Sunday After All Saints’ Day 2019;
Luke 6:20-31; St. Paul’s, Smithfield; 11/3/2019
Jim Melnyk, “Out on a Limb for
Jesus”
As we gather together this crisp fall morning we
remember the witness of saints throughout the ages. Simply put, “saints are
persons who make it easier for others to believe in God.”[1] We
also gather to reaffirm our baptismal covenant as followers of Jesus. And we
find ourselves faced with the portion of Luke’s gospel from the Sermon on the
Plain – we find ourselves faced with Jesus’ pronouncement of blessings and woes
as an option for our gospel lesson. Note how in Luke’s version of the
beatitudes there is no spiritualization as in Matthew’s version. It’s “blessed
are you who are poor,” not “you who are poor in spirit.” It’s “blessed are you
who are hungry now,” not “blessed are you who hunger and thirst after
righteousness.” I mean, I can understand what it means to be poor in spirit, or
what it means to be hungry or thirsty for righteousness, but there is a
personal disconnect for me over Luke’s list. I have never been poor, or truly
hungry, or felt hated and reviled – even though perhaps disliked on occasion. And
Matthew has no list of woes at all – oh, it’s much easier to deal with Matthew.
What can we, as a bunch of predominately middle-class
Americans, do with a God who shows such an apparent preferential option for the
poor and the powerless? What do we do with that – besides try to ignore it or
spiritualizing it, taking away personal responsibility? What does it mean for a
gathering of believers living in an affluent – even if somewhat unstable –
economic reality, to be baptized into the life of a Christ who stands the world
order on its head with such promises of blessings and woes?
What does it mean for a gathering of believers to
hear what comes next in the passage: “Love your enemies, do good to those who
hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Though we
should note: Jesus doesn’t say to embrace those who abuse you, but to pray for
them.) What does it mean for this gathering of believers to hear Jesus talk
about offering the other cheek, giving our shirt, or giving to those who beg?
What does it mean for us to live into the challenge
to, as Jesus says, “do to others as [we] would have them do to [us]?” Can we
find a way between the fear of being expected to give up everything we have,
and the meaninglessness of spiritualizing the whole passage into some form of
religiously sentimental goo?
To be truthful, I’m not sure there’s any kind of
answer that will make our hearts completely comfortable with this gospel
passage. But then again, rarely is the time when God seeks to comfort the
already comfortable. I believe the saying goes like this: “God comforts
the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable;” and even a hint of such a promise
can get under our skin – but then again, that seems to be the whole idea! God
will always hear the cry of God’s people – and those of us who are baptized
into Christ are called to hear that cry as well.
In his book, When Theology Listens to the Poor,
theologian Leonardo Boff writes, “Without the quest for communion, the
Eucharist is an offense to God!” Stark and startling words for a gathering of
the faithful on such a fine fall morning in Smithfield, North Carolina –
gathered to celebrate our faith and the many ministries we carry out as a
community – gathered this day to celebrate the whole communion of saints who
stand with us – from the very first believers who walked with Jesus to those
who await us all at the future’s end. The challenges of today’s lesson are probably
not the kind of words we long to hear.
But Boff’s words do echo the lives of the saints
throughout the ages – those whose lives we remember on this day. His words echo
the challenge inherent in Christian Baptism.
Boff’s words echo God’s call to communion – God’s
call to mutuality, God’s call to right-relationship, and to justice-love. They
echo God’s call to love one another with wild abandon, just as God loves us. Such
a call resounds in our Scripture, in our Tradition, and in the expectation
shared by everyone who enters the waters of Holy Baptism, finding new life in
Christ. It’s in response to this call of communion, to mutuality, to
right-relation, and justice-love that we renew once again on this day our own
baptismal covenants – our own commitments of faith as followers of the one we
call Christ.
Now there is an alternative Gospel for today – though
perhaps no easier than the blessings and the woes. It’s the story about a rich,
height-challenged, tax collector in Jericho named Zacchaeus, who climbs a
sycamore tree to get a look at Jesus as he passed through the town. Lorraine
once told me that Zacchaeus went out on a limb for Jesus. I can almost imagine the
tax collector from last week’s lesson being modeled on someone just like
Zacchaeus, and yet in reality he is even worse than last week’s character. He’s
a chief tax collector. He’s the equivalent of a modern-day Mob Boss. Jesus
calls him down from the tree and invites himself to supper at the tax collector’s
house. Zacchaeus is stunned. The people gathered about them grumble that Jesus
is once again hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.
In the end, Zacchaeus has a life-changing experience through
his encounter with Jesus and responds by saying, “Look, half of my possessions,
Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I
will pay back four times as much.”[2] Jesus
answers him by saying, “Today salvation has come to this house.”[3]
Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector – little more than
an extortionist for an occupying power – becomes a model for understanding
clearly what it means for followers of Jesus to live into his sermon on the
blessings and woes. Having been nothing but trouble for his fellow Jews,
Zacchaeus is, one can hope, well on his way to being seen as a trouble-maker for
Jesus. And followers of Jesus have been nothing but trouble ever since.
My friends, throughout the ages, people from the
first apostles to a Saint named Francis; from Thomas Cranmer and Martin Luther
to Sojourner Truth; from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Presiding Bishop Michael
Curry and Pope Francis today; all have been, or are today, called troublemakers
for God’s people. In our quest for communion God calls us to be trouble in this
world – yes, even we sensible Episcopalians!
God calls us to challenge authority – to overturn
tables and raise our voices in new harmonies that challenge the power brokers
and religious elite who claim personal authority from heaven or simply a
mandate from others of privilege. That’s what’s taking place in today’s lesson
from the Good News.
And yet as paradoxical as it may seem in the light of
being called to be troublemakers, God always steers us back to the call to
communion. God’s call is always to right-relationships which honor the dignity
of all human beings and creation – relationships which seek to serve one
another with the love of God made known through Jesus. God’s call is always
toward a love that hungers and thirsts for justice-love, enfolding all God’s
people with the heart and love of God. God’s call is always a call to
mutuality. God’s call is always a call to love with wild abandon – with the
same wild abandon that marks God’s love for us.
Today we renew our baptismal covenant and we are
reminded of the promise that God’s name is written upon our foreheads and in
our hearts, and that we are each called into lives of service and love – called
to become ministers of Christ’s reconciling justice-love for all people. We are
each called to be in community with other faithful people. We are each called
to respect the dignity of every human being. We are each called to love God’s
people with the wild abandon of God’s love. We are each called to go out on a
limb for one another, and to give back to God and God’s people the best and the
first of who we are, and what we have been given by God. Blessed are those who
know themselves to be beloved by God – and blessed are those who make that love
known to all.
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