Well, friends, once again we find ourselves at the close of a week of unprecedented events and at the beginning of another. Sometimes, among the headlines and memes and conspiracy theories, I like to try to take a step back and think about the way people are responding in our various pools of friends and online acquaintances.
Most of us are, of course, somewhat selective of who we communicate with through social media, but there are also those (like me) who just say what they want to anyone and everyone who will listen. Regardless of your level of discretion, you’ve probably noticed that there are some who only use social media for levity, rightly believing that no political, theological or ontological argument has ever been won online.
Then there are those that try to get everyone to their side. Sometimes that’s through a factual argument, and sometimes it’s through sarcasm and ridicule of “the other side.” Sometimes it is through sharing something good or happy or funny and asking others to do the same, and sometimes it’s through a sanctimonious, or even silent, departure from all of the above.
Regardless of how you do or do not use social media, the reality is that we are in a tenuous state of being today in these not-so-United States of America. While that is a scary thing to say and to think about, what I wonder is what God thinks about it.
Truly, I believe that God wants our unity. Truly, I believe that God does not want our Spiritual Unity to be legislated or coerced or even pointed to as a source of pride. God simply wants us to care about and for one another and to trust in God to provide. How do I know that?
Let’s look at our texts. First off I want to say that anytime somebody says, “This is what it says in the Bible,” it’s a good idea to do some of your own reading to follow it up. Not only that but it’s good to remember that part of the “proof” of scripture is when you find consistent themes that you can talk with others about so that the Spirit can work in and through your conversations. Finally, those themes must also match up with the example and teaching of Jesus. We call that discernment in the Reformed tradition, and it’s kind of a group effort, so I hope this isn’t just a time to say, “Pastor Zach said…” but maybe a time to begin thinking about a way to approach someone else with “Here’s something I found in the Bible. What do you think about it?” and then see where the Spirit takes you.
OK, so today we read Psalm 146, and as Monique pointed out, many people believe that the Psalms were either written or commissioned by King David. It’s also possible this one was written during some time of national lament, but what really matters here is that the Psalm isn’t really about David, or Israel, or anyone else. It’s about God. It’s about God and God’s activity of justice for the oppressed and caring for those who suffer at the hands of others.
It’s interesting that, not only does Jesus pick something similar to read about in the temple, but that what he reads comes from Isaiah 58 and 61! [I Push my glasses up in a universal nerd gesture.] Maybe that’s more exciting to me than it is to you (because I’m kind of a Bible nerd) but that’s the kind of thing that I’m talking about with consistent themes!
The thing is, most scholars agree that Isaiah 61 refers to the Old Testament idea of Jubilee, and the townsfolk in Nazareth were pretty happy to hear it. You see, there’s little evidence that it ever really happened, but every 50 years there was supposed to be a complete canceling of debt and a return of any property that was sold because of financial hardship, and also a return of all slaves and displaced persons to their ancestral homes and tribal lands. Woo! That’s a game changer.
One can only imagine what those living under the thumb of Rome must have felt when one of their own came to proclaim that it was time to reshuffle the deck! “Isn’t that Joseph’s boy?” they said, and I’m sure that carried with it the knowledge that Joseph had gone to Bethlehem to be counted, so this was coming from the house and the line of David!
Now, you would think that Jesus would have learned out there in his Wilderness Seminary training that you should never bring politics into the pulpit, but apparently he never heard that lecture, because he went straight for that third rail of politics on the preachin’ train.
I imagine that he cleared his throat a bit, “Ahem. Remember that time when Elijah was running for his life for speaking God’s truth against corruption, and there was a horrible famine, and yet God only helped the foreign woman, the widow who used the last of her flour to make bread for Elijah? Remember...remember how God demonstrated mercy through Elisha to heal the General of a foreign power who was actively seeking the downfall of God’s people Israel?”
Well, that did it! Jesus most certainly heard the lesson that “If you aren’t making someone mad then you aren’t preaching the good news!” Of course, being the embodiment of the Good News, it was bound to happen.
