Tag: fascism

Is There a Balm in Gilead? A Cry for Peace in an Age of Fascism

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

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

My joy is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people.

How many of you can feel the enormous grief of the prophet? It’s heavy. It’s exhausting. And I confess that there was a time this week I felt like just giving up.

Jeremiah’s gut-wrenching lament comes from the suffering of a broken city—amid a people demoralized by a corrupt government, betrayed by those in power, and abandoned by the religious establishment.

The prophet’s voice trembles with profound sadness. He sees a nation that has lost its way: a people who claim to believe in God but who fail to practice kindness, justice, and mercy; leaders who have consolidated power by telling lies, scapegoating the weak, silencing dissent, and threatening violence.

Sound familiar?

In Jeremiah’s time, the Babylonian war machine bore down on Judah.

Instead of defending the vulnerable, the powerful protected their own wealth and position, leaving ordinary people exposed to invasion and suffering. The poor were crushed, widows abandoned, orphans ignored, and migrants exploited. The powerful told the people what they wanted to hear, proclaiming “peace,” when there was no peace, because there was no justice.

And Jeremiah wept.

Jeremiah wept because people fell for the lies. He wept because the cries of the vulnerable went unheard. He wept because leaders in the nation had hardened their hearts. And he wept because those leaders were blessed by religious leaders.

Sound familiar?

It was not only a political crisis. It was a moral crisis, a spiritual crisis.

And on this International Day of Peace in 2025, we find ourselves in a strikingly similar crisis, as fascism tightens its grip on our nation.

Power has been consolidated by dividing the nation, scapegoating immigrants, and silencing dissent. The playbook of the powerful demonizes the most vulnerable among us. It criminalizes protest, censors history, dismantles education, denies science, and spreads lies, all to protect their power.

We live in a time when comedic satire aimed at the rich and powerful is silenced, while hate aimed at the poor and powerless is protected. A comedian was pulled off the airwaves after mocking the President. Yet, a Fox news host openly called for the killing of the homeless and the mentally ill—those whom Jesus would say that “if you do it to them, you do it to me”—and not only did he keep his job, he was defended by many who claim to be Christian.

This is much deeper than politics. It’s about the soul of the nation. When truth is silenced, when the poor are demonized, and when those in the church bless it, it is more than democracy at stake. It is our very humanity and witness to God.

This is the sin-sick world Jeremiah saw.

Judah was collapsing under its own corruption. The prophets who should have spoken truth to power bowed down to power. Babylon loomed large, an empire built on conquest, intimidation, and fear. And Judah’s leaders tried to imitate the empire, believing violence would secure peace. Peace through strength, as they like to say. Prophets like Jeremiah were threatened, beaten, and even imprisoned for speaking truth (Jer. 20:1–2; 26:7–11).

But Jeremiah rose up and spoke out anyway. Listen to his words from the previous chapter:

Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here: ‘This is God’s Temple, God’s Temple, God’s Temple!’ [It’s] total nonsense! Clean up your act, the way you live and treat your neighbors…[quit oppressing the alien NRSVUE], exploiting street people and orphans and widows. Quit taking advantage of innocent people, [and stop going after other gods to your own hurt …NRSVUE] Get smart! Your leaders are handing you a pack of lies, and you’re swallowing them! Use your heads! (Jeremiah 7, The Message).

Jeremiah wept because the people had been conned, falling for the lies of the powerful, even against their own interests, choosing violence over love, a false peace over justice. And Jeremiah wept because people were being hurt in the name of God.

His nation was sick with sin and Jeremiah lamented: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician here?”

It’s difficult not to see the parallels to 2025.

Today, politicians quote scripture while cutting food program and taking away healthcare. Governors sign laws to censor history, erasing the stories of Black, Brown, and queer lives. Politicians want to control the media and criminalize protest, making dissent itself illegal. They attack education, deny the reality of climate change, and sneer at science.

And they bless it all in the name of God. They silence the prophets in the name of peace. They embrace fascism in the name of patriotism.

The nation is sin-sick when comedians who poke fun at power are silenced, while broadcasters who fantasize about killing the poor are protected. The nation is sin-sick when protest is criminalized and violence is excused, when truth is silenced and lies are amplified, when bigots are honored and those who speak out against bigotry are villainized.

Thus, Jeremiah’s cry becomes our own: “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

So today, we join Jeremiah’s weeping.

We weep for all who are still swallowing lies at their own peril.

We weep for immigrants locked away without due process, terrorized and scapegoated for problems they did not cause.

We weep for our unhoused neighbors, those whom many wish would just disappear.

And we weep for the silenced voices—journalists, teachers, artists, prophets—punished for telling the truth.

However, here’s the good news. We weep with the prophet today, but we weep with hope. If not, I don’t think we would be in this sanctuary this morning. We weep before God as those who know the tears of the faithful are sacred, that the laments of those who believe in love are holy, that weeping itself is an act of resistance in a culture that tells us that everything is fine.

Jeremiah asked: “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Two thousand years later, the African-American church of the 19th century answered the prophet. Although the powerful what us to forget it, while African Americans were considered chattel property with no rights, subjected to forced labor from sunrise to sunset, while they were bought, sold, and separated from their families, their lives defined by brutal coercion, including whippings and the threat of death, while they were denied legal rights and autonomy, they were somehow still able to sing out loud, words that we will sing in a few moments: “There is a balm in Gilead!”

Not the balm that came from bowing down to their masters. Neither was it the balm of hating them or responding to their violence with more violence. It was the balm of God’s justice, the balm of Christ’s love, and the balm of Spirit’s fire. The balm with the power to make the wounded whole, to heal the sin-sick soul. The balm that is found wherever people choose love over hate, truth over lies, and justice over fear.

The balm of Gilead is in the streets where the people march. It’s in the pulpits where prophets preach and in the pews where worshippers pray. It’s in the classrooms where teachers defy censorship, and it’s in the laments of all who believe in love.

The balm of Gilead is found in our tears, our laughter, our songs, and our courage.

Jeremiah cried, “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears.”

In 2025 America, we know our tears can become rivers of justice. Our lament fuels our resistance, and our weeping gives birth to action.

When protest is criminalized, our tears compel us to march anyway.

When immigrants are demonized, our tears move us to stand with them in solidarity and proclaim that no human being is illegal.

When history is censored, our honest tears become words telling the truth in our classrooms, in our pulpits, and in our homes, because we know it is only the truth that sets us free.

When science is denied, our weeping stirs us to honor the creation, because we believe in our hearts God has entrusted this world to our care.

When God’s name is used to do harm to our neighbors, our grief send us out of the sanctuary into the streets to protect them in the name of God.

When satire is silenced, even in mourning, we will laugh louder, for we believe humor is holy and joy is a weapon.

When hate is excused, we will raise our trembling voices for love, because we know love will ultimately win.

On this International Day of Peace, we cry with Jeremiah, we weep with Jesus, and we rise with the Spirit. We stand to reject the fake peace of empire and the immoral peace of silence, while we embrace the true and costly peace of justice, the risky peace of love, and the revolutionary peace of the gospel.

Because while fascism may grip the nation, it cannot crush the Spirit. Those in power may silence prophets, but they cannot silence God. Hate may roar for a season, but love is eternal.

“Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Yes, there is a balm! And we are called to be it!

Today, we weep. But the good news is that our tears are not the end of the story. Because there does come a time when our tears turn into hope. There comes a time when lament gives birth to testimony, when weeping rises up into a witness that shakes the foundations of empire.

And now is that time!

