Mary Sings -- a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent

Rev. Teri Peterson

Gourock St. John’s

Mary Sings

Luke 1.46-56 NRSV

20 December 2020, NL3-16b, Advent 4 (blessings of an impossible Christmas)

Today we pick up right where we left off last week, with Mary visiting her relative Elizabeth. They're both pregnant and Elizabeth has blessed Mary for her trust in God's word to her. I'm reading from the gospel according to Luke, chapter 1, beginning at verse 46, from the New Revised Standard Version.

And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord, 

  and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, 

for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.

   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

   and holy is his name. 

His mercy is for those who fear him

   from generation to generation. 

He has shown strength with his arm;

   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

   and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things,

   and sent the rich away empty. 

He has helped his servant Israel,

   in remembrance of his mercy, 

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.

This week I read a startling news article. Did you know that 2020 is the year that human-made things literally outweighed nature? This is the year that all the stuff we have created — our built environment of concrete and metal and glass, machinery, waste, everything we own — all of that now weighs more than all the entire biomass of the earth. Plastic alone weighs more than all the animals on land and sea! And the vast majority of that mass has been created since the second World War.

Reading about this definitely gave me pause when I was shopping for Christmas gifts. How can we celebrate the Christ who turns everything upside down and at the same time not add to this heavy footprint on God’s beloved creation?

I also had Mary’s song at the front of my mind as I was reading about the study titled “poverty linked to higher risk of Covid death” showing that those living in poorer health board areas of Scotland were more likely to have severe cases of Covid requiring intensive care, and because fewer critical care beds were available in those areas, people in economically deprived areas are more likely to die. We’ve seen the effects of that in Inverclyde through this pandemic, and the statistics nationwide bear out that more poor and disadvantaged people are dying—both from Covid and from other things going untreated as the health service tries to cope.

And again, the news this week is full of the epidemic of drug misuse in Scotland, and here in Inverclyde a rising rate of drug use and deaths. Of course we know that drugs and deprivation go hand in hand, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. 

Into the middle of this reality, where hope seems impossible, Mary sings.

Like all of us, she begins from her own personal experience. Though she was not a person of power or status or wealth, just a poor teenager in an out-of-the-way town in an occupied land, God noticed her. God loved her. God called her. And she sang of her gratitude, her awe and wonder, her praise. This thing that God had done — called her to be a prophet and the mother of the Messiah — would not be easy, yet she said that God had done great things for her! She may have been scared, as anyone in her position would be, but her confidence in God’s goodness was enough to raise her voice.

And then, halfway through, Mary recognises that her own personal experience, her own little life that has been unremarkable, is also part of something bigger. Something that God has been doing for a long time, and will continue to do through her and her son, and on into the future: upend the systems of this world and make them look more like the kingdom of God.

From generation to generation, God works with power and mercy, through the lowliest and the marginalised, to fulfil the promise that changes everything: scatters the proud, brings down the powerful, and sends the rich away empty, while lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things. 

This is the Word that becomes flesh in Jesus. This is the promise that Mary is bearing in her body, the fruit of her faithfulness. This is who God is and what God does — from the earliest days of scripture to the very end of the book and beyond.

I wonder how many of us would join Mary in praising God for these things … given that we are far more likely to be the proud, powerful, and rich in this scenario? We are, globally speaking, at the top of this system that God is turning upside down. We are the ones whose lifestyles have created a situation where our stuff weighs down God’s creation. We are the ones who stand at arms length from the realities of deprivation and wring our hands and make a donation here and there and pray for something to change.

We should be careful what we pray for, because the song Mary sings is definitely about change. It’s about an upending of a system that is, frankly, immoral and against the values of God’s kingdom. Which is not to say that those of us who benefit from the system are bad, but rather that the entire system is. We can't even claim that it’s broken, because the reality is that it’s working exactly as it’s been designed — to privilege the few at the expense of the many, to lift up some on the backs of others. And that system is exactly what God in the flesh will challenge, insisting on valuing every person as a beloved child of God, deserving of enough to eat and inclusion in the community and compassionate care…and that challenge is what will get him killed by the powers that do not want to be scattered or sent away empty. But the Mighty One who looks with favour on Mary will not be thwarted. Not this time, not ever. This is a promise that cannot be broken, and God will find a way to fulfil it, even if it means breaking the power of death to do it.

