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January 21, 2007
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Nehemiah 8:5-6, 8-10, 1
Corinthians 12:12-13, 27-31, Luke 4:14-21
“God Embodied: Jesus Is
Jubilee, Justice and Joy!”
Dr. King, like Ezra here
with the people from exile, is a person of “the Book” – the whole Book and
nothing but the Book! A preacher before and after anything else, a local church
pastor all his life. A person grounded in the Word and in words – the power of
words, the giving and receiving of words as the making of covenants. No wonder
he speaks of a time when we will have to “change dictionaries!” Give up such
words as “hunger,” “racial segregation,” “atomic bomb,” and “war” – for they
have outlived all possible usefulness to our world today! The work of all Word-
and word-lovers today is to join Dr. King in creating a new vocabulary, new
words for a new world, a world of “Beloved Community.”
Ezra, Jesus, Paul, Dr. King
– as much as they all love words -- all ask us to take our faith seriously as
“God embodied” in our lives. The people hear Ezra read from the law (for
hours!!) in the public square in their whole bodies. They stand, they lift
their hands, they bow their heads. When they weep, they are told, “Go your way,
eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom
nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our LORD; and do not be grieved,
for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” In effect, go and embody the word of
God, the law and the gospel (the good news) of God. Go and proclaim the
Jubilee, the meeting of justice and joy, life and love, peace and plenty – not
only in word but in deed! For the word is not just a talk to talk but a walk to
walk!
The first time Jesus gets
the chance to preach in the synagogue of his hometown, he chooses words from
Isaiah that equate the coming of Spirit upon him with people in bodies -- good
news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the
oppressed. Jesus has the audacity then to say, as he sits down, not only are
these things proclaimed. In your very presence these folks are moving, these
things are happening – here and now!
Paul says we are like
bodies, from the most specific to the most general, the most private to the most
public, most personal to most political – we are made up of so many parts! The
weaker parts are indispensable to us! The less honorable need greater honor,
the less respectable greater respect! All of our parts are connected: If any
part suffers, all suffer! If any part rejoices, all rejoice!
And Dr. King just makes his life and his work impossible to overlook or
ignore. When such pastoral, priestly, prophetic, political leaders as
Jesus and King are executed, assassinated, it is not accidental, it is not
incidental to who they are. It is not just for being nice persons doing
good things tragically misunderstood. They are understood all too well.
The extent of the change they call for, the threat to structures of power they
represent, are all too well felt and feared.
Dr. King has no illusions
of safety or grandeur. He knows that where we stand, and what we stand for, and
who we stand with – all determine our vision and what we are able to see and who
we are most aware of and most identify with --
I choose to identify with the underprivileged.
I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I
choose to give my life for and with those who find themselves seeing life as a
long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. This is the way I am going. If
it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing,
I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way, because I
heard a voice say, “Do something for others.”
Do something for others.
Do something as big and as useful and as lasting for others as we can. Begin
with, but do not stop with, the good we can do by ourselves – the good we can do
one-to-one or in small groups – the good we often call charity and social
service. Begin with giving a hungry person a fish. Go on to teaching a hungry
person to fish for themselves. But do not stop there. Go on further, and join
with others, to see there are plenty of fish in the pond, and then to make room
for the hungry people to get there! Do charity and social service, yes; be a
nice person, yes; but also do justice and social change; also be a real pain in
somebody’s assets and interests, somebody’s power structure.
What we call the “bottom
line” about our faith is whether or not we believe, and whether or not we act as
if we believe, that Jesus is, as we say, the Messiah? The very specifically and
concretely Jewish Messiah foreseen by the prophets? The cosmically called and
anointed one embodying all the “good news” of what God has planned and provided
for us and for all the world? As Isaiah first proclaimed it and as Jesus says
he now fulfills it?