We see that people in our nation are already paying the price for being a moral witness. Workers are being fired from their jobs, teachers dismissed from classrooms, journalists silenced—all because they dared to post on social media what Jeremiah would have shouted from the streets—”Those with power are lying. Fascism is here. And anyone who does harm to the poor, to the immigrant, to the most vulnerable among us, is no friend of God!”

And when prophets are silenced like this, when truth is censored, when jobs are lost for speaking conscience, the church must rise with even greater courage to say: “Yes, these days are heavy, but we will not bow down. We are exhausted, but we will not give up! We will not allow fascism to have the last word! We will not allow love to be silenced while hate is amplified! And we will not allow truth to be buried beneath lies! Even if there is a price to pay!”

So, let’s rise together as balm in a broken land.
Let’s rise as physicians for a sin-sick nation.
Let’s rise as a river of justice, a mighty movement of revolutionary love, because we are the balm. We are the healers.

This week, we have wept for the nation. Collectively, in the words of the 119th Psalm, our tears have cried a river. But let’s remember that rivers have power. Rivers carve valleys. Rivers reshape the land. And they move history itself.

Now is the time to let our tears carve a new way forward.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

God of weeping prophets and wounded people, we come before You with broken hearts and open hands.

We weep for children taken too soon by gun violence,

for immigrants cast out and scapegoated,

for unhoused neighbors treated as disposable,

for truth-tellers silenced while lies are protected.

You, O Lord, hear the cry of the poor.

You see the fear that grips our nation, the cruelty that masquerades as strength, the empire that blesses weapons more than it blesses life.

Yet, you also see the power of love rising,

voices refusing to be silenced,

hands building communities of care,

feet marching for peace with justice.

Heal us, O God. Make us bold enough to speak truth in love,

to resist every system that thrives on fear and division,

and to live as balm in this wounded land.

We pray not only for peace but for the courage to embody it—

in our homes, in our streets, in this church, in our nation.

Through Christ, who wept with us and yet rose with power, we pray.

Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This table is not the empire’s table.
It is not gated, policed, or censored.
It does not silence the hungry or privilege the powerful.
This is Christ’s table—where the broken find healing,
where the weary find rest,
where the silenced find a voice,
where the despised find welcome.

On this International Day of Peace,
we come to taste a peace rooted in justice,
a love that breaks chains,
a hope that refuses to die.

Come, not because you are worthy,
but because Christ makes you whole.
Come, because there is a balm in Gilead,
and it is poured out here in bread and cup.

Invitation to Give

Our offerings are not hush money to quiet our conscience.
They are seeds of resistance, investments in justice,
fuel for the Spirit’s movement in this place and beyond.

When the world blesses weapons,
we bless children.
When the empire silences prophets,
we empower truth-tellers.
When systems sow fear,
we plant love.

Let us give, not reluctantly but boldly,
trusting that God will multiply these gifts
into balm for a wounded world.

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now as people of lament and of action.
Let your tears water the seeds of justice.
Let your weeping fuel your courage.
Let your prayers become protest,
your songs become strength,
your love become revolution.

The world asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”
We leave this place answering:
Yes, there is a balm—and we will be it.

Go in peace, go in power, go in love.

And let the church say: Amen.

The Lane Is a Lie

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year C6 Comments

Luke 10:38-42

I recently received some advice from a concerned friend, and I quote: “Jarrett, as a pastor you’d be better off to just preach the gospel and stay out of politics. Just stay in your lane.”

And as you are probably aware, I am not the only preacher who has been told this.

Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, when preachers spoke the names of Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, or Sandra Bland from their pulpits, or when they dared to say out loud, “Black Lives Matter,” many congregants responded with discomfort or outright anger, telling pastors they were being “too divisive,” and yes, “too political.”

Translation: Stay in your lane.

Churches that have offered physical sanctuary to undocumented immigrants have been surveilled, threatened with fines, and reported to ICE. The pastor of a Colorado church that sheltered a mother facing deportation was investigated for “harboring a fugitive.”

Translation: Stay in your lane.

When churches in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina organized voter registration drives, especially in Black and poor communities, they were accused of violating the Johnson Amendment by “engaging in politics.” In 2022, a church in Georgia was investigated for “election interference” after encouraging people to vote for candidates who support Medicaid expansion without endorsing a particular candidate.

Translation: Stay in your lane.

And now, pastors, rabbis, and imams who dare to speak out against the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, who mourn the loss of innocent life and demand a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, are accused of being antisemitic, unpatriotic, or “on the wrong side of history.” All because they had the audacity to declare that every life is sacred.

Translation: Stay in your lane.

In all these cases, the message is clear:

“You can pray for peace in the Middle East, but don’t protest the genocide of Palestinians by Israel and the United States.”

“You can preach salvation, but not liberation.”
“You can feed the hungry, but you can’t ask why they’re hungry in the first place.”

“You can convict souls, but you can’t challenge systems.”

“You can bury the dead, but you shouldn’t question what’s killing them.”

Preacher, your lane is in the sanctuary, not in the public square. And you need to stay in your lane.

Have a bake sale for the underprivileged but keep quiet about the greed of the privileged. Pray for the sick, but don’t talk about a deadly bill that takes away Medicaid from millions. Stock a food pantry, but don’t talk about the government taking away SNAP benefits. Give to charities but don’t ever mention the need to raise the minimum wage. Talk about loving your neighbor, but don’t use the words like “racism” or “white supremacy.” Have programs to support teenagers, but don’t defend trans youth. Just stay in your lane pastor and preach Jesus.

But here’s the thing they don’t seem to understand; the Jesus we preach never stayed in his lane. Yes, he set tables that fed hungry people, but he also flipped tables that fed greedy people. He healed sick bodies, but he also called out sick systems. Jesus worshipped on the sabbath, but he also broke the laws of the sabbath. He continually switched lanes to be on the side of the forgotten, the suffering and the lost.

And today, our gospel lesson invites us to not only leave the lane they want us to stay in, but to reject that lane as a lie. It encourages us not to shrink our witness today, but to expand it. To sit like Mary, in those places they said we are not allowed.

Now, to 21st century ears, this story may sound like a simple story of sibling rivalry, of two sisters in a little family feud about who’s working hard and who’s hardly working.

 But when we put this story in the context of first-century Palestine, we understand that it’s really a story about what happens when one refuses to be confined to the lane they have been assigned by the culture.

Martha was doing exactly what society expected of her. She was in her lane, in the kitchen, preparing to serve her male guest, a young Rabbi named Jesus.

And Mary?

Mary was in the living room audaciously sitting down at the feet of this Rabbi to listen to what he had to say. I say “audaciously” because only disciples were permitted to sit at the feet of a Jewish Rabbi. And disciples were always, without exception, male.

Thus, in sitting down at the feet of Jesus, Mary demonstrated a refusal to stay in the lane society had given her. She made it her business where they said she had no business. She challenged the status quo in a society that wanted her quiet and invisible, or busy and distracted in the kitchen.

And Jesus?

He doesn’t correct her. He doesn’t scold her. And he doesn’t just defend her. Jesus applauds her. Jesus not only allows it, he affirms it, saying: “Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her.”

Jesus saw the system. He knew the expectations. He understood that Mary was way out of line. And still, he said: “This is what discipleship looks like.” Mary found God’s holy purpose not by staying in line, but by stepping out of line.

And so does the church. Throughout history, the Church has always been at its best when it refuses to be silent, when it organizes, protests, speaks truth, and shows up, when the Church understands that it is not called to a civic club to just manage injustice with thoughts, prayers, and charity. But called to be a holy movement interrupting injustice by getting into some good trouble.