If this is what God is doing in Christ, then we who are called the Body of Christ had better be ready to be a part of it. If we celebrate Christmas and then nothing is different afterwards, we haven’t celebrated the Messiah that Mary is singing about today. Her words echo through the generations calling us to the kind of impossible Christmas that changes the world. What does the Word of God Incarnate have to say to those who live in such dire poverty that drugs seem the only comfort? Or to those who get richer while the poor get poorer? What does the community of those who love Mary’s son have to say to those who care more about their ability to shelter money in tax havens than about the lack of critical care beds in our hospital? How does the magnificat sound to the earth that groans under the weight of our economy’s need for constant consumption?

I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing Christmas was just about celebrating a birth and then getting back to normal life, just like any other birthday party. But what God is doing in Christ is saving the earth and all that is in it, even if that means saving us from ourselves. This is an act of love so monumental that it turns everything upside down. Who are we to wish that God would…what, love us a little less so we could go on as before? It’s impossible for God to do anything but love, and to fulfil promises, and this is the promise that makes Mary rejoice and that hopefully brings us the same kind of joyful commitment to God’s call that we, too, will be willing to bear God’s word in our bodies—and into the world that is desperate for the good news to be more than just pretty words or songs or cards or presents.

May it be so. Amen.

Hard truth—a sermon on Luke 4

Rev. Teri Peterson

Gourock St. John’s

Hard Truth

Luke 4.16-30

7 July 2019, spiritual gifts 4 (prophecy and justice)

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.

Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: “Physician, heal yourself!” And you will tell me, “Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.”’

‘Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.’