How can we possibly see
what is happening by us and to us all over the world today -- and yet believe,
and invite or impose believing from others, that this uniquely Promised One of
God has fully arrived and is freely alive and well and at work? Where are the
justice, the joy, the life, the love, the peace, the plenty, the social change
Jesus and so many others have lived and died for? Did Jesus not come to save
us? Yes; among other things, to save us from poverty, captivity, blindness,
oppression – just as Jesus says here.
This is Jesus’ platform for
ministry and mission – his Sermon on the Mount, his State of the Union, his
State of the State – his Magna Carta, his Declaration of Independence, his
Emancipation Proclamation – his original Social Creed adopted by church leaders
nearly 100 years ago, his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, even his “Religious
Alliance in Nevada Statement on Affordable Housing” –
The judicatories comprising RAIN believe that
housing is an essential human right and housing needs impose an obligation both
on individuals and society. The indivisibility of human rights underscores the
understanding that freedom is hollow without food, that justice without jobs is
like a clanging cymbal, and liberty is a sham when people have no place to
live. The right to food and the right to employment are fundamental economic
human rights. Societies become peaceful when the demands of justice are met,
and justice becomes not only a dream but a reality.
Sound a little like Isaiah,
Jesus, King, and so many others? Registration forms for RAIN’s Legislative
Forum next month are in our bulletins. RAIN is looking for someone to volunteer
or to charge reasonably to update and maintain a website. (See
www.rainnv.org. See also
www.mfsaweb.org and
www.socialcreed.org.)
Jesus and King are all about liberation. King inspires so much
“liberation theology” of our time – from peoples of color, indigenous peoples,
formerly colonized peoples -- from women and immigrant and imprisoned and gay
and lesbian peoples -- from and in behalf of children and even animals!
Liberation theology always is embodied in peoples’ real lives. It follows
steps similar to the “Methodist quadrilateral” of scripture, tradition, reason,
experience – calling upon the people together to see, judge, act, and reflect on
what’s happening to and around them.
We Americans in particular
talk a lot about “freedom.” It is something we think we have, even something in
the name of which we may be seen as trying to conquer others! But “Freedom is
very different from liberation,” writes theologian Krister Stendahl.
“Liberation as a term is really meaningful either when you do not have freedom
or when you have just gained it. Freedom is like manna in the wilderness.
It does not keep easily. It spoils quickly. . . . freedom has to be won
again and again.”
Believing and naming Jesus
as “Messiah” for us requires us to face up to our own “unfreedom” that keeps of
from following Jesus, King, and so many others in proclaiming in word and deed
the good news of Jubilee, justice and joy, that God has planned and provided for
all. Dr. King said many times in many ways, freedom is not only for the
oppressed but for the oppressor as well. Unless and until we are all free, none
of us is really free. We just think we are -- and try to impose it on others to
prove that we are! Justice can never mean “just us.”
Brothers and Sisters, once again, this IS the year of God’s favor! The
acceptable year of the Lord! What else did we celebrate so joyfully in
renewal of baptismal and leadership covenants just last Sunday? When Jesus
here quotes Isaiah, he intentionally stops just before Isaiah gets to the words,
“and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus is not about vengeance.
The Jubilee Jesus embodies is all about restoration, not retribution; about
forgiveness, not punishment. It is all about applying one standard for
justice to us all – those who suffer from too many resources, as well as those
who suffer from too few.
The Jubilee year of
Leviticus 25 builds into the ongoing social order occasion to stop and take
stock of just who is being left out and behind. As always, there are so many in
debt – so all the debts are forgiven. So many in prison are there as debtors –
so prisoners and slaves or indentured servants are released to go home to their
families. And all of the families of the entire community are restored to land
and to property -- so that wealthy and poor alike have the chance to start over
again on level ground and even footing with all. The intent of Jubilee justice
and joy is both an equality of access AND a parity of result! We can be so hung
up on what we “earn” or “deserve” to set ourselves apart from those who have
less. Jesus comes not to set us apart but to get us together.