The Church has always been more aligned with who God has called it to be when we get out of line and, yes, are criticized for being too political.

Such criticism only affirms we’re aligned with a gospel that is inherently political, because it’s good news for the poor, it’s freedom for the oppressed, and it’s justice for the left out and left behind.

There’s nothing partisan about the gospel we proclaim. It’s not owned by any political party. It belongs to the poor. It belongs to the marginalized. It belongs to the sick, to the disabled, to the oppressed, to the most vulnerable among us.

I know things are bad in the world right now. But think of how much worse things would be if the peace-makers and the justice-seekers of our history stayed in their lane— if Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth obeyed their slave masters, if Harriet Tubman didn’t go underground, if Fannie Lou Hamer never publicly proclaimed she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired!” Where would this country be today if Martin Luther King Jr. only preached about Jesus inside the four walls of his church, or if Rosa Parks got up and moved to the back of that bus, or if Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond never sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, or if Rev. David and Kaye Edwards, pastors of the First Christian Church in the Lynchburg, Virginia stopped talking about the church’s to be Open and Affirming in the 1990’s when some of the members told them they were out of line?

But thank God they each understood that being disciples of Jesus in a world misaligned with will of God, meant they were called step out of line.  And when they were criticized for stepping into the wrong lane, they rose up and they said: “No, I’m in my lane, for my lane is unconditional love, my lane is mercy, my lane is justice, my lane is emancipation and liberation, my lane is equality and solidarity, because my lane is Jesus, the one who never stayed in any of the lanes the empire gave him!”

Thank God they each understood that Mary chose the better part by sitting down in a place the religious culture did not want her to sit, choosing truth over tradition, choosing the lane Jesus called her into over the one the patriarchy assigned her to. And Jesus says, “It will not be taken from her.”

So church, we’ve got a choice today.

Do we stand in the lane that will make the privileged more comfortable? Or do we sit down in holy protest and say: “We’re choosing the better part and nobody’s going to take that away from us!”

We’re boldly choosing to preach God’s Truth when the world tells us to be quiet. We’re audaciously choosing to leave the sanctuary to show up in in city halls, on protest lines, at silent vigils, detention centers, homeless shelters, and school board meetings. We’re courageously choosing the gospel of Jesus over the comfort of religious respectability. We’re fearlessly choosing to get in some “good, necessary trouble.”

We’re choosing to follow Jesus—not the version wrapped in stars and stripes—but the one who broke bread with the outcasts and flipped the tables of those who were part of an unholy alliance of greed, religion, and nationalism.

So, let them say we need to stay in our lane.
Let them say we’re too political.
Let them say we’re too bold, too loud, too much.

Because I’d rather be too much for fascism than too little for Jesus!

Mary chose the better part. And so must we. And Jesus says: It will not be taken from us.

It’s sad to me that the ones who want to take it from us also claim to follow Jesus. So, when they tell us to stay in our lane, we need to remind them that Jesus never stayed in his lane.

Jesus left heaven to walk with the poor.
He healed on the Sabbath.
He touched the untouchable.

He offered belonging to outcasts.
He fed the hungry without a permit.

He provided healthcare without a copay.
He overturned tables in the temple of injustice.

And if Jesus didn’t stay in his lane, as followers of Jesus, neither can we.

So, when they tell you that politics isn’t any of the church’s business—
You remind them that the prophets spoke truth to the kings.
That Moses stood in Pharaoh’s face.
That Esther interrupted the empire.
That Mary sang a song so radical, it brought down the mighty from their thrones.

When they try to tame your gospel, shrink your God, or soften your truth,
You lift your voice like a trumpet!
You say, “We were not baptized in front of all those people just to keep our faith in the closet!”
We were not called by Jesus to conform to the culture.
And we were not filled with the Holy Spirit so we could keep privileged folks comfortable.

So, Church let’s go and cross a line for love!
Run out of bounds into some good trouble for justice!

Refuse the script. Interrupt business as usual!
Feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and tear up the blueprint of empire!

Walk, stand, and sit with the audacity of Mary!

Because when we’re out of line, when they’re begging us to stay in our lane, we are most aligned with our Holy purpose!

 Amen.

Light It Up: Changing the way we see the world to change the world

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


Inspired by Practicing Peace, Living Nonviolence: A Weekend with Rev. John Dear, March 22-25, 2025, Lynchburg, VA

Today’s lectionary gospel lesson is from Luke 13 where we read beginning with verse one:

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

Here, Jesus is challenging some very bad theology. It’s a bad theology that supposes that people who suffer from the violent actions or inactions of authoritarians like Pontius Pilate somehow deserve what they get. The lives lost, harmed, displaced, or deported, are never the fault of the builders of towers or of the ones who make the executive orders.

It’s a bad theology that was created to always blame the victim, and it’s been called “one of the most sinister features of the fascist character.”[i]

The poor suffer, why? Because they are too lazy to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, of course. They didn’t study hard enough in school. They’re not grinding hard enough at work. They’re not applying for enough jobs.

It’s a bad theology that views poverty as punishment for people who just don’t try hard enough, while exonerating the lawmakers, policy makers, and the oligarchs who’ve purchased those politicians to enrich themselves. It’s a bad theology that views people living in poverty as “parasites,” cursed by God for some good reason, and views the rich and the powerful, the builders of towers and the wielders of weapons, as people who are blessed by God.

Jesus emphatically speaks against this greedy and violent way of seeing the world: “No, I tell you!” And then, with a sense of urgency, Jesus challenges us to do something about it, before this dark and violent worldview is the death of us.

“No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did!”

But there’s a problem when some of us hear this word “repent”, as the word itself has been the victim of bad theology—perhaps with the intention to prevent us from ever fulfilling Jesus’ urgent plea to do something about the culture of greed and violence.

Maybe some of you, like me, were taught like that the word “repent” means to turn away personal sins. Raised as a Baptist, that meant to stop drinking, dancing, smoking, cussing, and having sexy thoughts.

However, when Jesus used the word “repent” to speak of our urgent need to change, he was talking about changing the way we see the world, so we can act to change the world. I believe the apostle Paul understood this when he wrote that in Christ, there is a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). When we follow Jesus, the way we see the entire creation changes. Sadly, that verse is also the victim of bad theology as it is often translated “In Christ, there is a new creature” to keep the focus on personal, individual sin and away from societal, cultural, social, and political sin.

Jesus talked more about our failure to see than he ever talked about private sins. Listen to John recount how Jesus spoke of his purpose in this world: “I came into this world…so that those who do not see may see…” (John 9:39). And throughout the gospels, Jesus continually asks: “Do you have eyes and fail to see?” (Mark 8:18) “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye?” (Matthew 7:3) “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” (Luke 10:23) “Prophets and kings desired to see what you see but did not see it!” (Luke 10:24)

Over and over Jesus talked about importance of seeing a world that many people have difficulty seeing.

This is why I believe Jesus called himself the light of the world. For to truly see anything, what do we need? We need light. Thus, he said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

I believe Jesus called himself the light of the world, because it was his life’s mission to lead us to change the way we see the world so we can change the world, to see the truth of who God has created us to be, of how God has created us to live.

And what is the truth that God wants us to see?

I believe the answer can be found in Jesus’ first recorded sermon which Rev. Dear read a few moments ago.[ii]

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus wants us to see the truth that God blesses the “poor in spirit.” Not the religious, the devout, the pious, or even the spiritual. Not the pastors, the elders, the deacons, not even the church member who serves every week in a soup kitchen. No, God favors the ones who have come to be served in the soup kitchen. They are not the ones with something to give. They are the ones with nothing to give. Jesus says the ones who are blessed, the ones who are favored by God are those who, spiritually speaking, are completely destitute. Their very spirits have been broken. And notice that Jesus uses the present tense. Not will be blessed. Not might be favored. They are, right now, right here, blessed. And their future is the kingdom of heaven. Can you see it?