That’s the thing about the Good News of Jesus Christ, it’s good because it offers us the path to goodness, not because it pats us on the back for all the good we are doing! It’s good because it recognizes what God is doing, because somehow we always seem to fall back to the idea that God is on our side and wants what we want for ourselves and those who are like us.
For so long we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we can support certain ideals without connecting the dots to how they impact the lives of others. It kind of reminds me of a manager I worked with in a restaurant years ago. A co-worker came in and said, “I have a table of 4 college students from that school that we give a 10% discount to. They are splitting the check 4 ways, and they want 40% off since they would get 10% individually.” The manager looked thoughtfully, and said, “Let’s extend that logic. If there were 10 of them, would we give them 100% off? Of course not! They get 10% off of the total, then they split what’s left.”
So often, I think we forget to extend the logic, or the ideology, or the belief that “what benefits me must be the standard,” and we end up feeling pretty sure that – if there is oppression or suffering – it has nothing to do with the choices that I make. It’s not my fault that people suffer, right? I’m struggling enough on my own.
Then we go on to divide ourselves by ideology between those who simply believe that Black Lives and other people of color are not being valued as equally as white lives and those who take issue with particular claims of the Black Lives Matter organization. Likewise there are those that make distinction between those that rallied at the capitol and those that breached it illegally and without cause.
All the while God looks out and says, as my friend the Rev. David Eally said to his congregation, “Y’all, this is specious.”
I have to admit that I had to look that one up. Specious means “superficially plausible, but actually wrong.” To think that we can support rhetoric that encourages the rights and privileges of one group to be placed over another and call on the name of Jesus while we do it is specious. That’s essentially what Jesus said to his hometown fans that turned them against him so quickly that they wanted to kill him.
Getting excited about your own Jubilee without considering the depth and breadth of God’s love for everyone? That’s specious, y’all. Thinking that a group of white people storming the capitol with little to no resistance when peaceful marches of black and multicultural groups have been met with maximum force had nothing to do with the inherent issues of racism in our country – that’s specious y’all. Thinking that someone can be a follower of the way of Jesus and a Nationalist who places their trust in elected officials above and beyond the election of God’s people to serve and support those who suffer? That’s specious, y’all
What do we do about, then? Well, for starters, we have to own it. We have to hear about the problems and wrestle with them in light of faith. We have to realize that more important than any of the last 45 inaugural addresses – or any that are yet to come – is the inaugural address of Jesus which he gave at the beginning of his ministry in Nazareth.
Then the question becomes, “How will we respond?” Will you be angry and decide to stone the preacher? I certainly hope not, though I’m sure that some will be mad at me for recognizing the political message of Jesus.
More than that, I hope that we’ll hear the message of Jesus in a way that goes beyond politics and moves us into the loving embrace of God. I think that’s something that we all want, but I don’t think God cares if we stay united as a nation of states so much as God cares that we become united as citizens of God’s kingdom. Those things don’t have to be in opposition to each other, and I think the key to it is in our basic ability to care about and for one another.
In Dan Rather’s book, What Unites Us – Reflections on Patriotism, he spends some time reflecting on the idea of empathy and his experience of it as a child of the Great Depression. He spoke of the way that those who had resources helped those that did not, and when he asked his mom if it was because they felt sorry for the person down the street, she said sternly, “No. It’s because we know what it feels like to suffer, and one day it very well could be us.”
Thanks be to God that we no longer live, for the most part, in a condition where empathy is a result of knowing that we could be next, but that’s not to say that we live in a time without need. In fact, even though you may be thinking this has been a lecture on how horrible we are, I believe God’s Jubilee is always near.
The presence of Jubilee is, in fact, what Jesus came to proclaim! The good news is that suffering and oppression don’t have to be a part of our reality, as long as we are willing to put our trust in God and do the hard work of caring for one another; of challenging the systems that limit some for the sake of others; and of recognizing God as the source of all that is, was, and ever shall be.
As my colleague Bruce Reyes-Chow is wont to say, “It’s just that simple, and it’s just that hard,” and to God be the glory – now and always – Amen!
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