Month: August 2025

Flipping the Tables of Injustice: A Labor Day Call to the Church

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year CLeave a comment

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Year after year, churches in our country love to plan their worship services around certain secular holidays. Every Mother’s Day churches pass out roses and honor the youngest or oldest mother in the congregation. When Father’s Day arrives, churches give the dads mini screwdrivers or flashlights. When Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July roll around, worshipers wave flags, sing patriotic hymns, and sermons are preached about love of God and country.

But here’s the problem: although those holidays may be meaningful for families, for communities, and for the country, none of those holidays are rooted in the gospel. None are commanded by Scripture, and none are inspired by the words and actions of Jesus.

And yet, when Labor Day comes around, the one secular holiday that echoes the heartbeat of the gospel, that testifies to God’s concern for workers, for Sabbath rest, for fair wages, for dignity at the table, most pulpits in our country are silent. And I am ashamed to confess to you today that I have also been guilty. I have acquiesced to the culture, as this is what you could call my first Labor Day sermon.

To acknowledge Labor Day, I am aware of some churches will host a cookout, but very few will pause on this Sunday to remember that the scriptures declare: “the laborer deserves their wages” (Luke 10:7); and “Woe to those who oppress the hired worker in their wages” (Malachi 3:5); and “Do not withhold wages from the poor and needy” (Deuteronomy 24:14).

It’s a strange contradiction. Churches will drape sanctuaries in red, white, and blue for national pride, but not lift up the struggles of those who built this nation with their hands, their backs, and their sweat. Churches will honor soldiers on Veteran’s Day but ignore teachers, nurses, farmworkers, janitors, and factory workers on Labor Day.

In today’s scripture, Jesus walks into the house of a Pharisee, a religious leader with some clout, and he watches how people are elbowing each other to grab the best seats at the table. He notices how people are playing the game of upward mobility, doing what they can do to sit close to power.

Jesus immediately calls them out, telling them that the kingdom of God, in the words of the late Henri Nouwen, is about “downward mobility,” blessing those at the bottom. So, Jesus flips the script: “Don’t sit with the powerful. Take the lowest seat with the powerless, for the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” Jesus flips the guest list, saying: “And when you host a banquet, don’t invite the ones at the top who can return the favor. Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Invite the ones who never get an invitation.”

Now, this has nothing to do with polite table manners. This is a revolutionary reordering of society. Jesus is calling out the systems that uplift a few, while crushing the rest. He turns the values of status, power, and privilege upside down. I believe you could call today’s gospel another “table-flipping moment” by the same Jesus who stormed into the Temple, flipping the tables of the moneychangers, saying, “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

I believe Jesus is saying: “If the table is built to exclude, if the table is set so that some may feast while others starve, then that table must be flipped.”

Labor Day presents an opportunity for the church to point out that we have too many tables in this nation built on the exploitation of workers.

Wages have been stagnant for decades, while the salaries of CEOs have soared more than a thousand percent.

Workers are told there’s no money for healthcare, no money for paid leave, and no money for fair retirement, but somehow there’s always money for those in the corporate office.

Migrant workers pick our food, service workers keep our cities running, childcare workers and certified nurse’s assistants serve our most vulnerable family members, yet they are often paid poverty wages and denied dignity.

And these injustices are not accidents. They are tables intentionally built by greed. And Jesus wants these tables flipped.

But it’s not easy to flip these tables. For these are old tables, and they are heavy tables. These tables were never designed to be moved.

It reminds us that Labor Day was not freely handed down to us by the wealthy or by the government, but was won by struggle, solidarity, and sacrifice, by workers who dared to organize, who marched, who were jailed, and some who even bled and died for the right to a fair wage, safe conditions, and humane hours.

In 1894, the Pullman Company that manufactured railroad cars cut wages but didn’t cut rent for their employees who lived in their company-owned housing. Workers finally cried out, “Enough!” They walked off the job, demanding dignity. The strike spread nationwide shutting down much of the nation’s railroads west of Detroit.

President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops into Chicago without the permission of local or state authorities. Can you imagine such a thing? Bullets rained down. The blood of workers stained the streets. Thirty workers were killed. Fifty-seven were wounded.

