Tag: ecological justice

Grumpy Jesus: The Fierce Face of Love

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

Luke 9:51-62

Jesus seems a little stressed in our gospel lesson this morning. And who could blame him?

Luke tells us his face is set toward Jerusalem, not toward comfort or safety, not toward respectability or popularity, but toward the seats of power that believe the love he proclaims is weak, the empathy he demonstrates is a sin, the mercy he shows should get him deported, and his grace—His radical inclusion and acceptance of the marginalized? His free handouts of fish and bread and healthcare? His solidarity with foreigners? —Why, all of that lunacy oughta get him crucified!

And at this point in his ministry, he seems exasperated by the lack of support around him, by the religious culture, including his disciples, so much so, the obvious title for this sermon is “Grumpy Jesus.”

Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem doesn’t get off on the right foot, as he receives word that there no hospitality awaiting him in a village of the Samaritans. No room in the inn, or this time, even in a barn! This is not surprising considering the Samaritans and Jews mutual animosity; yet knowing Jesus’ love that has no borders, he’s obviously frustrated. But perhaps he is more frustrated by his disciples’ response.

James and John, bless their lil’ hearts, ask Jesus if he wants them to reenact a scene from 2 Kings by asking God to rain down fire from heaven and wipe out the entire Samaritan village!

Episcopal priest Rick Morley says this is like “one of those moments at Thanksgiving when your crazy uncle says something so ridiculously inappropriate that everyone just turns and stares with their mouths agape.”

After James and John’s outrageous suggestion, he imagines Jesus doing a face palm.

Of course, grumpy Jesus immediately rebukes them.

Then, Jesus has a series of three encounters with some pretty good disciple prospects. And after James and John’s hell, fire, and brimstone comment, wouldn’t it be nice to have some fresh blood?

The first would-be disciple comes, and without Jesus asking him, presents himself as the perfect candidate: “Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go!”

Now, what’s not to like about that? It’s exactly the kind of people this world needs more of!

But, Jesus, perhaps still exasperated because no one in Samaria left the light on for him, responds: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

“Okaaaay, Jesus. I’ll check back with you when you have had your coffee.”

Jesus then encounters another prospect and invites him to join the movement. He agrees but asks permission to go and bury his father first. It’s a very reasonable, loving, and faithful request. It was his part of fulfilling God’s law to “honor father and mother.”

But then, if you thought the “foxes have holes and birds have nests” comment was a bit snarky, Jesus responds: “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

Now, he’s really sounding grumpy.

C’mon Jesus. I know you are upset that you have nowhere to lay your head, and I know your disciples are idiots, or at least can be very frustrating, but the poor man just wants to bury his father! What can be wrong with that? Isn’t honoring our parents part of discipleship? Isn’t taking some time to grieve over the loss of a loved one something God would want us to do?

Then, Jesus encounters the third would-be follower, who like the first one, also volunteers for discipleship without being asked. But first, he wants to go and say good-bye to his family, perhaps to let their children know why Daddy wouldn’t be home for a while. Again, sounds like a reasonable request. Even Elijah allowed Elisha, who was plowing a field, to first say good-bye to his parents before leaving to join Elijah’s ministry (1 Kings 19:19-21).

But grumpy Jesus isn’t having it. Echoing the calling of Elisha, he says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

This is when I wanna say: “Look Jesus. I know you’re upset. I know you’re tired. I know you’ve nowhere to lay your head. I know you’re frustrated. I know the disciples that you have been training to be compassionate, loving, forgiving, merciful and peaceful want to fire bomb an entire village. I know you have your face set on Jerusalem and all the opposition that is to come. But come on, Jesus, take it easy. Let this man say good-bye to his family. And for God’s sake, let this one bury his father!”

But this is Jesus. Thus, my faith tells me that there must be something more going on here—something more than a little fatigue, frustration, and fear.

His face is set toward Jerusalem. This could infer that he knows the that his time on earth is short. And he knows that if he is going to usher in the Kingdom of God before he dies, there’s no time to waste.

The same is true for us. The reality is that our time here is also short. And if we want to make a difference for the Kingdom of God while we’re here, there’s not a moment to lose.