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

~~~~~~~~~~~

You might recall that a few months ago, at our annual meeting, I asked you all to talk about what scripture feels like it might be our core story—what in the great story of God seems to speak most particularly to us as a church right now, and might shape the way we live out our faith as a community. Well, this story of Jesus visiting his hometown is what I sometimes call Jesus’ mission statement—when he reads his own core story, and then explains what that is going to mean for his life and ministry.

It’s fitting that Jesus is in his hometown when he offers his mission statement to the public for the first time. He is surrounded by the places and people he knows best. The buildings feel like home, and he knows his way around the streets and countryside, all the back alleys and hidden doorways, whose roof ladders are creaky and who always stays up too late and who is the village busybody. Probably everyone in the synagogue is sitting in the same place they’ve been sitting for his whole life. His neighbours, aunts and uncles, cousins, and old school friends would all be there. On the surface, it should be a friendly crowd, full of people who want him to succeed and will be rooting for him. If ever there was a moment to take a risk in public speaking, this was it, because these are the people whose love and pride will overcome any faults.

So he unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he read out a portion that contains many of the same themes as the song his mother sang when she was pregnant with him: “he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” 

The prophet describes God’s justice as involving three layers: an immediate practical needs layer, lifting up the lowly and healing those with ailments; a liberation from all kinds of oppression so that all people can flourish together; and a change to the socio-economic system as a whole. That last bit is less obvious to us in English, but the “year of the Lord’s favour” is a reference to the Old Testament command for jubilee, a year of economic re-set, when debts are wiped out, slaves are set free, and land reverts to its original owners so that no one is without the means to provide for themselves and their families. It’s a command to level the playing field, so that no one has more than anyone else, and all can start from a clean slate.

All three of these aspects of justice are part of the Spirit’s working gift. This isn’t just charity, meeting needs without changing systems. And it isn’t just big picture, forgetting that there are real people who are living in poverty and oppression right now who need help. It’s a combination of working in tangible and political ways for the flourishing of all people, trying to change the world for the better, so that it looks more like the kingdom of God, here and now.

After reading the passage, Jesus sat down, signalling he had become the teacher, and he said “today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Which doesn’t sound like much, but is in some ways the perfect example of the gift of prophecy. Prophecy isn’t about fortune telling or seeing the future, it is about seeing as God sees and proclaiming that truth. When Jesus uttered these words, he was saying that God’s blessing is right here, right now. 

And this hometown crowd ate it up. They loved him, and whispered to each other with pride...and maybe with some prideful hope, too, that because he was one of them, his glory would also reflect on them. He was a credit to his parents and his village...surely that meant now they would get the benefits of being the ones who raised him? They’d heard about what he’d done in other places. Since they were his people, then he would do even more here, and their star would rise with his. 

But Jesus wasn’t done preaching yet. 

He reminded them that the prophets of old crossed boundaries, saving foreigners rather than their own people. Elijah and Elisha were surrounded by people who thought their special connection should get them priority prophet service, but it was the people on the margins, who spoke the wrong languages, had the wrong skin colour, worshipped the wrong gods, and even fought for the wrong army who ended up being healed.

With the gift of prophecy, Jesus proclaimed God’s truth: that blessing has never been confined to just one people, and special consideration doesn’t depend on where you live or who you know. Instead, as he had just read, God’s concern is for the poor, the outcast, the oppressed, the marginalised. That’s where he’ll be, not serving the selfish ambition of those who believe the accidents of their birth make them better than others, more worthy of healing or feeding or safety.

Then, as now, this was not a popular message.

It’s hard to understand how two thousand years after Jesus preached this message, showing us who he was and who he called us to be, we still live in a time when our leaders lament that there are people who live in this country whose first language is something other than English, and claim that those people are the root of whatever problems we might have, or when the news is filled with stories of people hurling racist or homophobic abuse at other human beings who happen to be in the same space, or when we have people profiting off the increasing polarisation of society, or when there are boats of desperate people being turned away from the possibility of safety, or when charities are being enlisted to help deport people who can’t get a foothold in our unfair economy.

Too often, fear of the other combines with selfish superiority to create a toxic atmosphere, a hostile environment...the kind where we would rather throw the Son of God off a cliff than admit that God doesn’t love us more just because of our nationality...or our religion, or our language, or our class, or who we know, or because we were in the right place at the right time. 

Jesus proclaimed the truth that day in Nazareth: God’s blessing is indeed here...and it is unfettered by our rules. God’s justice is for all, because it is the natural outworking of love, and God’s love is for all. 