In Billings, Montana, an important rail center, a local Methodist minister named J. W. Jennings, with other preachers across the country, supported the workers. In one sermon, Jennings called out the President and local government for betraying the principles of democracy and failing to defend “the rights of the people against aggression and oppressive corporations.” He prophetically called the President and his party (and you gotta love this): “the pliant tools of the codfish monied aristocracy who seek to dominate this country.”

It was out of this struggle that Labor Day was born, not because President Cleveland loved the workers and respected the people, but because he feared the response of the people who were standing with the workers. Labor Day literally born from the blood of workers and because clergy rose up and spoke out. Thus, the church, especially here in 2025, cannot treat Labor Day as an opportunity to have a cookout. It is a day of holy remembrance, rededication, and resistance.

One could call some Amazon warehouses “modern-day storehouses of Pharaoh,” as it has been reported that workers are collapsing from the heat, tracked like cattle, urinating in bottles because they aren’t given time for a bathroom break. Some have stood up and said, “Enough!” They formed the first union in Amazon’s history. And what did the richest man in the world do? He tried to crush them, just like Pharaoh, just like President Cleveland.

So, here’s a question for us today: Will the church remain silent while Pharaoh builds bigger warehouses? Will we sing about heaven while ignoring the cries of workers in hellish conditions? Will call out state government regarding Virginia’s right-to-work law, which really means: “the right to be poor” or “the right to be fired without cause” or “the right to work without protections?”

Or will we stand up like Rev. Jennings in Montana and stand with Jesus who flips the script, flips the table, and flips the guest list setting the banquet for those corporations control and exploit?

Will the church finally wake up and understand that Labor Day is a holy day? That when we fight for fair living wages, for unions, for healthcare, for rest, we’re flipping the tables of Pharaoh’s economy while demanding the justice of God’s kingdom! And when we stand in solidarity with those who have been pushed away from the table of dignity in the workplace, we are being faithful to our decision to follow Jesus.

When we stand with our immigrant siblings, who clean our hotels and harvest our crops—

When we stand with our queer and trans siblings, who still face workplace discrimination—

When we stand with our Black and brown siblings, who are often last hired and first fired, and who make less for the same work as white people—

When we stand with our women siblings who are still paid less than men—

When we stand with the differently-abled who seldom get a chance—

And when we rise up declaring that diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace is what the kingdom of God looks like—

Then we are doing our part to not just make room for them at the table, but we are joining Jesus in flipping the table until the lowly are lifted up, and the mighty are brought low!

On this Sunday before Labor Day, through our gospel lesson in Luke 14, I hear the Spirit saying: “Church, it’s time to flip the tables!”—standing with teachers demanding smaller class sizes; with auto workers demanding a just contract; with fast-food workers demanding $15 an hour and a union; with underpaid service workers who rely on tips; with all who are told they are disposable, until they rise up and declare: “We are children of God, and we deserve dignity, justice, and a seat at the table.”

And yes, this might mean uncomfortable conversations at work, in our neighborhoods, even at our family cookouts. But when we signed up to follow Jesus, we were not promised comfort, but we were told there would be a cross involved.

So today, we are not passing by Labor Day as though it has nothing to do with our faith. We are claiming it as a holy day, a sacred day to remember that God’s kingdom comes whenever dignity is defended, whenever workers rise up, and whenever the poor are lifted and the lowly are honored.

Because we believe the Jesus we have decided to follow is still flipping tables. He’s still inviting the poor and the workers and the weary to the feast. He’s still telling us that the kingdom of God is not built on greed but on grace, not on hoarding but on sharing, not on exploitation but on liberation, not on lies but on love.

And if Jesus is flipping tables, we know the church must flip tables too. Flip the tables of silence that keep us comfortable while others suffer. Flip the tables of nationalism that honor the flag more than the worker. Flip the tables of greed that deny fair wages, dignity, and Sabbath rest.

For we know, when we flip the tables, we tell the world that God’s table is wide, and there is room for everyone: teachers and janitors, farmworkers and nurses, factory workers and baristas, Amazon drivers and home health aides.

And when we flip those tables of greed and exclusion, we will discover that Jesus himself is already seated there, breaking bread with us, saying: “This is the kingdom of God, the banquet of heaven, the table of life.”

Amen.