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Jesus wants us to see that God favors the mourners. Not only those who may be mourning the death of someone or are grieving over the injustices of the world, but maybe especially those who are mourning over their own lives, those who are wondering if their lives have any value. They remember how their fathers and mothers, their ancestors, were valued by this world. They consider how they are valued by this world. And they look into the eyes of their children and grandchildren, and they grieve. They cry out in the streets for their lives to matter, yet Jesus calls them blessed and promises comfort. Can you see it?

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

The meek are favored, says Jesus. Not the powerful and violent. Not the ones with the charisma or the confidence, or the physical ability, or the privilege, or an inheritance of wealth, to do whatever is necessary to overcome all sorts of adversity and make it to the top. Jesus says, blessed are the ones who never seem to get ahead. It is the last, says Jesus, not the first, who survive and inherit the earth. Can you see it?

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.”

Not the ones who are righteous, but the ones on whose behalf the prophet Amos preached: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). These are the ones who are unjustly judged, mistreated, shunned, scapegoated, and bullied by society, even by communities of faith. They suffer grave injustices simply because of who they are.

They have been beaten up so badly by the world that they hunger and they thirst for justice like a wanderer lost in a hot desert thirsts for water. Jesus says that they are blessed, and they are the ones who will not only be satisfied, but will be filled, their cups overflowing. Can you see it?

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

Not the perfect and the proud, the boastful and the arrogant. Not the ones who never admit any mistake. But God favors the ones who are fully aware of their imperfections, the ones who have made mistakes, terrible mistakes, and they know it. Thus, when they encounter others who are also suffering from unthinkable errors in judgment, they have mercy, compassion, empathy, and in their hearts, there is always room for forgiveness. They give mercy, because they need mercy for themselves. And because they are favored by God, they will receive it. Can you see it?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Not the pure, but the “pure in heart.” Not the ones whose outer appearance and abilities suggest to some that they have the best genes. No, God favors the ones who are viewed by some as flawed. We are reminded of the words of 1 Samuel “for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God will see the pure beauty of who they truly are, and they will see God. Can you see it?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Not the ones who have necessarily found peace for themselves. But  blessed are the tormented, the disturbed and the restless, who, because they are so continuously in chaos, seek to make peace whenever and wherever they can. Blessed are those who are without stability, the immigrant and  refugee without a home, but seek it, because they will find a home, a place of security, rest and a peace that is beyond all understanding, within the family of God.[i] Can you see it?

One way to sum up Jesus’ Beatitudes may be: “Blessed are the victims of bad theology.” God is on the side of the  ones violent authoritarians like Pilate victimize and God wants us to see that and then turn the entire culture of greed and violence upside down!

And this, Jesus pronounces, is not a prescription of how things should be or how things could be. Jesus asserts that this is how things are! Can you see it?

If not, then maybe we need some more light! Because if we can’t soon see it, says Jesus, we are all doomed to perish!

I believe this is why Jesus announces: “I have come as light, as the Light of the World, to help you see it, to give all who are blind to it, the sight to see this world as God sees it.” The way of God’s universal, inclusive unconditional love for the entire creation is the only way to never walk in darkness, to never perish, but have the light of life!

And after preaching what we call the Beatitudes, revealing who is truly blessed and favored in by God in this world, Jesus announces to those who want to follow him: You are the lights of the world!  And you must not ever hide your light, shine it privately in a sanctuary or personally at home, but shine your light courageously and publicly on the way things are, so all may begin to see the world the way God sees it.

We are to shine our lights by loving all people, but especially those who are the the victims of bad theology. We are to light it up by loving and doing justice and working to create a world that blesses the least among us: the poor, those who are crying out for their lives to matter, the weak and the underprivileged, those who need mercy, the marginalized who hunger and thirst for justice, the physically maligned but pure in heart, and the spiritually or mentally troubled who yearn for peace.

Will we be despised for it? You bet. Will people say that the way we accept and love and affirm others, the way we speak truth to power, is socially and even theologically unacceptable? Of course. Will we be demeaned and even persecuted by others, even by those in organized religion? Most certainly. Might we get arrested? If we are truly following the way of Jesus, that’s always a possibility!

But here’s the good news:

Jesus also said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you [notice the change in person] when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

So, while many people, even those who claim to be Christian today, have chosen to live in a dark, violent world, a world where they blindly believe that it is the rich, the prosperous, the privileged and the powerful that are blessed and favored by God, a world that will inevitably bring suffering to all of us, including them, let us commit ourselves to living in the world created by our gracious, loving God, in the world that Jesus, the Light of the World, came to help us see.

And let us, as lights of this world, for the sake of this world, keep lighting this world up, courageously, and publicly until the day comes when the eyes of all are finally fully opened, and there is finally peace on earth.

[i]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming#:~:text=Adorno%20defined%20what%20would%20be,features%20of%20the%20Fascist%20character%22.

[ii] Interpretation of the Beatitudes inspired by Frederick Buechner. Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized (New York: Harper Collins, 1988), 18.

Home by Another Way

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Sermons Year CLeave a comment

 

Participating in a nonviolent Moral Monday March in Raleigh NC in 2015

Matthew 2:1-12 NRSV

As many of you know, my wife Lori works downtown at the Free Clinic of Central Virginia which has recently suffered major damage from a fire which was started outside in the parking lot. The building has been condemned and it will take weeks, maybe eve months, before it can be used again. It is a tragic situation as many with low income depend on the clinic not only for healthcare, but for emergency dental services. So, as a church in Lynchburg, it is important that we pray for the staff, and for the Free non-profit’s board of directors, that they will be able to wisely respond to this disaster so they can continue serving this community.

Our church’s support of the Free Clinic seems to be more important when we consider that it was one of our very own, Anne Bishop, who worked with another one of our church members, Jack Scudder, to found the free clinic thirty years ago.

Lori and I had the opportunity to visit with Anne on the Sunday after leading my first worship service here, and I had the honor of officiating Anne’s memorial service just a couple of weeks later. To describe Anne’s trail-blazing, pioneering spirit which led her to start the Free Clinic, during her service, I talked about the unique way that Anne drove a car.

Whenever Anne traveled, she always made sure she returned home by another way. To make the trip more interesting, and to learn more about her surroundings, she was always fond of taking a different route home, even, when she traveled in other country. When she traveled overseas, she would order maps and highlight the roads to make sure she always arrived back to her starting point by another way. Her daughter Kathy said: “After returning a rental car in England, the clerk, who evidently had some type of GPS history on the car, asked: ‘Ma’am, did you drive down every road in Great Britain?’”

It was then that I pointed out that “Home by Another Way” are the exact words that Matthew uses to describe the journey of the wise men after they worshipped Jesus, laying down their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Having been warned in a dream not to return to King Herod as the king had requested, Matthew says they went “home by another way.”

I then pointed out that death is often described as a homecoming or a homegoing, and as people of faith, we believe this journey home called life matters. How we go home makes a difference. Do we go home following the instructions of King Herod? Do we collaborate with the empire, bow down to those in power, accept the status quo, go with the culture? Or do we choose to go home by another way?

Do we go home following the way of power and greed, of fear and violence? Or do we go home following the way of love and generosity, of compassion and of peace?

