A Different Kind of Picture: September 23, 2018

Year B, Pentecost 18                                                  

Mark 9:30-38                                                                                           

            One of my favorite paintings of Jesus depicts him seated with children surrounding him.  He is talking to one boy with his arm around the boy’s shoulder.  A little girl has her head on his shoulder.  I have had this print for as long as I can remember.  The picture is so ingrained in me that when I think of Jesus, I see that Jesus.  Most of us have probably seen a picture or painting of Jesus with children. There is a reason politicians are always kissing babies. It’s heartwarming.  It makes you feel good. It makes you want to trust them.  We want that image of Jesus as much as we want that image of national leaders. This image comes in part from our Gospel for today.

            Our Gospel for today is jam packed.  The children only come in at the end of the reading.  It starts with Jesus teaching his disciples, explaining that he would be killed and then rise again.  The disciples were understandably confused by this, but didn’t not ask for an explanation.  Instead, they got into an argument about who was the greatest.  Greatest at what we do not know.  Greatest disciple, greatest miracle worker, greatest fisherman.  We don't know.  What we do know is that Jesus didn’t like it.  In response to their petty argument, he told them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 

            Now, if you have been coming to church for a while, you have probably heard this so many times, it no longer seems shocking. Yet, if you think about it, it must have sounded kind of crazy to the disciples who were hearing it for the first time.  And Jesus knew it sounded crazy.  He knew that his disciples were not catching on to everything he was teaching.  So he decided to show them what he meant.  He took a child and held the child in his arms.  He said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me…” 

            Well isn’t that sweet. Can’t you just see the disciples nodding along with big smiles?  I have always imagined the scene with loving parents not far off looking on-- proud of their son or daughter and grateful to Jesus for taking such an interest in their child.  It must have been as heartwarming then as we perceive it now.  Perhaps not.  You see... the way we treat children in our culture or social circles is not how all people perceive or treat children.  We expect our children to be doted on and loved.  We expect them to have family looking after them.  That may be our experience--and we are fortunate if it is, but it is certainly not the norm.  It is really only in modern history when children had rights, let alone the exalted place they currently hold in our culture. 

            In the time that Jesus was living in, children were the least of these.  They had no rights.  The mortality rate was high and people could not assume their child would live to be an adult.  Women had lots of children to ensure that at least some would live to carry on the family name and tradition.  Today, if there was a food scarcity, the children would be fed first. Then, they would have been fed last, if fed at all.  Not only were they not highly regarded, they were a nuisance.  They had to be taken care and could not contribute much to the family.  Therefore when Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me…” ---That would have been shocking. 

            While this view of children seems unimaginable to most of us, it’s not actually that unthinkable.  I can’t speak for you all, but I have been very fortunate in that in my world, I have almost always seen children treated well.  I have been sheltered.  I remember there was only one time in my life when I saw children in a desperate situation.  When I was 9, my parents took me on a day trip to a border town in Mexico.  As soon as we crossed over the border, we were surrounded by children asking for money.  I gave all my money away in the first 15 minutes.  It just blew my mind that these children were just wandering the streets. The scary thing is, that is a lot more common than most of us want to admit.       There are a lot of children out there who are unloved, who are hungry, carrying contagious and deadly diseases, disfigured because they didn’t get the proper nutrition in the womb, deserted because they were born a girl, scared and desperate because their parents have been killed in war or they have been separated from their parents for reasons beyond their control.  Children are suffering all over the world. 

            There are the children who occasionally pluck the strings of our heart when we see a horrifying image on the news, but these are images that we can push back because they are not our own.  I want to paint you a new picture.  These are the children who are surrounding Jesus in this story.  They are dirty, hungry and sick.  They are neglected and unwanted. They are being shot at because of the color of their skin.  They are being bought and sold as slaves. They are dying. And Jesus wasn’t just handing them some loose change, he was holding them in his arms and telling his chosen 12 that these, these were the people who mattered to him.  And if they mattered to him, they should matter to his disciples as well.  They should matter to all of us. 