When the Bent-Over Stand Tall

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year CLeave a comment

Luke 13:10-17

There she was. Bent over for eighteen long years. Eighteen agonizing years of looking at the ground instead of the sky. Eighteen heartbreaking years of staring at her feet when she longed to see the stars. Eighteen years of neighbors passing by, some whispering, some staring, some mocking, and some pretending not to notice.

This one who was “bent over and not able to straighten up at all,” says Luke, had come to the synagogue to hear the teaching of a young rabbi named Jesus.

Listen again to verse 12, “When Jesus saw her…”

Let’s not miss that.

Before anyone else noticed her, Jesus saw her.

When the world looks away, Jesus sees. When society grows accustomed to suffering, Jesus stops.  When the culture calls suffering “normal,” Jesus calls it “wrong.”  When the world says, “nothing can change,” Jesus says, “oh, yes it can!”

This woman lived eighteen years under the weight of her condition.
But how many of us know people bent over for far longer than that?

Notice that Luke tells us that “a spirit” had crippled this woman. This was not some cartoon ghost floating around. Luke is naming the same thing John calls “the spirit of the antichrist,” the same thing Paul calls, “the spirit of slavery.” It’s the same spirit Mark called “Legion” pointing directly to Roman military occupation. It’s the same thing our ancestors called the spirit of Jim Crow. It’s the spirit of greed, the spirit of sexism, the spirit of pride and self-righteousness.

These spirits don’t float around in the air. They take root in systems and in structures. They show up in unjust laws, in hateful rhetoric, and in economic exploitation. When Jesus lays his hands on the bent-over, he is confronting not just sickness but the very spirit that says some people should stay bent over.

This is the spirit of oppression, the kind of spirit that settles in when the world tells you that bent down is all you will ever be. It’s the spirit that whispers, “Stay in your place.” It’s the spirit that says, “You don’t deserve healing. You don’t deserve dignity. You don’t deserve to stand tall.”

It’s the spirit that tells workers scraping by on minimum wage that they don’t deserve a living wage. It’s the spirit that tells people without health insurance that their lives are expendable. It’s the spirit that tells young Black men they are more likely to fill a jail cell than a college classroom. It’s the spirit that tells women, immigrants, trans and queer folk: “You don’t belong. You are less than. You should stay bent.”

The truth is that we are surrounded by the bent-over. And the tragedy is not just that people are bent. The real tragedy is that, like the synagogue leader in our story, the religious and political establishment today would rather preserve the systems that bend people over, than bring healing and transformation that makes the bent over stand tall.

That’s the ugly spirit that cripples this woman in the synagogue. And that’s the spirit that Jesus confronted in that synagogue. And that’s what really angers the religious leaders. Because when Jesus lays his hands on this woman, it’s not just a personal miracle. It’s a public exorcism. It is the casting out of a spirit that says bondage is normal. It is the overthrow of every lie that says any of God’s children should stay bent and broken.

Indignant that Jesus would not only heal on the Sabbath, but heal a woman, touching her, violating the rules of religious tradition, the religious leader scowls: “How dare you! Come for healing on any other day, but not on the Sabbath!”

But the Sabbath was never about rules. The Sabbath is about restoration. The Sabbath is God’s reminder that human beings are not machines. The Sabbath is the declaration that Pharaoh’s bricks and quotas and endless production do not have the final word.

The Sabbath is freedom. And Jesus, right there in the synagogue, calls out their hypocrisy by saying: “How can you untie your ox or donkey on the Sabbath but refuse to untie this woman from her bondage?”

Two years ago, during the Sunday School hour, to get to know the new pastor, we played this game called “Quiz the Pastor” where you were asked to write questions and place them in a box for me to draw and answer. Most of the questions were easy, like “what is your favorite dessert?” But I will never forget one of the questions: “What is the gospel?” I can’t remember how I answered that important question, but I should have answered by retelling this story in Luke 13.

Because Jesus answers that question in the synagogue that day when he talks about the Sabbath: If the Sabbath is for rest and restoration, then the people most in need of restoration, the ones most bent over, the ones most tied down and bound, are the very first who should taste its freedom.

I believe we must be clear: this story is not just about one woman with a bad back in Galilee. It is about all the places where people are bent over today. And it’s about all the ways our society tolerates suffering, because healing would disrupt business as usual.