Sometimes that will be a hard message for those who want to maintain the status quo, or for those who see an opportunity to use their connection to God as a way to get ahead. It will always be a hard message for those who want to be able to live more than comfortably at the expense of others and the environment. But ultimately, God’s justice sets us all free from all kinds of oppression—whether that is freedom from slavery, from prison, from broken relationships, or from self-centred individualism or personal possessions and wealth or inflated self-importance or closed minds. And that freedom makes it possible for us to join in God’s kingdom life, here and now, to be a part of the blessing that is already happening, the fulfilment of God’s vision of abundant life for all.

It feels a little bit like cheating to use Jesus as an example of spiritual gifts, because of course as God incarnate, he was One with the Spirit! It also feels a little bit dangerous, because I don’t want to give anyone the excuse of saying “well, that’s not my gift” as a way to get out of growing in Christlikeness. We’re meant to follow Jesus, meaning that we do our best to do what he did, to become more like him all the time—even knowing we can never be him, in the sense of being God and having every spiritual gift imaginable, shouldn’t stop us from putting our faith into action in some of these ways. Those who have the gifts of justice or prophecy will be the ones who guide us in that endeavour, revealing God’s perspective on our current reality and showing us how to look past the superficial issues to work toward the deeper change that God desires. 

Desmond Tutu wrote that “the sheer act of making the truth public is a form of justice.” That kind of truth-telling is something all of us, whether we have the gifts of justice or prophecy, are capable of doing, in one way or another. All we require is the willingness to see what God is constantly showing us—the belovedness of this world and all its people—and the courage to say what is true: that even now, God’s blessing is here, and is for us...all of us.

May it be so. Amen.

hearing the stories

I have had a number of conversations lately that really drive home how different the historical and cultural context in which I now life is from my previous life experience.

Today I visited a woman who talked for an hour about the 21 boys she used to play football (soccer) with as a child, and how many of them didn't come home...and about her husband and the nightmares he had...and about a cousin who was killed during an air raid on his training camp...and about the many American soldiers she met when her mother took them in during their leave. She spoke of how she was just a teenager then, only 13 when the war broke out, and she naively thought there could never be another one like it.

I have sat in the living rooms of women who were evacuated to the countryside when they were children, and one whose family took in child evacuees. And I have sat by the bedsides of women who never married because a generation of men was lost. And I have sat around the table with women whose husbands never spoke of what they'd seen, or who felt an immense sense of unearned luck because all their brothers came home when so many didn't.

A lot of my time these days is spent with women in their 80s and 90s. These are women who lived through World War II--who bore the brunt of the reality of war both in terms of the cost at home (family lost, rationing, women in the workforce in new ways, etc) and in terms of the long-term cost of lives forever changed.

The stories are incredible--of bombs bursting in the garden, of rationing that extended well after the war was over because of the immense national cost of rebuilding, of large gaps between siblings because one parent was away at war, of sweethearts lost and found, of letters exchanged and news reports anxiously read.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are people who feel abject horror at what happened in Charlottesville last weekend. They cannot fathom that Nazis marched through the streets, or that white supremacy is an acceptable ideology.

This is not to say there is no racism in Scotland, of course. But it is to say that people who lived through the Nazis the first time, who sacrificed far more than most of us who are from North America experienced (including those who gave significantly to the war effort, once we got over enough of our own white nationalism to enter the war), cannot understand how on earth it is possible that Nazism rises again, unchecked, or even encouraged by those in power.

Today's conversation included the casual observation that the woman's husband, at age 19, had been issued a revolver with only a couple rounds of ammunition. It's purpose was to use on himself, should his plane come down behind enemy lines.

Imagine being 19 years old and given those instructions, then put into a plane with rockets, a pop gun, and a map, and told to go up just 250 feet because any higher would make their bombs less accurate.

Now imagine being that person, or their family, and seeing the images from Charlottesville.

One of many things I am enjoying about living here is the sense of freedom to speak truth even when it might be politically unpopular. I don't know if that will always be the case, but in this moment at least, no one bats an eye when I say white supremacy and Nazism is antithetical to the gospel. I have been in churches where that would be a controversial statement...and that is, frankly, an abomination. There should be no room for Nazi sympathizing. If there are people who disagree, then what they need to hear is not something that they can construe to agree with them--they need to hear the hard good news that brings them to confession and repentance. Period.

If they won't listen to Jesus, maybe they'll listen to the stories of these amazing women I've sat with over the past several weeks, and be reminded that hate does not win. It cannot win. And it cannot be allowed to even try.


***Yes, I'm aware that there's plenty of racism and xenophobia to go around. See: colonialism, Brexit, Grenfell, etc. And yet many of these women have spoken to me about those things as well, fully aware and concerned that people don't remember what they fought for. And also, honestly, racism is different here. Not better or worse necessarily, just different. Because history is different. The context of the World Wars, and of slavery, is different across the ocean....

fox in the henhouse--a sermon on Luke 13

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

fox in the henhouse

Luke 13.1-9, 31-35

12 March 2017, NL3-27, Lent 2 (are you all in?)

