Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 18 Sept 5 2021

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 18 Sept 5 2021

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23, Psalm 125, James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17, Mark 7:24-37

 

I grew up in a wonderful community, where kids ran around and rode their bikes, played outside until their moms called them in, there were no streetlights to go on to tell us it was time to go inside, I ran into the homes of my neighbors to eat sweet treats. My memories are nostalgic, innocent, maybe even naïve. What I never knew in those days was the extent to which people who were not like us were kept out. Looking around me I could see that everyone was like me, but only in the last twenty years did I know the extent of that reality. 

 

Historically, one of the most pernicious practices in communities like mine was the widescale adoption of so-called “restrictive covenants” by housing developers. Compacts like these barred BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and non-Christian families from living in many Edina homes – originally or at any point in the future. Covenant clauses leave little room for ambiguity. A representative buyer’s agreement from the Country Club District in the 1920s read “No lot shall ever be sold, conveyed, leased or rented to any person other than of the white or Caucasian race.” This practice not only kept people unlike me out, but it also kept them from building wealth, it kept them from good schools, it kept them away.

 

I do not say these things to make us feel bad, I say these things because I believe that when we know better, we do better. I say these things because I believe following Jesus is doing just that, knowing better and doing better, and nowhere is that clearer than in this story from Mark. I’ll tell you why. 

 

Remember, a huge theme in Mark is boundary breaking. Mark shows us that the reign of God is all about breaking boundaries, and like our hymn today teaches us that “in Christ there is no east or west, join hands, then, people of the faith, whate’er your race may be. All children of the living God are surely kin to me.” In Mark’s gospel, Jesus learns to break boundaries and calls us to that work as well.

 

Mark breaks boundaries with bread. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus makes available to the Gentiles the bread he gives to the people of Israel. First Jesus feeds five thousand people in Jewish territory, and then Jesus feeds four thousand people on Gentile soil and then immediately fights with the Pharisees over his authority to do such a thing. However, nowhere is this point clearer that when Jesus compares the healing of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter to the sharing of the children’s bread with Gentile dogs. Bread, in other words, is a boundary-breaking symbol. 

 

Throughout Mark, the contrasts between insiders and outsiders are vast. We see and hear that in the conversations between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, the Pharisees. The lines of purity are so clear so that you are able to identify who is a Jew and who is a Gentile just by observing what they do, what they eat, how they wash. But what Mark wants his readers to know, both Jesus and Gentiles, is that food laws no longer determine relationship with God’s reign; it’s not what you eat but how you live your life that matters. 

 

Jesus is now wiping out those distinctions and shattering the boundary the distinctions had imposed. So listen to this. If Jews could eat any kind of food without becoming unclean, that meant that when Gentiles ate those foods they were no longer defiled by them. The bottom line is that Jews and Gentiles could now eat together. And that gets us to this boundary breaking story about this Syrophoenician woman, absolutely not Jewish, asking Jesus to heal her daughter from an unclean spirit. 

 

Let’s take a look. Jesus went away to a region in Tyre to get away from everyone. Maybe he’d been walking all day, his feet were dirty and sore, his back was killing him, all he wanted to do was find a comfortable bed and take it easy for a while. While he was imagining the wonderful foot wash and nap he was going to have, a woman approaches him. Not a Jewish woman, but a Gentile woman, a Syrophoenician at that, a woman so very far outside of Jesus' neighborhood. 

 

Now this woman who in her time and place had no right to speak to Jesus asks Jesus to heal her daughter. She must have been desperate. She must have been at the end of her rope. Not unlike the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak, not unlike the woman at the well. Women, who just want to be well, to have their children well, who want to be seen. 

 

But Jesus is tired, there’s no excuse for it, and Jesus barks back at her. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The children in this story are the people of Israel, the Jews. She retorts, and reminds him that even the dogs under the table get the children’s bread crumbs. The dogs in this story are the Gentiles. What is astounding in this is that this woman has stood up to Jesus when Jesus is at his very worst, there really is no excuse for his words and behaviors here, and she claims that Jesus’ mission is not only to the Jews but everyone else as well. This is huge, the bread that Jesus breaks is for Jews as well as Gentiles. The boundaries are broken.