After King Herod’s encounter with the Wise Ones looking for the child who was said to be “king of the Jews,” Matthew says that King Herod was “afraid.” And then adds: “And all of Jerusalem with him.”

For the nation instinctively knew that if its self-absorbed, narcissistic, authoritarian leader was afraid, everyone should be afraid. Because, as almost always the case with the King Herod’s of the world, fear leads to violence.

Obviously, the Wise Ones sensed Herod’s fear, and knowing his violent reputation and his propensity to stoke and orchestrate violence against the innocents, when they went to bed that night, one, or maybe all of them, had a dream which warned them to go home by another way.

For when it comes to fear and to violence, when it comes to bowing down to authoritarians who stoke fear and promote violence, wise people of faith are always led to go home by another way.

 It was surreal to awakened on the first day of the year to the news of violence in New Orleans. And it certainly didn’t take long for the King Herods of the world to use that violence to stoke even more fear in the nation, scapegoating immigrants, which will certainly lead to more violence.

The good news is, as you may have read in the newsletter this week, our church’s outreach team has proposed that our church use 2025 to go home by another way, by committing ourselves to a movement of nonviolence.

During this first quarter, our church is honored to have the opportunity host Father John Dear, a world-renowned author and advocate for nonviolence who was nominated by Desmond Tutu for the Nobel Peace Prize. As this year’s Turner-Warren/Shumate Lecturer, Father Dear will host a workshop on non-violence on March 22, speak here in this sanctuary the 23rd and at the University of Lynchburg on the 25th.

We may have awakened this year to the news of violence and fear, but we are going to go through this new year by another way, a way of love and grace, a way of truth and compassion, a way of doing justice and making peace. We are going to go through 2025 by a way of nonviolence, a way of living that is encouraged by all the great world religions, as it is rooted in the belief that the creative force of the universe is love; God, God’s self, is love.

Thus, peacemakers like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. gave their lives teaching that the most important thing that human beings can do is to exercise this creative force by learning to love the way we were created to love. For Gandhi and King, following a way of nonviolence was understood as the science of how we create life in the image of God, how we create a world that practices justice, truth, and compassion.

Dr. King noted that Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective “social force on a large scale.” “Love, for Gandhi,” said King, “was a potent instrument for social and collective transformation,” and [the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi] was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”

Dr. King understood that although the way of nonviolence sounds passive and ineffective, it is the most active and effective resistance of evil in the world.

 Through the way nonviolence, courage displaces fear. Love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice. Hope ends despair. Peace dominates war. Faith reconciles doubt. Mutual regard cancels enmity. Justice for all overthrows all injustice. And the redemptive community supersedes the systems of gross social immorality.

Nonviolence is not for cowards and passive people but requires much bravery and courage.

Nonviolence is not just a temporary attitude. It’s a full-time way of life. Nonviolence is assertive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Nonviolence is always informing and persuading the opponents of justice.

Dorothy Day wrote in 1967 that she regretted that she had not done more to promote nonviolence “as a way of life.” Father John Dear comments: “I think we can all do more to nourish, study, cultivate and promote nonviolence as a way of life, as a spiritual path, as the basis for people in power, as a political methodology for change, and as a hermeneutic for Christian discipleship. Active nonviolence is the best hope for humanity.”

In response to the fear that King Herod possessed and stoked among the people, and to the violence that would surely follow, after paying homage to the baby Jesus, the Wise Men decided to go home by another way, the way of nonviolence. But they were not retreating. They were not running away. And they were not being passive in any way.

Choosing to go home another way was very active resistance. It was a way of telling the world that they would not bow down to King Herod. They would not be attracted to his power, seduced by his fame, duped by his wealth, or conned by his charisma.

And neither are we.

By choosing to go home by another way, the way of nonviolence, we are joining a movement of most active resistance—

One which actively wages peace, not war; passionately fights poverty, not people who are poor; ferociously attacks homelessness, not the homeless; aggressively opposes bigotry, not people who are queer.

We are choosing to go home by a way that dynamically endangers easy gun access, not school children; assiduously admonishes men who attempt to control the bodies of women, not the women who are those bodies.

This way wholeheartedly works to banish unkind immigration policies, not immigrants. It vehemently demands fair living wages, adequate housing, and free access to education and healthcare, not the exact opposite.

We are choosing a way that fervently heals spiritual trauma and never causes it; vigorously protects the environment and doesn’t threaten it; and tirelessly works for justice that is restorative, not punitive.

We are choosing a way that defeats evil, not the evil doers. It destroys fascism, not the fascist. It kills Christian Nationalism and religious extremism, not religious people. It vanquishes the fool heartedness of our neighbors, not our neighbors.

So, you see, this way is not for the coward nor the passive. It is for the courageous and the brave.

And it is also for the wise.

Because choosing the peace-making, compassion-loving, justice-doing way of nonviolence is always our best response to the fear-mongering King Herods of this world, especially when those kings can cause an entire nation to be afraid with them.

The question our gospel lesson asks us today is simply: Will we be wise ones too and choose this way? Will we be brave and courageous and choose to actively resist the King Herods of the world?

I pray we will. Amen.

Christmas Contemplation

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Sermons Year CLeave a comment

Luke 2:41-52 NRSV

It’s only been a few days since we celebrated his birth, but we fast forward twelve years when we read this morning’s lectionary gospel lesson where, in the same chapter of the story of his birth, Luke tells a story of 12-year-old Jesus that sounds something the contemporary holiday classic movie Home Alone.

After visiting Jerusalem for the Passover festival Mary and Joseph, with other members of their family had packed their bags and boarded the plane. From their seats in coach, they couldn’t see where Jesus was sitting, but assumed he as sitting somewhere among the large crowd of passengers. After a long day of travel, as they were retrieving their luggage from the baggage carousel, they picked up Jesus’ suitcase and handed it off to someone who began passing it down the line of relatives to Jesus, but at the end of the line, there’s no Jesus.

Because the boy never got on the plane and was now lost in New York, I mean Jerusalem.

It took three days of frantic searching before they found him in the temple, sitting among the rabbis, listening to their teachings, and asking questions. Don’t you wonder what questions twelve-year-old Jesus had for the Rabbis and what answers he gave in response to their questions that amazed all who heard him that day?

But it’s not Jesus’ questioning that gets my attention in this story. It’s Mary’s questioning. For I love the way Luke describes it: “Mary treasured all these things in her heart.”

The Greek word translated treasure means “to thoroughly keep.”

The thinking of Mary is thorough. Her questioning is meticulous and scrupulous. She thoroughly thinks it all through. Mary wonders, ponders, considers—she “treasures” the significance of what has happened.

And maybe, on this first Sunday after Christmas, this should be the mind of every disciple. A mind that is thoroughly evaluating and reevaluating, thoroughly questioning and wondering, thoroughly meditating and contemplating the meaning of Christmas.

What does it all mean to us? What does Christmas mean to the world? What does it mean to have faith in a God, who we believe is the creator, the source, and the essence of all that is, a God who we believe is Love love’s self becoming flesh, in the most humble, most selfless and most vulnerable of ways, to dwell among us, being with us, living in us, living through us, living for us, for all people, for the entire creation?

One of my favorite preachers, the Rev. Karoline Lewis writes: “Mary invites us into that contemplative space…not to obtain answers, but to ponder God’s place in and purpose for our lives. Mary summons us to sit and wonder…[reminding] us that an essential act of discipleship is reflection. Because none of what God is ever up to should be easy to get or at once understood.”

