Jesus disavowing his blood family, we are shocked and surprised. And that is the nature of a parable. Parables are shocking and surprising. They show us what the kingdom of God looks like. And they are boundary breaking, margin shifting, uncomfortable. 

 

This boundary breaking, margin shifting talk of Jesus is so outside the box, it makes his blood kin say he is crazy, possessed, out of his mind. Jesus has just been traveling, and people have been flocking to see him and hear him speak. People have been coming from Judea and Jerusalem. These would be Jews, coming to hear what this upstart preacher has to say. And people have been coming from Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. Why all these details? Because these place names tell us that not just Jews are coming to hear Jesus, but foreigners as well. Jesus’ people come increasingly from beyond the boundaries of Jewish places and spaces, they flock to him not because of who he is, but because of their faith in what he can do. Movement is happening here, movement toward those who are unclean, unholy, impure. And this movement is in the direction God desires because even the demons recognize its instigator as God’s son and therefore the representation of God’s earthly intent. Jesus says, if you don’t recognize that, it is like slandering the Holy Spirit. 

 

The tide has changed, the shift is happening, the boundaries are breaking, the margins disappearing, the box no longer divides inside from outside but becomes a place and a space where anyone is welcome in the faith family. Gathering people from everywhere now has the opportunity to become part of the new thing that God is doing. 

 

Twelve people have been enlisted to follow Jesus, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, and now are reconfigured into this new community constituted on love, and sent out for more boundary breaking behavior - preaching, healing, teaching. 

 

And now, Jesus’ family is composed of those who choose to be with him, around him, following his lead. Jesus’ family, and then of course God’s family, is not limited to those with traditional ties and blood lines, but those who want to follow his lead, those who want to love like he loves, serve like he serves, transforming places and spaces into communities of the beloved.

 

More than 2000 years ago Jesus was welcoming people of every tribe, nation, ethnicity, gender in the new community that was being created, the new thing that God was doing, and we continue to struggle today to figure out how break down the barriers that keep people from God’s love. Why is that? Why do we erect a wall around ourselves that is so tall and impenetrable? Why? Fear. 

 

Jesus calls us to not be afraid. Jesus calls us to dismantle that barrier of fear, brick by brick. Jesus calls us to go to the margins and listen to the stories of those who think, love, vote, differently than us. 

 

There are two recent stories in our collective lives that show me we are far from the kingdom Mark imagines for us, far from Jesus’ proclamation about the imminent reign of God and us governing our lives according to its transformative, countercultural mandates.

 

The first story is the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Following World War I, Tulsa was recognized nationally for its affluent African American community known as the Greenwood District. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area was referred to as “Black Wall Street.” In June 1921, a series of events nearly destroyed the entire Greenwood area. In the early morning hours of June 1, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. The Governor declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days. Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died. In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre it is important to understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page and an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long smoldering fire. Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust, all played roles in leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 1921. And we are just learning all of this now, 100 years after it happened.

 

Secondly, we just heard about the recent discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children in British Columbia, at the site of a former residential school. The most recent discovery in a long list of abuse of indigenous children at the hands of white men and women in Canada and in the United States. 

 

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn? 

 

You and I live in this wonderful little town, and claim that we are not racist, it is not our fault, we are not responsible, and there is nothing we can do about it. And yet we live on land taken from the Kickapoo, Peoria, Sauk and Meskwaki, Ho-chunk, Myaamia, and Ochethi Sakowin nations. 

 

We must learn to do differently. The only way I know how to do differently, is to do differently. What must we do differently so that we may come close to God’s dream of love? We must listen deeply to the stories of those not like us, we must never assume that we know best. We must respect the dignity of every human being. 

 

Today I leave you with words written by Wendell Berry, “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

 

Let us listen deeply to what the world needs. Amen.