But maybe Jesus’ grumpiness has nothing to do with himself. Afterall, Jesus is always demonstrating the importance denying and losing one’s self. So, perhaps Jesus is not thinking about his own circumstance at all.

Perhaps he had in mind other circumstances and people who needed the good news he was proclaiming. Perhaps Jesus knew that, not for him, but for others, for many, there wasn’t a moment to lose.

So, his grumpiness is really a holy urgency, a sacred stress fueled by a divine love with a height, a depth, a width, and a breadth that we can only begin to understand. Perhaps Jesus knew that for God’s kingdom to come to those who need it the most, there’s not a moment to lose.

There’s not a moment to lose –

For those who are poor, for those who hunger, for those who weep, for those who are hated, insulted, excluded, and rejected (Luke 6:20-22).

There’s not a moment to lose –

For those Samaritans who believe they have lost favor with God (Luke 10:25-29);

For a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years (Luke 13:10-17);

For a man who had been suffering with dropsy. Remember that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath in the presence of the Pharisees (he didn’t wait until the next day when it was lawful), proving, there is not a moment to lose (Luke 14:1-4).

There’s not a moment to lose –

For the rich man who thought he was blessed because he was rich. For the poor man who thought he was cursed because he was poor (Luke 16:19-31);

For the ten lepers who approached Jesus in a region between Galilee and Samaria (Luke 17:11-19);

For the blind beggar sitting beside the roadside near Jericho (Luke 18:35-43).

There’s not a moment to lose –

For a man named Zacchaeus who defrauded the poor;

For all of the poor people he defrauded (Luke 19:1-10).

Jesus is frustrated, because there’s not a moment to lose—

For an entire world that feels rejected, cursed and lost;

For LGBTQ people whose lives are not worth the cost to fund a suicide hotline.

For millions of Americans who are one step closer today to losing their health insurance because of a big, brutal, not beautiful, bill in congress.

For immigrants snatched from their homes, their gardens, their schools and workplaces without cause and due process and cruelly imprisoned separated from their families.

Jesus is exasperated, because there’s not a moment to lose—

For all children who suffer from neglect and abuse;

For girls who are raped and then denied healthcare;

For boys who are taught that it is okay to objectify girls;

For the person with a disability who feels like the whole world, even God, is against them.

Jesus is stressed, because there’s not a moment to lose –

For the one dying of loneliness in a nursing home;

For those who have to make the choice every week to either buy their medication or to buy groceries;

For those unjustly locked away in our prisons because of their economic status or skin color;

Jesus is grumpy, because there’s not a moment to lose –

To respond to climate change that threatens God’s good earth;

To end the destructive pollution of the planet with plastics and carbon.

And Jesus has his palm planted on his face today, because many of his disciples still don’t have a clue. Some still want God to rain down fire and brimstone on those who believe and live differently. And many would-be-followers still have no sense of urgency to be public witnesses of love, peace, mercy and justice.

And the clock is ticking. The Kingdom is at hand. The time is now. We don’t have the luxury of comfort. We don’t have the privilege of delay. We can’t afford to wait until the children are grown, until the house is paid off, until we’ve buried all our grief or kissed everyone goodbye. For there’s not a moment to lose.

This world is on fire, not with holy fire, but with the flames of greed, racism, heteroism, white Christian nationalism, militarism, and climate catastrophe. And while some are lighting matches, too many are just watching it all burn. Too many are saying: “Let me finish what I was doing first” or “let me look after my own first,” while the Samaritan is bleeding in the ditch, while the trans teenager is hanging on by a thread, while hungry people with brown skin are afraid to go to the grocery store for fear of being deported to a country where they’ve never been and have no connection.

Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, and he is calling us to set ours—not toward comfort or safety, not toward respectability or popularity, but toward the place where justice is born.

We are not called to admire Jesus from a safe distance in some comfortable sanctuary. We are not called to study him or sing praise songs to him. We are called to walk with him, to move with him, to carry his gospel like it’s a matter of life and death. Because it is.