Lewis suggests that the best gift the church can give to people at Christmas is the gift of a safe and brave place for their own ponderings, a gift of space where reflection, questioning, and even doubting, are welcomed, and even encouraged, a gift of time that “demands only meditation and musing.”[i]

Especially in these days, when thinking doesn’t seem to be in vogue.

I’ve said it. You’ve said it. We’ve all noticed it. “Our country has a critical-thinking crisis.”

Well, we may not have put it in those exact words. But on this First Sunday after Christmas, it’s just not very nice using words like “stupid” or “idiots.”

We live in a world where there seems to be little time for any silence, much less for any meditation and contemplation. These days people are quick to allow others to tell them how to think and what to think without any questions. It’s what makes Fox News, some places on the internet, and churches where people are expected to check their brains at the door both popular and dangerous.

For a world where reasonable, reflective, critical thinking, and intelligent discourse have lost favor is a world that breeds authoritarianism and supports fascism. It is a world where an unstable, wannabe dictator can get a way saying something as ridiculous as: “What you are seeing is not happening.” And, without question, people will believe him.[ii]

I believe it’s fair to say that the lack of critical thought can be blamed for the most heinous and evil of all world events as it has led people to believe that something that is as obvious as our common humanity does not exist, to believe that one race, one nation or one religion is superior to another or favored by God over another, to believe that some people are cut-off or separated from God, while others are close to God.

So, perhaps the best sermon a preacher can preach on this Sunday after Christmas is one that invites us to join Mary after finding Jesus in the temple that day. It’s a sermon that gives us permission to think—a sermon that encourages us to follow the example of Mary to think deeply or to “treasure in our hearts” what this miraculous event we call Christmas truly means, to ask what our hearts are telling us in response to divinity becoming humanity, to the holy becoming flesh, to Love, love’s self, becoming a part of the creation and dwelling among us.

Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, writes that contemplation is a way of “listening with the heart” in such a way that it awakens a new consciousness that is needed to create a more loving, just, merciful, and sustainable world.

Contemplation is the practice of being fully present—in heart, mind, and body—that allows us to creatively respond and work toward what could be. Contemplative prayer helps us to recognize and to sustain the Truth we encounter during moments we experience great love and great suffering, long after the intensity of these experiences wears off.”

So, on this Sunday after Christmas, let us ponder and wonder Christmas. Let us meditate and contemplate Christmas. Let us treasure Christmas. Let us make time for silence, and take time in silence to question our hearts and to listen. Not to hear the answer of popular culture, the answer of politicians, or even the answer of your church (and should I dare say) not even the answer of your pastor. Let us listen to hear a truth where Christmas becomes more than something we celebrate for a season, but a way of life that informs our being and instructs our living all year long.

Let us make time in these days of Christmas to listen to our hearts. What are our hearts telling us this morning about God being born as a vulnerable infant, in the body of a brown-skinned, Jewish Palestinian, to an unwed mother?

What are our hearts saying in response to a choir of Angels who invite not the rich and the famous to see the baby, but poor, lowly shepherds, those working the nightshift out in the fields tending to the sheep of another?

What do our hearts say when we read that the ones who feared the baby the most were those with the most privilege and power?

What are our hearts telling us when we hear the story of the baby and his parents fleeing their country as desperate refugees, crossing the border into Egypt as undocumented immigrants?

Father Rohr contemplates Christmas:

If we’re praying, [Christmas] goes deeper and deeper and deeper. If we are quiet once in a while…it goes deeper and deeper and deeper still.

There’s really only one message, and we just have to keep saying it until finally we’re undefended enough to hear it and to believe it: there is no separation between God and creation.

         This is the good news of Christmas, because, as Rohr observes:

Separation is the sadness of the human race. When we feel separate, when we feel disconnected…from our self, from our family, from reality, from the Earth, from God, we will be angry and depressed people. Because we know we were not created for that separateness; we were created for union.

So, God sent one into the world who would personify that union—[one] who would put human and divine together; [one] who would put spirit and matter together.”

[When we] wake up in the morning pondering and wondering: What does it all mean? What’s it all for? What was I put here for? Where is it all heading?

Rohr muses:

I believe it’s all a school. And it’s all a school of love. And everything is a lesson—everything. Every day, every moment, every visit to the grocery store, every moment of our so-ordinary life is meant to reveal, ‘My God, I’m a daughter of God! I’m a son of the Lord! I’m a sibling of Christ! It’s all okay. I’m already home free! There’s no place I have to go. I’m already here!’” Rohr then adds “But if we don’t enjoy that, if we don’t allow that, basically we fall into meaninglessness.[iii]

Rohr considers:

Friends, we need to surrender to some kind of ultimate meaning. We need to desire it, seek it, want it, and need it.

I know no one likes to hear this, but we even need to suffer for it. And what is suffering? Suffering is the emptying out of the soul so there’s room for love, so there’s room for the Christ, so there’s room for God.

On this first Sunday after Christmas, let us thank Mother Mary— For giving us permission to be still, to get quiet, to meditate and to contemplate, for encouraging us to ponder and to wonder, to find a safe and brave space to listen to our hearts to find meaning, purpose, and belonging, to empty our souls making room for love, to be enveloped with grace and held in love by the source and essence of all that is.

[i] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/keeping-company-with-mary

[ii] https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340

[iii] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/only-one-message-2021-12-24/

Christmas in the Boondocks

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Sermons Year C1 Comment

Luke 3:7-18 NRSV

As a preacher, I often wonder about this thing we call a sermon. Like, why do we do it? Why do preachers prepare and deliver them, and why do you sit and listen to it?

I tend to believe that you are here for the sermon because need a little encouragement. In a world that can be dark and despairing, you need to hear a word of light and hope. In a world that can be sad and chaotic, you need to hear a word of joy and peace.

On top of all the problems in the world, war in Ukraine and in the Middle East, the acceptance of fascism throughout the world, including in our own country, you have all kinds of stress in your life. Some of your children are not doing as well as you would like. Some of you are having a difficult time taking care of aging parents. And some of you have your own health worries. Some of you are still dealing with grief over the loss of a loved one. And you are still struggling with forgiving that friend who let you down or loving a neighbor who betrayed you. So, you come to this place every to sit in a pew to get a little inspiration, to find a little peace.

So, I, along with hundreds of other moderate, educated, mainline preachers in our pretty, city pulpits, seek to give you a dose of what we think you want on Sunday mornings. Instead of saying anything that might add to the stress in your life, we try to say something to fill you with such peace, that when the time in the service comes when we pass the peace, you actually have something to pass. During the sermon, we seek to metaphorically pat you on the back on Sunday mornings assuring you that everything is going to be alright.

I am very tempted this morning to talk about my new granddaughter and how the birth of a little baby can change our world; then somehow compare that to the birth of Jesus peaching a soft, sweet, sentimental sermon of comfort and peace.

But then I encounter a text like this morning’s gospel lesson and read the account of a preacher who doesn’t remind us of any grandfather we know whose heart has been softened by the birth of a baby. His name is John, and he’s also a far cry any educated, moderate, mainline preacher in a pretty, city pulpit. He’s a harsh man with a harsh voice crying out in the boondocks far from the lights of the city.

No one ever called John “moderate.” And no one ever called him “mainline.” And there was seemingly nothing peaceful, about his message of hell, fire, brimstone, and impending judgment.

When John stood in the mud of the Jordan River and looked out in the congregation, he didn’t seem to see what I see when I look out on Sunday mornings. I see mostly good people who truly want to be better. John saw a snake pit. He preached: “You bunch of poisonous snakes! There’s a bunch of dead stones in this muddy river, but God is able to raise up a family out of these stones. There’s a heap of dry chaff, mixed all up in with the wheat, and you know what God’s going to do? God’s coming with fire to burn off the chaff. I wash you with water; and if this water is too cold for you… there is one who’s coming right behind me who is going to scorch you with fire!”