 

This woman shows us that Jesus’ boundary breaking mission is for all people. Where the traditions of the elders and the religious law could see only an outcast, Jesus sees the woman’s heart of faith. Jesus heals her child. Jesus does not hold his saving power in reserve but expands the circle of God’s mercy to include those once considered outsiders. Jesus welcomes all who put their faith in him. It is at this very point that Love wins because Love crosses boundaries. Love crosses the walls that we have erected. Love pushes against long held prejudices and practices that keep people apart. When we know better, we do better. 

 

Following Jesus is about breaking down boundaries. Following Jesus is about participating in systems that welcome all God’s beloveds and divesting ourselves of systems that continue to exclude and divide. When you have more than you need, you build a bigger table, not a thicker wall.  

 

Jesus is the bread that feeds us, all of us. God’s reign includes every one of us, there are no boundaries separating Jew from Greek, black from white from indigenous or alien, gay or straight or both or none. When we know better, we go out and do better. We go out and with this Syrophoenician woman we change the systems that keep us divided. We call out the systems that continue to oppress. And we always offer the bread of life to each and every person. Amen.

7 Pentecost Proper 9 July 3 2016

7 Pentecost Proper 9 July 3 2016 Audio

Recently, the readings from Luke have been about the unfailing love and abundant grace that God has for us. We have heard how that love and grace calls us into relationship with God, and how that transforms us. We have heard that God does not call us away or out of the world, but instead calls us to do our work, to be in relationship, to go about our business in a way that is new, in a way that reveals God’s unfailing love and grace to the world. This work that God calls us to is also called discipleship. This is our call, this is our work. And the gospel of Luke is all about being a disciple.

To be a disciple or to do the work that God calls us to, is to be on a journey of active faith formation, and to be a disciple is to be part of God's dream of love and healing in this world. That is what Luke means when he writes about God coming near. This is called the kingdom of God. And according to Luke, the kingdom of God is about reordering human interaction, we see that when Jesus brings to the center those people on the margins. And the kingdom of God is about loving one another as God has loved us.  A sign of this love, a sign of God's dream in our interactions, is offering peace to all people we encounter.

In this gospel passage from Luke, we learn that God's call, God's love, God's kingdom, includes everyone. And we learn that discipleship, God's love, God's kingdom is about radical hospitality.

In the New Revised Standard Version translation we just read, we heard that Jesus appointed seventy disciples and sent them out in pairs. However, many New Testament scholars are convinced the earliest transcripts read 72. And the reason this is important, is that seventy-two is a significant number. At the time Luke’s story was told, the number of the world’s nations is seventy-two. Seventy-two is also reckoned in an apocryphal book, called Enoch, as the number of princes and the number of languages in the world. And according to legend, seventy-two elders were commissioned to translate the law from Hebrew to Greek, a project undertaken in order to win renown throughout the whole world for the Jews and their God.

So, seventy-two really means everyone, everyone is sent out, but never sent out alone. So now it is not just the original Jewish disciples of Jesus that spread the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. It is gentiles as well, and it is all of us; every one of us is a disciple and we are all called to spread the Good News.

Last Wednesday the church celebrated the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul. A gift that St. Peter and St. Paul give to us in the 21st century is the gift of disagreement. At the very beginnings of the church, these two important church leaders could not agree on who’s in and who’s out. The argument about circumcision which is referred to in the Galatians passage, was a huge argument in the 1st century. Basically, the question was, do disciples of Jesus have to be circumcised as a Jew before they can be baptized? This question was really about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and what it means to be Jew. It is a question that caused communities to stop talking to each other; it caused communities to split apart and even stop eating together. The answer to the question however, was always, Love one another as God has loved you. And, a sign of that love was to settle your differences before you come to the table to eat. St. Peter and St. Paul taught us to agree to disagree, because we are all part of one family. The way St. Peter and St. Paul taught us to agree to disagree is to practice radical hospitality.