            I know that there are a lot of you who are working for children in our community and some outside our community. St. John’s has been working with Downtown Hampton Development Center that provides low cost early education for many years; we have parishioners who take children shopping for school supplies; we have people who tutor at the local schools; our St. Anne’s Guild works with the Boys Home in Covington and many of you serve on boards of various agencies committed to helping children.  Our music academy is currently reaching out to provide music lessons to children who might not be able to otherwise afford it. Those are all such important things. We can do more.  Right now violent crime by youth and to youth is up in Hampton. Some of these teenagers who are the victims, witnesses, and offenders of these crimes have never known the love that Jesus asks us to share. Right now the Mayor’s office is working with local churches at forming mentor programs for youth in junior high.  This is another opportunity to follow Jesus’ charge to his disciples, to care for the least of these…not just the cute children we see depicted in religious art, the children who really desperately need our love.

         Typically, when we think of Jesus loving the children, we think of innocence, curiosity and loyalty.  But Jesus was talking about the aspects of children that are harder to love.  While that is a challenge to all of us, it is comforting to know that he loves the parts of each of us that are hard to love.  As a wise person once said, "Jesus loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay that way."  Just one chapter after our reading for today, Jesus and the disciples once again interact with children. The disciples rebuked the children for seeking his blessing.  It seems they did not learn that lesson very well.  But that's ok- they were slow learners like most of us are.  Jesus took the children in his arms and blessed them again.  I bet he also blessed his disciples, because they needed love too.  It's not easy to be Jesus' disciples.  It's not easy to love the least of these.  Thankfully, we have many opportunities.  Even if we mess up and don't love as we should, we have countless opportunities to share Jesus’ blessings, and if we take these opportunities, the potential is unlimited.

Be Part of the Redemption: Sept. 9, 2018

Year B, Pentecost 16                                                
Mark 7: 24-31                                                                                   

 

            This Gospel reading is a troubling one; partly because it forces us to ask some tough questions about who Jesus is.  There is nothing more fundamental to our faith than Jesus, which means this text can be complicated…really complicated.  The problem is that Jesus is mean in this story.  He calls a woman, who is begging on behalf of her sick daughter, a dog.  A dog. There is never a good time to call someone a dog.  While it was not unusual for Jesus to criticize men in power (like the religious authorities we talked about last week), he was usually compassionate toward anyone on the margins, which often included women.

            For centuries, preachers and theologians have been trying to justify Jesus’ words.  Maybe he was testing her.  Maybe the word dog was meant affectionately, more like a puppy, and he said it with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Perhaps she was even in on the joke.  No.  Calling a woman a dog in any culture at any time period is always bad.  So why did Jesus do it? 

            There was a great deal of friction between the Jews and the Gentiles.  Jesus was a Jew and as a Jew, he had been taught not to interact with Gentiles.  Gentiles were unclean.  Typically Jews did not even travel in Gentile territory.  Yet the first sentence of our reading tells us that, “Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre.” This was deep in Gentile territory.  The fact that Jesus went there tells us something was shifting in his ministry.  We saw that shift begin in our reading last week.

While there was animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles, you might remember that in last week’s Gospel reading, Jesus declared that there was no food that was unclean.  This was a big deal because the distinction between food that was clean and unclean was a huge point of contention between the Jews and Gentiles. But according to Jesus’ statement last week, things once considered unclean were now acceptable.  This shift laid the groundwork for the people he encounters in today’s reading.  If he could declare unclean food acceptable, perhaps he could do the same for Gentiles who were previously considered unclean.  

            However, the Gentiles weren’t just unclean.  The Gentiles were hated.  They were commonly called dogs.  Jesus didn’t just randomly call this woman a dog; that is was what Jews called Gentiles.  This woman in our Gospel reading was a Gentile.  It is obvious that she had heard that slur plenty of times because she did not even bother denying it.  She just accepted the slur and used it to effectively state her case.  Therefore it is understandable that Jesus would call the woman a dog--- or is it?  He should have known better.  This is Jesus, the Son of God. He should have known better. This is where things get complicated.  If we say that Jesus didn’t know better and his heart was changed by his interaction with this woman, then are we saying that Jesus was wrong in the first place?  And if he was wrong, is that the same thing as saying he sinned?  One of the fundamental views of many Christians is that Jesus was sinless.  He was perfect. 

            That’s true.  But he was also human.   This got me thinking about how we define sin.  Think about it for a moment.  If I put you on the spot right now, how would you define sin?  I bet you could think of lots of examples…but what exactly is sin?  The catechism in the back of our prayer book defines sin as, “seeking our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God and with other people and with all creation.”  By that rationale, Jesus could not sin because he was God which meant his will was the same as God’s. 