We live in a nation where: patriarchy is untied while women are bowed down with fewer rights; corporations and billionaires are untied every tax season while workers stay bound; banks are untied from regulations while the poor stay bent beneath debt; guns are untied while active shooter drills bend school children beneath desks; autocracy is untied while gerrymandering and voter suppression bends down democracy; and much of the church in our country has been untied from any responsibility to make this world more loving, peaceful and just, as pastors preach about Jesus’ role in personal salvation while ignoring his role in social liberation.

The synagogue leader says to Jesus: “No, not today. It’s unacceptable to bring that in here!”

And Jesus responds with the gospel: “Not tomorrow but today is the day of liberation! Here and now is the acceptable place and time for all who are bound to be untied!”

And because of this gospel truth, the good news is we’ve seen bent-over people stand tall throughout history.

In 1968, the Memphis sanitation workers were bent under dangerous conditions and poverty wages, but they stood tall, carrying signs that said, “I Am a Man” until the world had to see their dignity.

A year later, Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were bent by poverty, police harassment, and transphobia, yet they stood tall at Stonewall and beyond, fighting for the dignity of LGBTQ+ people.

More recently, Greta Thunberg was bent by the loneliness of being a child confronting the climate crisis. She was mocked and dismissed by the powerful, yet she stood tall, sparking a global movement of youth demanding a livable planet.

And there have been countless others who have stood tall after being bent down: the farmworkers led by César Chávez, Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Martin Luther King Jr. in a Birmingham jail, and nameless mothers and grandmothers who kept marching, kept praying, and kept believing.

And every time they stood tall, strong men trembled. Every time they stood tall, chains cracked. Every time they stood tall, the Kingdom of God broke in just a little more.

The question is not whether Jesus can help people stand tall today. The question is whether we will join him. Will we dare to touch the wounds this world says are untouchable? Will we dare to lift up those our society keeps bent over? Will we dare to live like the Sabbath is real, that God’s rest and God’s restorative justice belong to everybody?

This is the vision of the Kingdom. Not just one person healed, but entire communities rising up, standing tall, rejoicing together with all.

Because, as Dr. Barber reminds us with the Poor People’s Campaign, when the bent-over stand tall, when the poor organize, when the oppressed resist, when the weary find their strength in faith, then the powers that profit from their suffering are put to shame.

That’s why the crowd rejoiced, and that’s why the rulers were humiliated. Because nothing frightens empire more than people who refuse to stay bent.

So, the question for us today is: Will we be content with a Sabbath that unties donkeys but leaves people bound? Or will we follow Jesus into the holy work of untying our neighbors, of lifting up the bent-over, of making straight what has been made crooked for too long by an anti-Christ spirit in our world?

The good news is that there’s another spirit in our world. The good news is that the spirit of the same Jesus who made that woman stand up is alive and moving today.

He is moving every time someone stands and demands living wages, every time someone stands and fights for universal health care, every time someone stands and calls for racial justice, and stands to end the scapegoating of and the cruelty to immigrants.

He is moving every time someone stands up and does something to help the bent-over stand tall.

And here’s the reality, because we are the body of Christ in this world, if we leave here today and do nothing, then the woman stays bent.

If we leave here today and stay silent, then Herod, and the religious powers who have forsaken the gospel to follow Herod, still win. If we leave here today and choose comfort over courage, then the powers will keep alive the lie that there is no alternative to the status quo.

But I declare to you today in the name of Jesus that there is an alternative! There is a better way! And it begins when the people of God stand tall, when they refuse to bow to Herod and refuse to look away from the suffering around us.

So, let us rise and stand up straight as that woman did. Let us lift our voices in praise, and let our praise spill into protest, and let our protest grow into policy, and let our policy become a new way of life.

Because when the church rises and stands tall, the world cannot stay bent! When God’s people stand up tall together, Herod trembles. And when the bent-over stand tall, that’s when the Kingdom of God breaks in!

So church, it’s time to rise and stand up!

It’s time to rise and stand up for justice!

To rise and stand tall for mercy!

Stand tall for peace! Stand tall love!

Stand until every child of God can stand tall and sing free!

May we always have the courage to see, the faith to act, and the love to untie any bond that keeps any one of God’s children bent down.

And may we rejoice with the crowd until every last one of us can stand tall and rejoice together. Amen.