And that is what this passage before us today is about. All of us are called to radical hospitality; all of us are called to offer God's love and hospitality to everyone we meet.

This example of hospitality shows us both sides, how to offer hospitality, and how to receive hospitality.

Jesus sends the seventy-two out to do the work of preaching and teaching, and harvesting the fruits of that labor. Jesus sends them with instructions. Those instructions are about how to receive hospitality. First say “peace to this house” and then stay there and eat and drink, cure the sick and preach the Good News. If they do not welcome you, if they do not offer hospitality, leave in protest, and know that the kingdom of God has come near. We need to remember what Luke means when he writes about Jesus ushering in the kingdom of God. It is the reordering of human interactions. Jesus brings those who are on the margins to the center, those who are first will be last, those who are out will be in.

What does the discipleship of radical hospitality look like for us? As disciples, as followers of Jesus, we are called to welcome the stranger. We are called to offer rest, to wash their feet, and a place at the table. When we offer this radical hospitality, we act as disciples and the kingdom of God is near. We, as disciples, are called to offer hospitality to everyone, people we agree with, people we disagree with, people that look like us, people who look different than us, people that we grew up with, people who are strangers.

As disciples we are also called to go out into the world, walking along side one another, and say to all we meet, Peace to you, peace to your house, peace to your people. We are to take the gospel seriously, be transformed by it and offer it’s message of hospitality to all we meet, to all whose paths we cross, and to all who come alongside us as we journey together. In this age of rampant individualism and consumerism, offering hospitality and walking alongside one another, including and especially those who are different from us, is a radical and difficult call. This encounter requires attentive listening and willingness to enter into another’s world and be transformed by this world. This encounter requires dependence, and for folks who value independence above much else, this is a radical and difficult call. Dependence on God, and one another, the Body of Christ. There are few things more satisfying and life giving, it turns out, than sharing with others, giving of our abundance, receiving in our need, all the while being knit more closely together as the Body of Christ, very different witness to people in this world who would exclude, divide, and keep out.

Peace to this house, peace to your house, peace to the stranger’s house.

4 Lent Yr B

Last week, Virginia taught us about a word we tend to dislike, obedience. She helped us to see that obedience is about listening receptively to God's word in our lives. It is what we do when we are on a pilgrimage, we make camp, pitch our tents, and listen receptively to the word who is Jesus.

Today we hear another word we don't like much, judgment. I recently read a novel, called The High Flyer, (by Susan Howatch) in which a character, Nicholas Darrow, tells a story that his father, an Anglican priest, would tell. Once upon a time, a man and his small son were on holiday and they saw a sign directing them along a road to some sheepdog trials which were being held on a nearby hillside. The little boy said: 'O, I'd like to see a trial!' so his father agreed to take him, but when they arrived at the scene the little boy was very disappointed. He said to his father: 'But where's the jury? And where's the judge in the black cap, like the judge at the Old Bailey who sentences murderers to hang?' Then the father had to explain that it wasn't that kind of trial. No dog was going to be condemned to death or sentenced to prison. Every one of them was there to be affirmed and valued and encouraged, and if some of them didn't come up to the mark they were always told they were welcome to come back later on when they had learned how to be more skillful." You see, God is like the judge of the sheepdog trials, not condemning to hell, but loving the creation so totally and absolutely, that our lives are transformed by that Love.

In a book many people were reading a couple years ago, The Shack, the author illustrated judgment in this way. The scene involves our protagonist, Mack, and he is in conversation with an unnamed character, who calls him into thinking about how he views God as judge. It is a compelling scene, and she invites Mack to recognize that he is blaming God for all his pain, for his Great Sadness as Mack describes it. She says to Mack, "if you are able to judge God so easily, then you certainly can judge the world." She asks Mack to choose two of his children to spend eternity in God's new heavens and new earth, and the other three he will sentence to hell. Of course Mack is alarmed at this, but isn't it exactly what some have led us to believe, that God so easily can condemn God's children to hell. Mack pleads with her, and finally says to her, "Could I go instead?" Mack was willing to put himself in his children's place and be condemned, so they didn't have to. But you see, that has already been done for us. God has judged us worthy of love, and it cost God everything.