This morning’s scripture reading is from Luke chapter 13, and can be found on page ___ of your pew Bible if you wish to follow along. Jesus has been teaching his disciples and the crowds who follow them throughout the countryside and towns. He has taught them directly about prayer, and he has spoken in parables about many things. He told them to let their light shine, and to look carefully at the circumstances and times they are living in for evidence of God’s work. Remember that each gospel writer gives us a different perspective on Jesus’s life and teaching—Matthew looks at Jesus from behind, through the lens of the whole Old Testament; Mark looks at Jesus from right next to him, as if they are holding hands walking together; John looks at Jesus from above, with a cosmic perspective; and Luke looks at Jesus from just in front, looking back, almost like a movie maker looking through the camera, trying to capture faces and details along with the background and context. He wrote his gospel around 50 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, so he has more information about what is to come in the future, and sometimes we see that in his wide-angle lens, as in today’s story.

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering 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.’

 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’

 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’

Today Jesus jumps right in with the age-old question of why bad things happen…or, as the main character in the musical The Book of Mormon asks God, “more to the point, why do you let bad things happen to me?” The assumption in the ancient world—and, if we’re honest, often today as well—is that tragedy is a result of sin. We intellectually understand and protest this view when it is given voice by people who, for instance, insist that Hurricane Katrina is punishment for allowing gay people to exist and live regular lives with the same rights as anybody else, or that the earthquake in Haiti is punishment for voodoo practiced during the centuries-old slave uprising that led to Haiti’s independence. We know those are ridiculous statements…and yet the same idea rears its head when we ask “why do bad things happen to good people?” Because underneath that question is some assumption that there are people who deserve bad things…we just don’t know any of them personally, of course, because “good people” usually means us and people we know and love.

In the case of today’s issue of the Jerusalem gossip chain, we have people who were going about everyday lives when a building collapsed—perhaps it was bad engineering, perhaps there was an earthquake, perhaps it was terrorism, perhaps it was just old and the infrastructure was compromised. Whatever the case, the tower fell and 18 people were killed. Were they worse offenders than everyone else living and doing business in Jerusalem? What did they do to deserve such tragedy striking?

Or the Galileans—of particular interest to Jesus and his disciples, as many of them are Galilean, and therefore often looked down upon as low-class, uneducated, uncouth—who had been on pilgrimage, went to the Temple to offer sacrifices, and were killed by the very government that was supposed to be keeping the peace… They were good, faithful people, going to church…were they particularly awful sinners, to be targeted by their own government?

When we put it so starkly, it seems ridiculous. And Jesus makes sure we are aware that the answer is always no: NO, there is no star chart of the worse and better sins, nothing that we can do that would cause God to rain punishment in the form of tornadoes or cancer or car accidents or gunshots. We all sin, we all fall short of God’s glory and call. Period. Every person, and every group or institution needs to repent—to turn around, away from sin and toward God’s way of love and justice. And God doesn’t use tragedy to try to force us to come back. Bad things happen, yes. We all sin, yes. Those are not related statements, though. Trying to figure out why God is punishing us with illness or heartbreak or disaster, or how we can guarantee our security against those things, will lead nowhere, because that’s not how God works.

Instead, Jesus tells us a story. A fig tree has been growing in the garden. It’s in the right place, it has the right name and qualifications, but it isn’t producing fruit. It is taking up space, using resources, claiming to be a fig tree…and it is in danger of being cut down. But the master gardener intervenes, promising to spend more time nurturing the tree. Digging around the roots, fertilizing, watering, pruning, caring for it, putting in the effort to help it grow into its purpose. During this year of the Lord’s favor, the year when God is making the kingdom come right here in the presence of Jesus, the fig tree gets a second chance.

This is how God works. Not by promising safety or security, but by investing time and energy, pushing us to look at our lives and the fruit we bear for the kingdom. We might get dirty, and sometimes the pruning is painful, and it might be harder work than we thought we signed up for, but ultimately the purpose of the tree in God’s garden is to bear fruit. Our purpose in God’s kingdom is to bear fruit…which will mean digging up the things we’ve long buried, getting our hands in the manure that is so gross and so life-giving when we use it for the right reasons, cutting off the branches that are siphoning away energy, turning our attention away from comparing ourselves to what other plants in the garden are doing and focusing on what the master gardener is doing, so turn from simply existing and trying to protect what little we have to bearing fruit that provides for all who encounter us.

It’s time-consuming work. Focusing on what God is doing, and doing what we are called to do, doesn’t leave any space or energy for figuring out how to best build a fence to keep everyone else off our little plot of land, or for passing judgment on people experiencing hardship, or for maintaining systems that ensure that water and nutrients only get into our roots and no one else’s. The spiritual work of looking honestly at ourselves and allowing God to dig and prune and feed is never about fixing other people, only about growing so that we can better serve other people. Bearing fruit doesn’t mean that the tree eats better—it means that the tree feeds better, and we don’t get to control who enjoys the fruit we bear in the kingdom of God. Our task is to figure out how to bear the fruit God calls us to give, and to learn to give it freely and generously, just as we have received freely and generously from others and from Christ the gardener who intercedes for us so faithfully.