When Jesus Starts a Fire

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year C2 Comments

Luke 12:49-53

When we first hear Jesus ask in Luke 12, “Do you think I have come to bring peace on the earth?” I think most of us instinctively want to answer, “Yes, of course! That’s exactly why you came and why we are here! We have come into this sanctuary to escape a stressful world so Jesus can bring us some of that peace that the world cannot give.”

For that is the Jesus our supposedly Bible-believing culture has taught us to expect: the good shepherd Jesus who lays us down on green grass beside still waters; the gentle, mild, inoffensive Jesus who smooths over conflicts and calms everybody down.

We were taught about the Jesus who tells you to keep your voice down, to stay in line, to be respectable, to obey the rules, and to keep the peace. The Jesus who pledges allegiance to the flag, prays before the football game, never risks an argument at the dinner table, and keeps his sermons short so we can get home for lunch.

It’s the Jesus of softly lit stained-glass windows, your children’s Sunday School coloring books, and on the expressway billboard. It’s the Jesus our culture has been marketing for generations: the Jesus who prays for political leaders instead of confronting them’ the Jesus who offers his disciples comfort without challenge, personal salvation without public solidarity, and tragically, peace without justice. It’s a Jesus who never gets upset and overturns a table. He never angers the authorities and never divides a household. It’s a Jesus that God sent to earth and had crucified as an atoning sacrifice, not executed by an unholy alliance between an authoritarian government and sick religion. It’s a Jesus who died for human sin, not because of human sin and the evil systems those sins created.

However, for those of us who might not call ourselves “Bible-believing,” but who actually open and read the Bible, it’s obvious this is not the Jesus standing in front of us in Luke 12. Luke teaches us that the Jesus we have been sold is a complete fabrication of a church that has for far too long traded the gospel for a seat at Caesar’s table.

The real Jesus, the one we meet here in the Gospel of Luke, is not here to hand us a sedative, he’s here to hand us a cross. He’s not here to calm the waters, he’s here to stir the waters until the entire ship turns toward love and justice. The Jesus we meet here is aflame with holy anguish. He’s fierce and fired-up, on a furious mission to change the world. He’s not an accessory to the empire as we have been duped to believe; he’s a threat to it. He’s not patting Rome on the head, telling it “to keep up the good work and know we are praying for your success.” He’s announcing a new reign that will outlast every empire’s rise and fall.

In agony, Jesus proclaims, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and oh how I wish it were already kindled!”

Jesus is talking about a revolution!

Eugene Debs, a political activist and trade unionist of the 19th century, called Jesus “the world’s supreme revolutionary leader, the champion of the downtrodden masses.” Lincoln Steffens, a journalist of that same time, called the teachings of Jesus “the most revolutionary propaganda” he ever encountered. I love the way contemporary writer John Eldredge describes the Jesus of culture vs. the Jesus of scripture saying: “We’ve made elevator music of Jesus! We’ve made Him the most boring, bland, blah person [in the world]; when he was the most revolutionary man [in the world].”

And here’s the thing: if we’re going to follow this Jesus, if we are to call ourselves disciples of this Jesus, then we must see ourselves as revolutionists. And we should feel the same agonizing fire burning in our bones when the world blesses war, justifies genocide, hoards wealth, and “liberates” the capital city not for poor people, but from poor people, and calls it “peace.” Because a holy fire has been ignited in us, a fire that refuses to settle for the inevitable woes of a country run by greed and violence with an immoral agenda propped up by a fictitious Jesus, even if it costs us relationships.

This is the fire that Jesus was talking about in Luke 12. It’s not the cozy fireplace kind of fire. It’s the fire of purification. It’s the fire that burns up injustice, lights up the lies we’ve been living under, and exposes the truth.

And here’s the thing about fire. Fire never leaves things the way it found them. Fire changes everything it touches. Jesus didn’t come to add a little moral flavoring to an already comfortable society. He came to set the whole thing ablaze to destroy all that is corrupt so all that is good can shine even brighter.

So, when Jesus asks, “Do you think I have come to bring peace on the earth?” He’s warning us that if we’re serious about following him, we then we will stand up and speak against the status quo, and doing so never happens without disruption and division.

But preacher, c’mon, Jesus talked a lot about peace. Didn’t he say: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” Isn’t that why we pass the peace every Sunday after we sing the doxology? That’s the best of this service!