So, let the church rise up, not with stones in hand, but with bread and wine, with towels and basins, and bullhorns and ballots. Let’s sound the alarm, flood the phones, take to the streets, and send so many emails to our representatives we crash the servers.

Let the church understand that there’s not a moment to lose to tell the truth—
Not a moment to lose to dismantle hate.
Not a moment to lose to march with the poor.
Not a moment to lose to shout that Black and Brown Lives Matter.
Not a moment to lose to say queer and trans people are sacred.
Not a moment to lose to break the chains of every modern-day Pharaoh.

In our text Jesus may be tired. Jesus may be exasperated. Jesus may even be grumpy. But Jesus isn’t giving up, and neither can we.

So, let’s stop looking back.
Let’s stop making excuses.
Let’s put our hand to the plow and move forward…
with power, with grace, with courage, with compassion, with mercy and with the fierce, unrelenting urgency of love!

Because the Kingdom is not coming later.

The Kingdom is coming now.

And there’s not a moment to lose!

Amen.

Living in a Manner Worthy of the Gospel

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

Philippians 1:21-30 NRSV

Well, as your pastor, I guess I should start this morning with the bad news. According to a one-and-a-half-hour Bible study on YouTube that included dozens of scripture references and quotes highlighting the Feast of Trumpets, the Morning Star, the new moon, Satan, and the Jubilee year, September 19th, 2023, was the day of the rapture. So, here’s the bad news. Take a look around. I guess that means that they were right about us. We have been left behind!

One of the great tragedies of Christianity is the failure of people to interpret the words of scripture in its context. Serious harm has been inflicted upon others as well as the planet in the name of God. I believe it is why many today have given up on the church believing that the church is doing more harm in the world than good.

 That is heartbreaking considering that the Apostle Paul echoed Jesus in his letter to the Romans writing that all scripture can be summed up in the one commandment to love our neighbors. He then followed that by saying: “and love causes no harm to our neighbors.”

As we consider the context of our epistle lesson this morning, the first thing we need to know is that it’s a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Philippi from prison.

Of course, writing from prison was not uncommon for Paul as Paul was a notorious repeat offender, arrested, some scholars say, as many as seven times. In the book of Acts, we read where he was accused by the people of Philippi of “disturbing” the city (Acts 16:20). Later, Jewish leaders sent him for trial as (I love this translation) “’a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5).

A good question for us to ask is: Why was Paul such a threat to the powers-that-be? What is it about the gospel of Christ he proclaimed that that was so offensive, so disturbing?

We can glean some insight to why Paul was called “a pestilent fellow” by reading Luke’s account of his first arrest in 16th chapter of Acts after Paul liberates a slave girl who was earning “a great deal of money for her owners.”

Beginning with verse 19 we read:

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks (Acts 16:19-24 NRSV).

“When they saw that their hope of making money was threatened, they seized Paul and Silas.”

We Americans can relate to that, can we not?

When they saw that their hope of making money was being threatened, they succeeded from the union.

When they saw that their hope of making money was being threatened, they shot the preacher in Memphis.

When they saw their hope of making money was being threatened, they lied about weapons of mass destruction and went to war.

When they saw that their hope of making money was being threatened, they denied science and called climate change a hoax.

When they saw that their hope of making money was gone, they hijacked a religion, misappropriated scripture, and embraced conspiracy theories.

The gospel that Paul preached was not only a threat to profit, but it was also a threat to power, as he openly proclaimed that Jesus was Lord, which was directly contrary to the Romans’ proclamation that Caesar was Lord.

Sometimes, I think we forget that Paul’s revolutionary gospel that “there’s neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female” and that “in Christ, there is a new creation” had economic, social and political consequences.

Paul’s feet were not placed in stocks for proclaiming a personal, private gospel to help people make it through the week. He was not arrested and later put to death for preaching a little “chicken soup for the soul.” No, Paul was opposed by the religious and political authorities for having the audacity to preach that Christ is Lord and Caesar is not.