It is in the midst of this that we jump to the end of the chapter and hear Jesus say of Herod, who wishes to see him, “Go tell that fox for me…I have work to do, and I’m doing it.” Herod has already killed John the Baptizer, and he’s been wanting to question Jesus and see if he is really the miracle-worker everyone says. But Jesus is busy with life-giving work, and has no time for death-dealing interviews. So he uses this beautiful, motherly, vulnerable metaphor: “long have I desired to gather you together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…but you were not willing.” Even the mother hen can’t force all the chicks to snuggle up together, to move as one in the direction she wants them to go. 

So he warns them instead: we have set a fox to guard the henhouse, and we shouldn’t be surprised when that starts to go terribly wrong. It seems confusing how we could get here, but if we just look back at the chapter, it’s all there. We’ve been duped into believing that some people deserve bad things, while others deserve good things, and we’re always in the latter category ourselves. We’ve blindly participated in systems that feed us while starving others, and we’ve cared more about protecting ourselves than about bearing fruit. We’ve learned to blame God and sin rather than to dig down and uncover our own complicity and rather than pruning off the branches that we hang on to even though they hinder our growth.

When our image of God is of someone whose favor you have to earn and whose wrath you have to avoid, whose circle is closed, and who only calls and uses and speaks through people who meet a human-made set of criteria, it’s a short leap to believing that we deserve what we have and therefore must protect it at all cost, especially from those who are different. It’s an even shorter leap to believing people who don’t-have must be undeserving, must have made bad choices or brought it on themselves or be dangerous. All of this sets the stage for the fox, who is cunning enough to manipulate our fear and our desire for self-advancement. He then takes advantage of us all running every which way except under the wings of the mother hen. The fox counts on us judging each other rather than having compassion, and the fox’s power depends on us turning a blind eye to our own fruitless trees so we can stay focused on what we’re missing rather than what we have and what responsibility we bear.

Jesus, in contrast, spreads wide his mother-hen wings, knowing they don’t offer the kind of protection that the fox claims to promise—he literally uses the chicken, image of weakness and cowardice, to face down the fox. He calls us to gather round, stick together, and move where he moves. He calls us to unpopular self-examination, knowing it is the foundation for bearing fruit…and that is the purpose of residents of God’s garden: to produce fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, generosity, goodness, and self-control…fruit that feeds others, changes the world, and lasts well beyond anything the fox can do.

May it be so. Amen.

She Persisted--a sermon

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

She Persisted

Luke 7.36-50

19 February 2017, NL3-24, Epiphany 7 (Listen Up!)

Last week we heard about Jesus’ answer to those who wondered if he was the One they had been waiting for: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. He ended the conversation by reminding them that when John the Baptizer fasted and separated himself from society, they thought he was demon-possessed, and now Jesus feasts and they call him a glutton who socializes with sinners—their expectations obscured their ability to hear his message of grace. Today’s reading, in Luke chapter 7, beginning at verse 36, picks up at the end of that conversation. It can be found on page ___ of your pew Bible if you wish to follow along.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’ Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

Picture this scene…a house with big front windows, shutters open, and no glass in them of course. The front door stands open to a large courtyard, and the first doorway goes into a front room, with its wall of open windows and a long, low table surrounded by pillows and low benches. This is the room where it happens—where the powerful master of the house entertains his important guests, so everyone can see how well they live and how scrupulous they are about keeping the religious laws, and often even hear what they discuss.

The room was full that day—mainly men, important men. Pharisees and scribes, perhaps rabbis, or members of the royal household, or of the Sanhedrin, the council of elders. They reclined towards the table on the cushions, leaning on their left arms, with their feet out behind them, away from the table. There may have been women there—wives, perhaps, seated on stools or benches, or slaves coming and going with dishes and food and jugs of wine.

It is not a quiet dinner party as we think of them today, secluded and enclosed in flickering candlelight. There’s bustling in the room, and outside, as people walk by, or stand outside and talk about what they are seeing and hearing, or even talk through the windows at the people inside. There’s movement, and probably more color than we usually imagine in the ancient near east, and side conversations, and food coming and going.

Then a woman entered the house—it was easy to do—and stood behind Jesus as he reclined at the table. At first, probably no one gave her a much thought, as people came and went, except perhaps to avoid her touching them. But she stayed, rooted to her spot, weeping so much that she was able to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears, and dry them with her hair—her unbound, uncovered, loose, long hair. Soon a different scent filled the air, overpowering the smell of roasted fish and fresh bread and new wine with its pungent sweetness, reminiscent both of love and of death.

By now she had everyone’s attention.

How could Jesus not know? What she was? In addition to everyone squirming away to be sure she didn’t accidentally touch them, they were squirming inside too, suspicious that this man was not who he claimed to be, since he seemed to not understand about this creature that was ruining everything, right there at the dinner table.