            Yet still, I am troubled by his treatment of this woman.  Then I am reminded that by becoming human, Jesus took on our frailties and to some degree our limitations.  What he knew, what he had been taught from his birth, was that Gentiles were less than. His ministry was for the Jewish people.  What made Jesus divine was his ability to let go of these human prejudices with relative ease. He was able to see past the slurs and see this woman for who she was—a child of God.  While most (if not all) religious leaders would have simply dismissed her words, he listened to her response.  He let her response and her compassion for her daughter change him.

He was able to see past the distortion that sin had created.  Remember how our catechism defines sin---“it distorts our relationship with God and with other people.” It was sin that had distorted the relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles.  Jesus was born into a world of distortion.  Unfortunately we all are.  As a result, we are programmed to see people who are not like us as “the other.” We can either accept that, or we can learn from Jesus’ model and listen to “the other.” 

            Right now, our world is dominated by sound bites, memes and 280 character tweets.  As long as those remain the parameters of how we know a person or learn about an issue, we will never actually learn anything new.  We will never be pushed outside of our comfort zone.  Virtually every time someone has explained to me how their views shifted about an issue or a group of people, it was from knowing someone who thought differently or was different.

In high school, I fell into a quirky and diverse group of friends.  They were diverse religiously more than anything. Several were Hindu.  One was Muslim. One was Jewish.  There was a Catholic, an Episcopalian and a few agnostics.  My Muslim friend was the one who taught me the most.  She also happened to be the most devout of the group and so we talked a lot about our faith.  This was before 9-11 and we were not yet living in the culture of fear we now live in.  But after 9-11, I remember feeling grateful for having her in my life, because Muslims weren’t a group for me, there was a face I associated with that faith. I know that face.  More importantly, I know her heart.

            I think we can all agree that what is going on in our world right now (the suspicion of people who hold views different than our own, the name calling, etc) is causing far more harm than good.  It is so easy to judge people now.  Recently I was behind a car and they had all these bumper stickers.  I remember thinking, I definitely would not like that person. Then I saw their Episcopal shield and I thought, huh, well I guess I can get past those other stickers.   

While judging people based on things like bumper stickers or ethnicities is wrong, it’s part of human nature.   It comes from living in a world full of distorted relationships.  Fortunately, because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we have endless opportunities for redemption.  That redemption comes in the form of relationships, relationships with people who would be a lot easier to judge if we did not know them.  For Jesus and this woman, it took one sentence. She said, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” However, most of us need more than a sentence. Most of us need a relationship.

 I want to challenge you all this fall to seek a relationship with someone who is different than you (a different socio economic class, religion, political party, ethnicity, etc.)  Don’t enter the relationship trying to change them, open your own heart to a potential change.  We can’t just complain about the lack of kindness or civil discourse in our country.  Gandhi once said that you have to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”  We all have that opportunity.  Not only can we be part of the change, as Christians we can be part of the redemption.

Law of Love: September 2, 2018

Year B, Pentecost 15                                                                          
Mark 7: 1-23                                                                                      

 

          Over the last month and a half, we have been reading from the Gospel of John. It’s been a little heady and dense.  The Gospel of Mark is a welcome reprieve from the theology of John. However, it’s a little unsettling to be suddenly dropped in the middle of an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees.  Therefore, let me provide a recap of the chapter that preceded our Gospel reading for today. It’s been a busy time for Jesus and his disciples. He fed the 5000, he walked on water and healed a bunch of people.  This was just the 2^nd half of chapter 6.  As a result, Jesus was a rising star, which meant that his actions and the actions of his disciples were more closely scrutinized then they had previously been.

            Who better to scrutinize actions and make judgments than the Pharisees and Scribes?  These men were the experts in the laws and the rules around the laws. They had dedicated their lives to the study of these laws. It was their job to explain the laws to people and make sure that people were following them. Often times, they get a bad rap and I am not sure it is always merited. 

A lot of people like to paint Jesus as this anti-establishment rebel who was trying to change the Jewish faith and dismantle the institution.  But this was not what he was doing.  He was trying to get them to go back to the basics, consider what the important things were  The laws of the Jewish people were the 10 Commandments and the first 5 books of the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament).  However, over the years leaders of the faith built up rituals and traditions to protect these laws.