Yes, but Jesus also said, “But I don’t give you peace as the world gives you peace.” Jesus doesn’t give peace as empire defines it. His peace is not the polite quiet that comes from ignoring injustice. It’s not the family harmony that’s created by never bringing up the truth. No, Jesus brings a peace that the world cannot give. It’s a peace that can only come through the fierce, unrelenting work of justice.

This is not the peace of passivity, as John Dear reminded us in March. It’s the peace of nonviolent resistance. It’s the peace that says, “I will stand in the way of violence, even if it costs me everything.” The peace Jesus gives is the peace of the cross.

It’s not the kind of peace that sends you home from church for a Sunday afternoon nap. It’s the kind of peace that makes attending next Sunday’s ministry fair a priority, a peace that is continually asking, “what is my part in this struggle?” And it’s the peace that never normalizes the violence and injustice of this world

Two weeks ago, after a man, who fell victim to those in power who question science and vaccines, fired 500 shots at the Center for Disease Control across the street from Emory University where my son is employed, I was disheartened to hear a CNN reporter repeat the following assertion: “This is just the world in which we live.”

We live in a culture that says violence is inevitable, that wars will always come, that poverty will always be with us, not as a challenge to be confronted, but as a fact to be accepted. It tells us mass shootings are just “the new normal,” and climate collapse is just “the cost of progress.”

But Jesus comes today with another message. With anguish in his heart and fire in his eyes, Jesus says: “Don’t you fall for it! Don’t consign yourself to the inevitability of the violence of this culture of greed and sick religion! Don’t hand your conscience over to the empire!”

Jesus says: “Come and take up a cross and join another way. Come walk the road where you truly love all people as you love yourself. Come walk the road where you speak truth to power even when power hits back. Come walk the road where you risk the wrath of your own family if they’ve chosen the safety of silence over the risk of love.”

Jesus warns: “Your family will say you’ve gone too far. They’ll say you’re out of line, and some will cut you off for it. But this is what it means to follow me. To be woke when others have chosen to sleep. To be fired up when others have grown cold. To live by the ethic of God’s reign when others have bowed to the culture of violence. To let a fire burn in you so all that remains is love. And let that love, fierce, bold, and unafraid, be the sign that the reign of God has come near.

This is a call to vigilance. To live every day as though the kingdom is breaking in right now—because it is. To act every day as though nonviolence is not just an idea but the only way—because it is.

This is not the hour for lukewarm discipleship. This is the hour to join hands, to take up the cross, and walk straight into the struggle, knowing that on the other side is life: life abundant, life eternal, life together in the reign of God.

So, if you’re tired of watching world leaders stand under a banner which says “pursuing peace” but remain committed to authoritarian violence, let the fire burn.

If you’re tired of politicians who can find trillions of dollars for war but not a dime for poor people, let the fire burn.

If you are tired of people saying they are pro-life while they vote to take away healthcare and food from the poor, let the fire burn.

If you’re tired of wages that will not sustain life while billionaires get richer, if you’re tired of the earth gasping for breath while the oil companies count their profits, if you’re tired of schools closing while prisons keep expanding, if you’re tired of living in a world that is against diversity, equity, inclusion, equality, democracy, and liberty and justice for all, let the fire burn.

If you’re tired of the lie that nothing can change, let the fire burn.

Let it burn until it dissolves the chains off the prisoner and melts guns into garden tools. Let it burn until it scorches every policy that denies food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, health care to the sick, and dignity to all sexualities, genders, and races.

Let it burn away every lie we’ve ever heard about a fictitious Jesus offering peace without justice and grace without a cross.

Let it burn away all the comfort we have wrapped ourselves in while our neighbors suffer.

Let it burn until we rise up from the ashes of this empire’s false promises and walk together toward the Beloved Community.

So let it burn. Fan it. Feed it. Fuel it. Follow it. Until the world is so ablaze with God’s love that no darkness can remain, no lie can survive, and no one can mistake the peace of empire for the peace of Jesus ever again.

Amen.

This Ain’t No Cruise

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year C, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

At this hour last Sunday, Lori and I had just been forced off the “Fun Ship” called “the Carnival Sunshine” which had returned to Norfolk from an 8-day Caribbean cruise.