No one said a word but Jesus. His story was straightforward, and even those startled at having their inner thoughts addressed out loud could understand his point about those being forgiven much showing great love. But then he asked a question that likely made them all wonder again about his sanity, his intelligence, and his call as a prophet:

Do you see this woman?

She has spent many minutes creating a spectacle of herself, making a scene, making everyone uncomfortable…of course they see her.

Or do they?

Simon had said to himself that a real prophet would know what she was—a sinner.

Do you see this woman?

Or do you see a sinner?

a spectacle?

an intrusion?

Do you see this woman?

Or do you see “the homeless” and “the needy”?

an addict?

black, and dangerous?

Hispanic, and illegal?

Asian, and smart?

hijab and long sleeves?

loose hair and a low cut top?

disabled?

gay?

divorced?

abused?

Do you see this woman?

or do you see a teenage girl sold into sex slavery by her father, desperate for cash?

Estimates are that up to half of teen girls in Roman occupied Palestine had been sold by their families, and fathers got the best price if they allowed them to be used as prostitutes.

Do you see a young woman whose body is for the pleasure of the occupying army,

a young woman whose lifespan is likely less than five years?

do you see poverty, desperation, abandonment, betrayal, fear?

or an embodiment of her own bad choices and natural consequences?

Then, as now, she knew perfectly well that they did not see her. And yet, she persisted.

She knew the rules. She’d heard them talking about her. She knew what people said, and what they believed, and what they expected. She knew the life she was living, and its danger, and its harsh reality so easily hidden behind the label “sinner.”

And yet, she persisted.

And Jesus persisted, too. He began a litany with Simon:

*you gave me no water for my feet—you neglected basic hospitality, failing to keep the law to welcome the stranger.

but she has bathed my feet with her tears.

*you gave me no kiss—you held the peace of our house back from me, failing to love your neighbor as yourself.

but she has not stopped kissing my feet.

*you gave me no oil for my head—you judged with human eyes, failing to learn from the lessons of our ancestors the kings and the prophets.

but she has anointed my feet with her most precious possession.

Unrelentingly, Jesus held up a mirror to Simon, essentially asking him: do you see yourself? Is there anyone who is without sin? He knows the answer—Simon sees neither himself nor the woman clearly. He sees only through his lens of assumptions, that he is better, because of his position, his gender, his religion, his education, his family. He thinks “I wonder if Jesus knows what she is”… and the answer is that Jesus is the only one in the room who knows her, who sees her for who she is—and who knows and sees Simon for who he is, too. Jesus sees through the lens of God’s love, which gives him insight and clarity that reveals the image of God, and the grace of God, underneath all those layers we get hung up on.

Then Jesus speaks the reality that is behind all those masks and mirrors and labels…the reality that many do not wish to hear, even as we desire it with all our hearts:

She has been forgiven, and therefore she shows great love.

The grace of God has been at work in her, she has experienced God’s goodness, and it overflows in gratitude, in service, in the gift of her precious ointment, in her persistence in pursuing Jesus in the face of overwhelming odds.

At no point does Jesus tell her to repent, or to go and sin no more. He knows perfectly well that would be impossible, and also that the main sin in her life is not hers, but that of the men who sell and buy and use her. He simply states what is already true: grace is something God does, not something we earn or bestow. Grace is entirely God’s action, and we see its evidence in her response of generosity. She sought him out not because she needed to be forgiven, but because she was forgiven and needed to give thanks, to worship, to offer herself. She sought him out not to beg for mercy, but to pour out her own spirit at the feet of the One who could see her. She persisted, because her experience of grace meant she had no choice but to challenge the systems that kept her in her place.

Jesus’ question to Simon is the same he asks of us: Do we see this woman? And do we see ourselves? Will we persist as she did, pushing boundaries that obstruct justice and grace, or will we add more layers until we are trapped in our own echo chamber?

Jesus’ answer is also the same to us: I see you. God sees you, and has made you well. God’s grace is for you, and will never give up…now go, and in the same measure that you have been loved, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

May it be so. Amen.

Healing Word--a sermon on Luke 7

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

healing word

Luke 7.1-17

5 February 2017, NL 3-22, Epiphany 5 (Listen Up!)

Today’s reading begins with a phrase that could be translated “After all Jesus’ words had filled the people’s ears…” Those words that Jesus had been speaking just before today’s reading were the sermon on the plain, or what in Matthew is called the sermon on the mount. Jesus said things like “blessed are the poor, hungry, and mourning”…and then he also said “woe to you who are rich, full, and laughing now.” He taught that we are to love our enemies, to avoid judging others by our own imperfect human standards, and to do the things he says, not only let them go in one ear and out the other. These are the things he had been talking about when we pick up the story in Luke, chapter 7, which can be found on page ___ of your pew Bible if you wish to follow along.

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, ‘He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.’ And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, ‘Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.’ When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favorably on his people!’ This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