Many people compare these rituals and traditions to a fence.  They built a fence around the laws so they could protect the people from breaking the laws.  This fence became so high and so dense, that no one even knew that there was something behind it.  This is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold on to human tradition.”

The law that the disciples were breaking in this story was not a law at all.  It was a ritual that had been created by religious leaders over hundreds of years.  It was not for cleanliness, it was ceremonial.  It came out of the act of thanksgiving, like how we say grace before a meal.   It started for good reasons. They wanted to recognize that every meal was an opportunity to give thanks and an opportunity for religious fellowship.  Then some people got so obsessed with the ritual, they put more emphasis on that than the thanksgiving and fellowship.  Jesus was showing them that they could still give thanks and have fellowship without all these add ons.

Thankfully getting lost in the details never happens in Christians Churches.  We never create traditions and rituals and forget the reason behind the tradition.  We never get upset when something changes.  No one has ever said, “We’ve never done it that way before.” Of course we do.  We also have our own oral laws (or what Mark refers to as the tradition of the elders).  Some of our traditions have been honed over 100s of years.  But some have only been around for 5 or 10 years. It is amazing how quickly traditions can take root in the church.

Unfortunately in admitting that this clinging to tradition happens in our churches today, I have to admit that the clergy are often the Pharisees.  As a clergy person, I am the one that makes sure the things that we do in the service are liturgically proper.  This was part of my seminary training.  Let me show you an example of these oral laws that have been written down. 

*These are essentially text books.  They tell you how to stand, when to kneel, when to cross yourself. They don’t all agree.  (In the spoken sermon---I show books!)

*This book is full of Episcopal vocabulary.  That’s right.  These are all words that we made up.  We had to memorize them and I have forgotten at least 50%. 

*This is a commentary on the Book of Common Prayer.  It tells you what all the things in italics really mean. 

*This is a book on the canon laws of the church.  Apparently there is another book explaining the laws which only the most exceptional church nerds know about.

Now some of these things are helpful, some of them even necessary.  But a lot is just unnecessary detail. Many clergy will disagree with me on that…and they are the one who own more of these books. We could argue about it, but that would probably make us even more like the Pharisees in this text.  Of course if we are honest, we will admit that it’s not just the clergy who guard tradition. We all do. Some of these traditions that we guard are shared by many churches and some are specific to individual churches. Recently someone told me that you need to wear a tie to be an usher at St. John’s.  This surprised me as I have never seen this written anywhere.  I have read our church bylaws.  That rule is not in there.  Maybe it was a rule at some point, but I challenge any of you to find it written. 

Or let’s look more broadly at a rule that many liturgical churches are passionate about---that there can be no Christmas music or decorations until after the 4^th Sunday of Advent.  I assume this is written down somewhere, but I’ve never seen it.  I know the reason behind it, but we tend to go a little overboard with it on occasion. It’s not like lightening is going to strike us if we sing Away in the Manger on December 15^th.

The traditions that we have, come from a rich history and the great majority of them have a holy and profound purpose.  The problem comes when our commitment to these traditions gets in the way of how we love our neighbor or when we spend more time arguing about the rules than we spend actually doing the work God has called us to do.  That is when these rules and traditions are dangerous. 

The Pharisees were upset because the disciples were eating with defiled hands.  This is not because their hands were literally dirty. Their hands were defiled because they had not been ritually cleansed.  They were blind to the good work that Jesus and his disciples were doing because they were so concerned with how it all looked, how it reflected on them.  They were so focused on the change itself, they never noticed the positive outcome of that change. They could not see the people who were drawn to Jesus because he didn’t worry about laws that determine ritual cleanliness.

            There is a point in our spiritual journey, when we should look for the Pharisee within us.   Just like the Pharisees built a fence around the law, we have built fences around our hearts.  Jesus was not only concerned about the heart of the law, he was and is concerned about the heart of each one of us.  Jesus said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” 

We can do all the right things in worship.  We can cross ourselves at the right time, we can kneel when the prayer book tells us to.  But if all those actions are devoid of any real feeling, what’s the point?  When we become too comfortable in our life and our faith, when the status quo becomes our creed, it is then when we have to ask ourselves: Are we protecting God’s law or are we protecting ourselves?  And what exactly are we protecting?  Because I am fairly certain that God’s love doesn’t need our human made protections.  God’s law of love, doesn’t need our fences.