And it is from prison, believing he may soon be put to death, that Paul issues the urgent appeal to the church: “Only, live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

To truly comprehend this urgent appeal, we should understand that the verb translated “live” (politeuesthe) is not Paul’s typical word choice for patterns of living. Politeuesthe is a word denoting  public citizenship or civic loyalty with social and political overtones. Later, Paul uses the same root to remind the Philippians that their “citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven” (3:20). Paul’s appeal to live in a manner worthy of the gospel is a politically-laden charge to a city loyal to Rome. In other words: live in such a way that may get you arrested!

The use of political language should not surprise us when we consider that theologians agree that the Greek word translated “gospel,” (evangelion) would best be translated “revolution.”

In Jesus’ day, evangelion did mean “good news.” But evangelion was not just any good news. And it was never understood as individual, personal good news. It was good news with economic, social and political significance.

When one nation was at war with another, fighting for its civic freedom, evangelion or “gospel” was what was reported to the General. “Good news, the battle has been won!”

Or when a son was born to the king, ensuring the political stability of the kingdom, evangelion or “gospel” was what they announced to the public: “Good news! A child has been born to the king. Our reign is secure.”

Mary’s gospel song at the news of Jesus’ birth is an example of such good news proclamation. “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” The good news, the evangelion, continues: “Kings are being cast down from their thrones, the hungry are taking over, and the rich are being sent away empty.”

Mary’s song is nothing less than a battle cry!

And when John the Baptizer began preparing the people for the coming of Jesus and began his own preaching in the wilderness, Luke literally described it as “gospeling.”  And what was the nature of his gospel? “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire!”

“And the crowds asked him, ‘what then should we do?’

In reply, he said to them, ‘whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food, must do likewise’” (Luke 3:9-14).

In his very first sermon, Jesus proclaimed, in terms almost identical to John’s, that “the kingdom of heaven is near,” and then more precisely:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4;18).

And by the way, this year of the Lord’s favor, this acceptable year, is what is called in Leviticus “the year of Jubilee.” This is the year slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the land would rest and not be cultivated for a year (Leviticus 25.11).

The gospel of Christ involves turning the world upside down. The gospel of Christ is the redistribution of wealth power, and it is the healing of the land. And our land today certainly needs healing. It was the Apostle Paul who attributed faith-fueled and hope-shaped groans to the earth itself, writing: “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth…” (Romans 8:22).

Do you detect a pattern to this good news? When God comes into the world, when God moves against the present order, it is always good news for the poor and the oppressed, and bad news for the rich and the powerful—it’s economic, social, political and ecological good news. It’s much more than individual, personal good news. It is world-changing, earth-transforming news.

I believe one of the reasons for much of the world’s problems and for the planet’s ecological crisis is the wide-spread misinterpretation of this word “gospel,” and consequently, the failure of many to live in a manner worthy of the gospel.

For many Christians, perhaps because of their fear of losing the hope of making money or fear of losing power and privilege, the word “gospel” only means an individual, private relationship. “Gospel” infers a call for repentance of personal sins, not an urgent appeal to disturb our city to bring wholeness to our fragmented world.

Of course, answering this appeal can be daunting, for the fragmentation of this world great— poverty, racism, bigotry, sickness, war, ecological devastation. We know we will not experience complete wholeness in our lifetimes; thus, we may be tempted to throw up our hands and do nothing.

But I don’t believe God expects us to save the world. For that is something only God can do. I believe God only wants every generation of disciples to answer the urgent appeal of the Apostle “to live (to politeuesthe) in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, by simply doing what we can, where we can, when we can, to proclaim that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. I believe God wants all church congregations to be full of “pestilent fellows” doing our part to disturb our cities.

We can educate and challenge policy makers. We can vote for diversity, kindness, empathy, justice, peace and love. We can continue to love our neighbors without exception. We can volunteer to feed the hungry on a Saturday morning. We can sign a petition, write a letter, and we can do something as simple as sprinkling wildflower seeds in our backyard, remembering the words of Desmond Tutu who said:

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world!

This is what makes me most excited about our congregation and our greater church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The good news is that you are the reason I have not given up on church. While others will continue to lift scripture out of its context harming people and the planet, this church is committed to be a movement for wholeness in our fragmented world, overwhelming our world by living a life worthy of the gospel, even if we have been left behind.