“You better get washed. You better get clean!  If you haven’t treated someone right, go make it right. If you have something you can give to those who have nothing to give, give it. If you have any prejudice in your heart, you better get rid of it. This may be your last warning. Today is the day. Now is the hour, for the ax and the fire are surely coming!”

Now I think, who wants to listen to a sermon like that? As it turns out, lots of people. Luke says: “multitudes” came out to hear him. And genteel, educated preachers in our nice city pulpits everywhere, scratch our heads and ask: “why?”

Perhaps you don’t come to church to listen to a sermon solely to be encouraged. Perhaps you also come to hear the truth.

Multitudes travelled way out into the boonies because that redneck preacher who looked like he could handle a snake or two named John was telling people the truth.

And perhaps that is why we are all here this morning. In a world where we are bombarded with lies…in a world in which we are overwhelmed with deceit, disinformation, propaganda, gaslighting and indoctrination… in a world where people make up stories to control us, using us for their selfish and greedy purposes…in a world where the rich and powerful control the media and malign the media they don’t control…and in a world where money is always the objective, we need to hear someone who will unashamedly speak to us, honestly and truthfully. We come here out of a deep yearning to hear a word of truth from God, because we know deep in our hearts that it is only that truth that will set us free and give us the peace we all desire.

That is why more people went out to hear John preach in the boondocks than have ever come here to hear me preach in the comfortable city sanctuaries where I have preached. Multitudes trudged through the briars and dust and went to hear a fire-breathing preacher who stood, not in a beautifully crafted and decorated pulpit, but in the muddy Jordan River, and spoke of axes, judgment, and fire. They went to hear the truth, even though they knew that truth was going to hurt. Because they somehow instinctively knew that it was the truth and only the truth that was going to set them free and give them a lasting peace.

If John was here today, I believe he would tell you that preachers like me often sell you short. And maybe he would be right.

For I have noticed, when every now and again, I unintentionally slip up and step on a few toes, a lot harder than I would ever intend to, inferring that some of you are not right…That some of you could do a little better…That some of you need a bath…That some part of you needs to be cut off, removed; something in you needs to be burned away…When I challenge you by saying something like: peace is only going to come on earth if you do something, that justice is only going to be done, if you use your privilege and power and act…When I explain how, even now, we are participants in the systems of oppression we deplore… you know what happens? Why, people line up after the service to say, “Thank you preacher. I really needed to hear that!” “You really got on top of my feet today! Thanks for being honest.”

I wonder what would happen if preachers all over the world had the gall to discuss all the lies and disinformation in our world today that is behind the growing popularity of fascism. What if we inferred that all of us could do more to stop it, that we could be more vocal in our condemnation of it, that our silence today only helps to normalize it, and such normalization is actually part of the historical playbook of fascism?

 What do we think our congregants would do if we challenged them— telling them the truth that when they hear their neighbors, co-workers and family members say things like: “People are just over-reacting;” “Things will not get that bad!” “The people in power? Why, they’re only talking. They don’t really mean what they say.” Our system of democracy is not fragile”—when they hear that, and then they say nothing, they only help to normalize fascism.

What would happen if preachers made a historical comparison between our silence today and the silence of those in 1860 when their friends defended slavery, saying things like: “We are actually doing them a favor!” What would happen if preachers compared our silence to those in 1930’s Germany when their friends defended concentration camps, saying something like: “Oh, they are just work camps. They are only helping people learn the value of labor and hard work!” What would happen if we compared our silence with those who said nothing when everyone around them was calling Martin Luther King Jr. “a troublemaker?”

Yeah, saying those things will certainly make some people mad. Some may not turn in their pledge cards. It may cause them to leave and never come back. But I have a feeling they’ll be many people lined up in narthexes everywhere to thank us, because people know the truth that before something can be born anew, something old must die. Before love can win, someone must be willing to pick up and carry a cross. Before justice can be done, work must be done. Before peace can happen, sacrifices must be made. Before Christmas can be celebrated, gifts must be given.

That is why people came to hear John preach. They came for the candor, for the honesty, and for the truth. From his prolific sermon illustrations (the fire, the ax, and chaff), we know that what John was preaching was the death of something old and the birth of something new.

This is why the multitudes traveled out into the boonies to hear John preach. Because when John told the people what they needed to change, what they needed to prune, cut off and burn up, the wilderness began to look something like the Garden of Eden. The muddy Jordan became the River of Life. Out of the dry dust, a flower began to bloom. Peace on earth became a little bit more of a reality.

This was the message of John the Baptist. People flocked to hear John, and I believe come to worship every Sunday so they can hear the truth: that none of us are who we ought to be. All of us could do better. We could be better.

We come here to ask God to hold up a mirror in front of us so we can see our complacency and our complicity. We ask God to search us and know our hearts; to test us and know our thoughts, to see if there is any wicked way in us and lead us the way that is everlasting. And having accepted the truth, we come to drop to our knees and ask God to take an ax and cut us down, or kindle a fire and purge us, so we can be reborn, so we can be cleansed and changed, so we can then do all that we can do to change the world. John preached the possibility of such a transformation.

And he’s still preaching it today. We can’t get to Christmas without first meeting him out in the boondocks. Multitudes have. By God’s grace, so will we.[i]

[i] Inspired from a sermon entitled Here Comes the Judge by William Willimon.

A Crowded Table

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year B1 Comment

Sermon delivered during the Interfaith Service of Unity at Peakland Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA, Thanksgiving Day 2024

Isaiah 25:1-9 NRSV

I begin the sermon with the two questions that are on everyone’s mind today: #1 “Will this divided nation ever come together?” And #2 “When will there finally be peace on earth?”

Nah. That’s not it. The questions on everyone’s mind today are: #1 “What’s for dinner?” and #2 “Who’s all invited?”

The prophet Isaiah answers the first question “What’s for dinner?” with a song about God’s promise of a generous and extravagant table where (as we read in the New Revised Standard Version):

The Lord of hosts will make a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.

I imagine Isaiah adding: “Did I mention we’ll be havin’ well-mature wines and rich food?”

Isaiah understands that life is best celebrated with plenty of delicious food and the best wines, particularly when times have been dark, when the table’s been empty, when the cupboards ae bare—when tyrants have the upper hand, when the shadows of chaos and catastrophe cover a nation, like it is being punished for their poor choices causing the entire creation to suffer.

In the previous chapter of Isaiah, we hear the desperate lament of the prophet:

The earth is utterly broken, the earth is torn asunder, the earth is violently shaken…the moon… abashed, and the sun ashamed (24:19, 23).

A dark shroud of universal dismay and despair covers the land. And there, under the dismal cover of darkness, everything good seems to be wasting away.

Of course, the first thing Isaiah grieves is the wine cellar. Isaiah cries out:

The wine dries up, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh, the mirth of the timbrels is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased (24:7-8).

It is in this dry, dark, and desolate setting that a shocking announcement is made by the prophet. It comes in the form of a gracious invitation to attend a most extravagant dinner table with rich food and plenty of delicous wine!

Which brings us to the second question on our minds this day. Now that we know what’s for dinner, we want to know who’s all invited?

And here comes the real shock. Who’s invited? All are invited to enjoy the feast.

And notice that it’s like Isaiah understands that such radical inclusion will be difficult for some folks to believe. So, the prophet uses the word “all” five times in three verses to make sure he gets his point across!