I have to confess that I have had some pretty serious problems with this scripture reading, all week long. A centurion, head of a battalion of the Roman army which is occupying and oppressing the Jewish people and many others all around the Mediterranean basin, owns another person. He probably owns several people, actually—slavery was common in the ancient world, as people either sold themselves or family members to pay a debt, or as people were captured during the Empire’s expansion. The person enslaved by this centurion is so sick he is near death...but his labor is valuable, so the centurion/slave owner asks for help. The local elders tell Jesus that the centurion/slave owner is worthy of having his enslaved worker restored to health, because he built the synagogue for them—in other words, they owe him a favor. The centurion/slave owner tells Jesus that he is used to being obeyed, so he expects Jesus is too, what with his even higher authority. Jesus pronounces this great faith, and the enslaved person is returned to good health (i.e., to productive worker status).

I think this is a troubling story in lots of ways. The implicit acceptance of slavery is the most obvious issue. Then there’s also the part where everyone from the elders to the friends to Jesus himself say that the centurion—the officer of the occupying army, the owner of slaves—is so good and generous and faithful that of course he deserves to have the slave healed so he can get back to unpaid work. And also the fact that the reasoning given by the Jewish elders for why Jesus should help a Roman centurion is because he gave the money to build the synagogue…they were in his debt, and he called that favor in when he was in danger of losing a slave in the most unprofitable of ways.

And Jesus went. And he said nothing about the enslaved person at all. The man was healed, of course, by Jesus’ word that is so powerful he can work miracles from afar. But he was still in slavery—he was healed, but not freed.

Then Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd continue on their journey, only to encounter a funeral procession. Where most of us might pull over out of respect, or lower our eyes until the people have passed, Jesus sees this widow whose son has died and he has compassion for her. Compassion isn’t just sympathy, or even empathy—it’s a stomach-twisting suffering with the other person that is incomplete without action…and Jesus acts when he sees this grieving woman. A widow was vulnerable, and a widow with no male children was even more so. She was dependent on either her father’s family or on the charity of her neighbors, and was often separated from society due to her lack of status and lack of resources. With a word, Jesus heals the man and returns him to his mother—and by extension returns her to stability and community.

One man was nearly dead, and the other was dead…and with a word, Jesus heals both of them. But he doesn’t only do it for them—he also heals them for the sake of others in their lives. For the sake of the mother. For the sake of the centurion. Or perhaps in both cases, for the sake of the whole community.

The centurion is a well-off man, in charge of a segment of the world’s most powerful army. He asks for a miracle, knowing he deserves one, either because of his station or because of what he has done for the town. The people around him believe the same—he has done good things, he has earned a healing or two. By all our worldly standards, he is a prime candidate for receiving good things from God: he has power, money and status, and the whole town owes him a favor.

The widow, meanwhile, is not just underprivileged or at-risk, she is worthless. She asks for nothing in the midst of her mourning. It’s not even clear whether or not she sees Jesus at all, or whether she is just walking beside her son’s body, weeping and wailing, immersed in her own world of pain. By all our worldly standards, she deserves nothing, because she is nothing.

We could hardly ask for a wider difference between two recipients of Jesus’ attention. There is a chasm between their circumstances and stations in life that seems impossible to cross. Yet his voice reaches each of them, exactly where they are. The living word speaks not only to those who ask, not only to those who are worthy, but also to those who are overlooked or even trampled down. And the whole community listens in.

What do they hear?

That God has compassion for the lowly.

That God cares about people in distress, especially those we might otherwise overlook.

That God does not work according to our human rules, customs, social groups, or religious traditions.

That God’s power is not defined or confined by what we consider to be “deserving.”

And when they had heard—when their ears were full of all the things Jesus said and did—the word about him spread throughout the country.

They kept the word—the powerful, compassionate, loving word that brings healing—moving and living throughout the land. They didn’t let the word stop with them. Jesus said the strong foundation for the life of faith requires putting his teaching into action, requires feeling the suffering and the joy of our neighbors and then doing something about it.

Both of these miracle stories offer us the opportunity to join that community that heard the voice that could raise the dead and the dying, and then shared the word. Because, you see, both miracles are unfinished. The enslaved man is healed, but not freed. The widow and her son are reunited, but the woman is not freed. The work of healing our community and culture is still ours to do. The bodies are restored, but the wholeness that comes with justice is still a ways off. As long as some are not free, none of us are free. When Paul wrote that we should weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice, he wasn’t only giving instructions about empathy and prayer, he was reminding us that our wholeness is bound up in one another. When one part of the body suffers, all suffer together with it. Each healing story gives us the first step, and calls us to join the transformation of the world into God’s kingdom where no one is left out, no one is just a prop in someone else’s story, no one has to worry about who will take care of them. Jesus showed us his way: no barriers, no hierarchy of deserving, no judgment of circumstance. He spoke the word…now comes the hard part where we try to live as if the word is true. When all of us who make up this community hear and obey Christ’s healing word, the truth will set us free—all of us, not just some.

May it be so. Amen.