Now, I only say “forced off” in jest, but there was a part of us that really didn’t want to get off that boat. For we had just experienced a week of extravagant leisure, a week where our biggest decisions were: The buffet or the dining room? The baked Alaska or the crème brûlée? The pool deck or the beach excursion? How many naps do I take today? Will I snooze in my cabin or out under a cabana?

And behind all this pleasure was our charming, enthusiastic cruise director, who just happened to be from just down the road in Danville.

He had the type of haircut, personality and southern accent that made me think: “You know, I can see myself in this line of work.”

Seriously, I believe I have what it takes to be a great cruise director. Smile big, talk fast, and make sure no one thinks too hard about what’s going on behind the scenes. Just keep the show going and the mood light, even if the ship is headed straight into a storm! Use my gifts of schmooze to keep everybody on board entertained, distracted, and happy.

And I can’t help but to think how many pastors out there, like me, are also well-suited for this type of work; and unfortunately, how many of them function more like cruise directors than pastors in their churches.

For how many sanctuaries have been turned into cruise lounges? How many chancels have been transformed into theatrical stages? How many sermons are just spiritual entertainment? How many worship services are designed to make people feel good but not do good?

A cruise director never challenges you. Cruise directors don’t convict you. They never ask you to change your life, to give up something, to sacrifice anything, to take any risk. On the contrary, they want you to avoid risk. A good cruise director is there to make sure the activities are safe, the music is right, the lights are warm, the drinks are flowing, and your conscience is quiet.

All while injustice rages on the shore.

The truth is that too many churches today have become floating sanctuaries of self-centered peace, enjoying smooth sailing while the poor are drowning in debt, depression, and despair.

The good news is, while I am convinced that I could be an excellent cruise director, and I’m still a little tempted to google their annual salary, the prophet Isaiah comes today to remind me that God did not call me to be a cruise director. God didn’t call me to keep the church comfortable, safe, and happy. God called me to speak truth that is often uncomfortable and even dangerous, as God calls us to live justice, to be the people of God in a dark world flooded with cruelty, corruption, greed and spiritual compromise.

Isaiah tells it like it is in today’s Hebrew lesson: God has absolutely no interest in our religious performances if it does not inspire justice. God isn’t impressed by our singing, our prayers, our preaching, or even our communion. God says, “I’m tired of your offerings. I’m sick of your noise. I am fed up with it all. All I want is to see how you treat the most vulnerable among you.”

And Isaiah’s not playing around:

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

Now, Isaiah’s not talking to pagans. He’s not talking to outsiders. He’s talking to the religious people, to the faithful folks: the worshippers; the tithers; the choir members; the Bible study attenders. And he calls them “Sodom and Gomorrah” because of how far they’ve drifted from whom they have been called to be.

They were faithful doing all the religious stuff: showing up for worship; observing the liturgical calendar and all the rituals; making sacrifices; offering prayers; singing hymns. But God…God wasn’t impressed.

I have had enough of your burnt offerings!
I do not delight in the blood of bulls…
Your new moons and your appointed festivals, my soul hates.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.

God says:

You’re making a lot of noise, but you’re not being a movement.
You’re throwing parties for yourselves while the poor are languishing.
You’ve built a sanctuary, but not a shelter.
You’re singing and dancing all while the blood of the oppressed cry out from the streets.

You’ve made church a place of escape rather than engagement.
Your worship is more like a cruise rather than a call to action!

In other words, “You’ve turned my house into a Carnival Fun Ship!”

Jeremy, Mark, Judy, choir, hear me when I say there’s nothing wrong with beautiful music offered to God. Just as there is nothing wrong with well-prepared sermons or joyful gatherings. Verna, there’s nothing wrong with well-organized communion. And of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with having a big offering! But if all this beauty ever becomes a substitute for doing justice, it’s not worship, says Isaiah, it’s idolatry.

Pastors who succumb to the temptation to use their cruise-director gifts in the church want their congregants to enjoy the journey but do nothing to challenge the systems. They want their parishioners to put their hands in the air for Jesus, but never encourage them to lift a finger for the poor. They want their members to memorize the creeds, but forget about Medicaid, minimum wage, and mass incarceration.

A cruise director doesn’t ask you to sacrifice or leave your comfort zone. But a real pastor, a prophet, most certainly will.

Because that’s what God has called us to do.