You see, the purpose of judgment is inclusion, not exclusion. It is not that God is so warm and fuzzy that anything goes, that we can do no wrong, indeed, we all miss the mark, we are all judged guilty, but, according to Eugene Peterson, judgment means the "decisive word by which God straightens things out and puts things right. Judgment puts love in motion, applies mercy, nullifies wrong, orders goodness." We are guilty but we are forgiven. God's love and God's grace call us into mercy, repentance, and we are forgiven and transformed.

So we hear in the gospel today, Eugene Peterson's translation, "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life." Again, the purpose of judgment is inclusion, not exclusion, it is about transformation, not damnation. Love does indeed win.

Again, with all of this said, it is Love that calls us into a whole and lasting life. Love calls us into mercy and compassion and away from the judgment of others. And Rob Bell writes in Love wins, "...there are strong, shocking images of judgment and separation in which people miss out on rewards and celebrations and opportunities. Jesus tells us these stories to wake us up to the timeless truth that history moves forward, not backward or sideways...While we continually find grace waiting to pick us up off the ground after we have fallen, there are realities to our choices. While we may get other opportunities, we won't get the one right in front of us again...Jesus reminds us in a number of ways that it is vitally important we take our choices here and now as seriously as we possibly can because they matter more than we can begin to imagine. Whatever you've been told about the end-- the end of your life, the end of time, the end of the world-- Jesus passionately urges us to live like the end is here, now, today."

Live as if you are fully and completely loved, right here and right now, today is the day you have, how are you going to show forth God's amazing love and grace. How does your life tell this story of Jesus, this story that Love wins?

Here is one story, it's not my story, but it's a great story about how Love wins. "Last weekend, Chase and I were grocery shopping in the produce section and he was having a blast weighing each new bag of vegetables I collected. I handed him a bag of tomatoes and he walked over to the scale and waited patiently in line. As I watched, a man walked up behind Chase, scowled at him for a moment, and stepped in front of him, bumping Chase out of the way. Chase looked shocked and scared. I left my cart and walked over to Chase, stood by him and said loudly, "Are you all right honey? I saw what that man did to you. That was very, very wrong and rude." Chase said nothing, the Grumpy Old man said nothing. Chase and I held hands and waited.

When the man was finished weighing his bag, he turned around quickly and all of his onions spilled out of his bag and on to the dirty floor. The three of us froze for a moment. Then Chase looked up at me and I motioned toward the floor. Chase and I got down on our hands and knees and started collecting onions while the old man grouchily and grudgingly accepted them from our hands and put them back into his bag. After Chase and I retrieved the last onion, the man walked away. Chase and I did too, and we didn't discuss the event until we got back in the car.

On the drive home, Chase said through tears, "Mommy, I've had a frustrating day. That man cut right in front of me and that was wrong. And we had to help him pick up his onions! Why did we do that? That didn't make any sense." I took a deep breath and said, "Chase, that man was acting horribly wasn't he? He seemed to have a very angry heart. I'm so sorry that happened to you. But if we didn't help him with his onions, do you think we would have made his heart softer or angrier?" "Angrier," Chase said. "Since we did help him, do you think that might have made his heart softer?" "Maybe," Chase said. "But you know what, Chase? I understand how you feel. I didn't want to help that man with his onions. You know what I wanted to do?" "What?" "I wanted to kick him really hard in the shin. I was very angry with that man for treating you badly. But sometimes doing what we really want to do, if it's going to add more anger, isn't the right thing to do. Even if it feels good at the time. If we wouldn't have helped that old man, we might have felt good for a second, but then I bet we would have felt really, really yucky about ourselves for a long time. You and I, we have a lot of love to share. Maybe that man doesn't have much. Maybe we offered him some today. People who behave badly still need love."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/best-mommy-moment_b_1334708.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Many people in our lives behave badly. Many people in the public arena as we have seen recently, behave badly. We, at times behave badly. But judgment is about inclusion, not exclusion, because Love wins, every time.