We need both the law and
the gospel of God’s word made flesh in our lives. The law keeps us from doing
any more harm to each other than necessary. The gospel gives us freedom to do
as much good to each other as possible! Both are needed. Dr. King used to say,
in effect, the law cannot make you love me – but the law can sure get your foot
off my neck! We might apply the same thinking to pledges and tithes as we start
the new year (and if you have not yet had the chance to pledge or to tithe,
please let us know!). The law says please try not to go under your pledge so we
can make our budget. The gospel says please feel free to go over your pledge so
we can keep growing our mission! The Trustees and the Church Council (meeting
tomorrow night – all invited – beginning with pot luck at 6:30) face similar
creative tensions of law and gospel -- between keeping our building safe and
secure and risking our assets and interests for Jesus!
Jesus clearly is raised in
respect and reverence for the law. But the role of the prophet, the fantasizer
of new words for new worlds, is not only (in words of George Bernard Shaw) to
see things as they are and ask, why? The prophet also dreams things that
never were and asks, why not? Why not justice and joy, live and love,
peace and plenty – for all?! But how do we lay claim to such an authority
to turn the whole world upside down and inside out -- when everyone listening
and watching us knows us as Mary and Joseph’s kids, as carpenters all our lives,
who never got any formal training or legal credentialing for this work?
Imagine how the white male
straight power structure, both south and north, regarded Dr. King and so many
others – for Dr. King did not create the movement in Montgomery -- the movement
in Montgomery created him! Imagine how ludicrous and dismissable it seemed to
traditional whites to take these black people seriously! To believe these
people talking of freedom -- when the white power structure has known and
controlled them all of their lives! Controlled their legal part of town to live
in, their legal schools to attend, jobs they could legally hold, places they
could legally go. Imagine such a world turned upside down!
What keeps us fearful of seeing the liberating spirit in our community?
Among people we may barely see or hear? Even among our own church members?
In our own families? In our own selves? If we believe Jesus to be
the Messiah for us, then we are called to our own liberations! Our own
settings free from much of our cautious and careful conditioning to be the kind,
lawful, respectable, safe and secure people most of us mostly are!
Paul says about life in the
body – whether the biggest possible bodies politic – of world, of nation, of
state – all the way down to bodies of community, congregation, family, and
personal bodies – beware our weaker, less honorable and less respectable parts!
Are we leaving them out, forgetting them, repressing them and denying them?
What parts of ourselves, of our bodies, and of the bodies of whom we are part,
are we embarrassed by or ashamed of? How are we tempted to try to change the
color of our skin, the character of our hair – so we can “fit in” better? How
are we tempted to abandon the language and tradition of our native countries and
cultures? How do we tend to keep proverbial silence of women and children?
Hide in proverbial closets of sexual minorities?
Sisters and brothers, we
can come out this morning! Come out, come out, whoever, wherever we are! We
can be fully seen! We can be freely heard! Jesus says all is fulfilled! Our
Jubilee, our liberation, our restoration to wholeness -- all have come to pass
in this one we say we believe is “Messiah.” God has done for us all that we
ever need done! No more excuses, no more delays! We are the acceptable
people. This is the acceptable year -- the year of God’s favor upon us.
Remember what our mother Mary says when God’s favor is announced upon her? In
Miriam Therese Winter’s liberated version (Hymn No. 198) –
My soul gives glory to my God. My heart pours
out its praise.
God lifted up my lowliness in many marvelous
ways.
My God has done great things for me: yes, holy
is his name.
All people will declare me blessed, and
blessings they shall claim.
From age to age, to all who fear, such mercy
love imparts,
dispensing justice far and near, dismissing
selfish hearts.
Love casts the mighty from their thrones,
promotes the insecure,
leaves hungry spirits satisfied, the rich seem
suddenly poor.
Praise God, whose loving covenant supports those
in distress,
Remembering past promises with present
faithfulness.
And, amen!
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