In verse 6 we read that the table is “for all peoples.” And just in case some interpret all peoples to mean just the legal, documented citizenry, the prophet adds, “all nations, and all faces.”

Talk about a crowded table! A table where everyone whose got a face is welcome!

“All are welcome.” That’s the words that we are accustomed to seeing outside some of our houses of worship or our meeting places, right? All are welcome. But it was my son who once pointed out the fallacy of that simple welcome. Referring to the sign outside a church building where I once served, he commented: “Dad, all can’t be welcome unless someone is doing the welcoming. A better sign would read, ‘We welcome all.’”

I had never thought about that. But he’s right. For all to be welcome, someone must do the welcoming. Someone must put in some effort. Someone must take some initiative. Someone must have some radical intentionality to create the revolutionary hospitality. Especially if all faces are invited. Especially if strange faces might show up. And most especially if the table is going to be crowded with strange faces.

I will never forget the first time that my wife Lori came home with me to meet my parents back in 1987, a few months before we were engaged to be married. I am very tempted right now to tell you that it was Thanksgiving, but it was actually Easter.

After attending worship that Sunday, my family gathered around a very crowded table for dinner, nine of us scrunched up together to sit at a table made for six. My aunt and uncle and cousin joined my brother, sister, Mom, Dad, Lori, and me. I was sitting at one end of the able. Dad was seated to my left. And Lori was seated to my right.

As my father asked the blessing using the vernacular of King James in 1611, to make Lori feel welcome at the strange, crowded table, I took my foot under the table and gave Lori a little love-tap on her ankle. (Most inappropriate during the high Old English Eastertide blessing my father was offering, but I suppose that’s what made it so much fun). Feeling my affection under the table in the middle of the prayer, Lori made eye contact with me gave me the sweetest little grin. I know, we were so bad.

A few minutes went by, when Lori got the notion to reciprocate, reaching out her toe to tap my foot. But when she looked over at me, she was rather disappointed to see that I didn’t react. So, she did it once more, this time, a little more playfully. But again, I was as cool as a cucumber, sitting there eating my dinner like it never happened.

That’s because it never happened. Lori, in a state of confusion sat back and peered under the table, only to discover that she had been flirting with my father!

But here’s the thing. My dad also never reacted. He too sat there like it never happened.

Now, I can only come up with two explanations for Daddy’s stoic lack of response. The first one, which I refuse to believe, is that is he enjoyed it and didn’t want her to stop. So, the conclusion I have chosen to draw is that he realized that Lori, bless her heart, didn’t really know what she was doing, and thus he made the decision to extend grace. Instead of embarrassing her, he chose to forgive her, accept her, and love her.

To set a crowded table where every face is welcomed, all those at the table must be intentional when it comes to grace, more so if strange faces are present. All the grace Daddy offered that day would have been for naught, if my cousin, or one of my siblings, was gawking under the table judging all the inappropriate footsie carryings-on.

To set a gracious table, one where every face fed feels safe, appreciated, respected, affirmed, liberated, and loved, takes some work, especially for those faces who have not been feeling those things. To set such a table might mean that we have to go so far as to turn over a table or two. It might mean we need to get into some trouble, in the words of John Lewis, “some necessary trouble, some good trouble.”

Because as history as proved, there are always privileged tyrants in the world who believe it’s their role to play the judge: deciding who deserves a seat at the table and who should be excluded or deported.

I believe it is notable that the Hebrew word for “tyrant” is repeated three times in three verses (verses 3, 4 and 5). In Isaiah 13 and 49, we read that Babylon was the tyrant. But here in chapter 25 the lack of a specific reference conveys the frequent cyclical threat of tyrants throughout history—tyrants in every age whose refusal to demonstrate love and grace, to treat every face with equality and justice, benefits them and their friends at the top, while everyone else suffers, while “the wine drys up, the vine languishes, and all the merry-hearted sigh.”

In every generation, there are those seek to enrich themselves at the expense of others. And fearing a revolt of the masses who will certainly suffer, they lie and make up stories, conning the masses to believe that it’s not them and their oligarch cronies who are preventing them from having a seat at the table, sharing in the rich bounty of the table, but it’s some poor marginalized group who’s preventing them.

It’s the poor and the immigrants, the Eunuchs and the sexually different, the widows and the unmarried, we should fear. They are the ones who are poisoning our blood, making us weak, destroying our culture. The tyranny of the greedy and the powerful who are now at head of the table have nothing to do with our low position or no position at the table, or why there is so little on the plate in front of us.

So, not seated at the prophet’s extravagant table set with rich food and fine wines for all faces, are the tyrants. Because the problem with just one tyrant at the table is that all faces will no longer feel welcomed at the table, especially those who hunger and thirst for a seat at the table, those who have been the victims or the scapegoats of tyranny. These were Isaiah’s people, the faces for whom the prophet was most concerned: the faces of all who have been pushed to the margins: the faces of widows and orphans, the faces of Eunuchs and foreigners, the faces of the poor and needy.

This is the sacred table I believe people of faiths are being called to set in our world today: a large, crowded table where there is no injustice, no bullying, no cruelty, no hate, and no oppression whatsoever.

Setting such a gracious table will most certainly require possessing the courage to flip a table or two, as we will have to work diligently to prevent anything, or anyone, opposed to love from taking over the table.

Public dissent is essential around the table, because the one thing that tyrants count on is the silence of others. As the old German saying goes: “If one Nazi sits down at a table with nine people, and there is no protest, then there are ten Nazis sitting at that table.”

However, when the nine stand up, speak up, and speak out, taking steps to ensure that just love remains at the table, either the fascist will leave the table, taking their prejudice, fear, hate and toxicity with them, or they will find grace for themselves, experience liberation and redemption, and be given a welcomed place at table.

And in the safe space of the table, as the people eat and drink together, as they share their grief and cry together, as they are filled with grace and love together, the dark shroud that had been covering their world will begin to dissipate, and suddenly they will once again be able to celebrate and to laugh together.

Gathered around the crowded and diverse table, Palestinian and Jew, Ukrainian and Russian, Indigenous people and colonists, queer and straight, documented and undocumented, able-bodied, and differently-abled, brown, black and white, all God’s children begin to understand that they share more in common than that which divides them, most importantly, one God, one Lord, and Creator of all faces. And there around the prophetic table, they are able to see their great diversity as the very image of God.

So, what’s for dinner?

As prejudice leaves and fears are relieved and tears are wiped away, mercy and compassion are for dinner.

As disgrace is forgiven and barriers begin to fall, grace and love are for dinner.

As despair dissipates and sorrow fades, hope and joy are for dinner.

As plates are passed and the wine is consumed, as people are seen, their voices are heard, and their beliefs are respected, as enemies become friends, and strangers become siblings, peace and salvation are for dinner.

And who’s all going to be there?

Here, now, this afternoon, tomorrow, next year, and well into the future, around our family tables, around the tables of our faith, around the table of our city, around the table of our nation, around the table of the earth, all who believe in love and need love, all who hunger and thirst for justice, are going to be there! Your faces are going to be there, and my face is going to be there. We are all going to be there, regardless of our religion or lack thereof, ensuring that no one and no thing opposed to love, no matter how powerful, will be there.

And the good news, proclaims Isaiah, is that our hungry and thirsting God will be also there, seated in our midst at the very crowded table, swallowing everything in heaven and on earth that divides us from one another, and consequently, from the love of God.

God will be there with a ravenously righteous appetite, swallowing even death, forever. And the most divided of nations will be united as all become one, and on earth there will be peace, as the entire creation is born again. Amen.