God has called pastors to stand up with Isaiah and prophetically proclaim to our congregations:

“Cease to do evil and learn to do good; seek justice and rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow.”

God has called us to constantly remind our congregations that that’s the kind of worship that God wants. Not empty rituals in the sanctuary, but radical righteousness in the streets. Not polished performance, but public accountability to the least of these.

Have you ever felt like God is not listening to your prayers?

Isaiah suggests that the reason we sometimes feel like God isn’t listening to our prayers is because God isn’t listening to our prayers!

Isaiah says that if we truly want to know that God is listening to us, if we truly want to feel God’s presence, if we want our worship to me meaningful, then we must do some things.

And if we don’t do those things, according to Isaiah, God might respond to our worship this way: “Stop tramping into my courts. And I have had enough of your preacher. His sermons, his prayers, your hymns, everything about your church, they have become a burden to me. And I have stopped listening!”

If we want our prayers to be received by God, Isaiah says that we better be doing what we can help the most vulnerable members of our community.

Frederick Douglass once said, “I prayed for freedom for 20 years, but God didn’t hear my prayer until I moved my feet.”

After marching in Selma for civil rights, Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “I felt my legs praying.”

This sanctuary can be full of people who have gathered for God on Sunday morning, but if nobody’s using their legs to stand up for the marginalized come Monday, God says: “it means nothing.”

We can shout down the walls of Jericho, but if we never speak out against building a wall with the bricks of racism, God says: “Our hands are full of blood.”

We can post Bible verses all day on social media, but if we stay silent while fascism is in power, while Gaza is being ethnically cleansed, while LGBTQ youth are targeted, while immigrants are scapegoated, while healthcare is gutted, while workers are exploited, the planet is polluted, and while the single mother, the disabled neighbor and the black child are caught in the crosshairs of systemic sin, then our faith is just a lie.

True faith moves us out to the front lines, moving us from ceremony to solidarity, from pews to picket lines, from pulpits to protests.

So, let me take you back to that cruise.

Folks lounging on the deck. Others wading in the pool. Music playing. Bob Marley singing, “don’t worry about a thing ‘cause every little thing gonna be alright.” Food and drinks being served. Laughter in the air. The cruise director’s doing his job: keeping us all smiling, dancing, relaxed, full, and distracted.

Now, on vacation? That’s fine. But in church? That’s deadly.

And today, too many churches have gotten comfortable relaxing on the deck. Sunning themselves under the glow of cheap grace. Floating along on the sea of privilege. Sipping sweet spiritual drinks while the world is drowning just off the side of the ship.

I’m glad to see all of you here this morning, but if you’re looking for some comfort, this ain’t the place.

If you’re looking for some entertainment, you’re in the wrong room.

If you’re looking for somebody to tell you everything is fine, while the world is on fire, this ain’t that church, and I pray I ain’t ever gonna be that preacher!

Because although I believe I could be a good cruise director, I believe God has called me to be a pastor.

After a summer break, Java with Jarrett returns this week at a new location. And I can’t think of a better place to meet with the pastor. Located in the Givens bookstore, it’s called “the Troublemaker’s Café.”

Because as a pastor I have been called to keep reminding you: It’s time to get off the boat and into the deep, into the struggle, into the messy, risky, beautiful, troublemaking work of real worship. God has called us to be prophets of another way, to be builders of a better world, to be troublemakers for truth.

Listen again to these words:

Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

That’s not vacation talk. That’s vocation talk. That’s God calling us to jump off the deck and into the deep waters of justice!

The good news for our world today is that God is still calling, still pleading, still inviting:

“Come now, let us argue it out. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow.”

This is what the grace of God looks like. It’s not just to save us. It’s to change us. It’s not just to comfort us. It’s to call us forward, to remind us that the time for playing church is over, and the time for becoming the church is now!

So, here’s our challenge today:

If you’re looking for a cruise, this ain’t it!
If you’re looking to be entertained, you’re in the wrong place!
But if you’re ready to live your faith out loud…
If you’re ready to lift your voice against injustice…
If you’re ready to love your neighbor as yourself, not just in word but in deed, not just with your prayers, but with your legs, then this is the church for you!

Yes, the water’s deep. The waves can be scary. But Isaiah assures us that God will be with us! Because we’re not playing church here. We’re becoming the church!

And the world is waiting.

Amen.