Where The Grace Is

Sunday’s Sermon was again eye opening. I have been given permission to share Pastor Ralph Howe’s sermon with you. I hope you glean from it what I did and what he intended for his message.

Readings: Amos 7:7:17; Ps 82; Colossians 1:1-14 and Gospel Reading Luke 10:25-37.

The Power in Neighborly Love – Rev. Ralph Howe III

Last week, Pastor Sue helped us see how the Gospel – the very core message of Jesus – calls us to prophetic living that demonstrates love and justice. For far too long, we have assumed that Jesus was just a nice guy who was the Son of God and decided to take the rap for our sins. In fact, Jesus calls us, as do the ancient prophets to a new way of living.

When Jesus was asked “Who is my neighbor” by a legal expert, he told the story of a Jewish man who is robbed, beaten and left for dead. The proper people of society, do nothing to help him, but a Samaritan, who was a despised ethnic person, did what common decency, compassion, and goodwill required – even went many steps beyond. This Samaritan was the good neighbor who loved another as himself- the second part of the great commandment.

From this story we usually get the moral lesson that we should do good to others and leave it at that – a save aphorism. In doing so, we skirt the radical character of Jesus’ teaching and example. This story was deeply political, as it crossed heavily guarded boundaries between Jews and Samaritans, embracing the perceived vile and rejected Samaritan as a “neighbor,” or even a friend of God and “our people.”

Jesus does this same boundary crossing a lot in the Gospels, although we do not catch it, because we are not in tune with the 1st Century Jewish boundaries. If we look closely, there is scarcely a story where Jesus is not crossing a boundary: touching the dead and the sick and lepers; allowing women to converse with him and even touch him; eating with known sinners; having conversation with foreigners and helping them; disrupting commerce in the Temple; telling people to place a relationship with him above parents, care of the dead, business obligations, and the whole business of one, to name a few. These may seem innocuous to us, but they were radial political acts that made him dangerous enough to be killed for it. Let this sink in!

Jesus was not killed for being a nice mild-mannered guy. He was killed because he enacted a radical political, spiritual and moral challenge to the status quo. He did so out of fidelity to the call of God.

If we listened carefully to what God told Amos, one of his many reluctant prophets, we might realize that just because God is now understood to be a God who embodies love, there is still judgment – or natural consequences for those who do not LIVE a life of justice and mercy and kindness for the poor, the widowed, the aliens, creation and all people.

As modern Christians, we tend to forget divine judgment because it has been used to oppress people in so many ways. It is usually talked about by those who want to punish anyone who crosses social boundaries of the culture at the time. I don’t think that is what God was about in dealing with the people in the time of Amos. No, God set a plumb line to see what was straight, so that people who chose to not follow the path of good ness and love would recognize that they were building their fates of destruction.

I suspect that God’s message was simply that if a people chose not to accept the grace of God, and to practice vile and evil against the poor, outcast, foreigners and destitute, there would be fitting consequences. And this is a not so pretty political reality for the Jews. who were defeated and taken away into captivity for 70 years of servitude.

One of the traditional titles for Jesus is “prophet,” one who speaks the truth about what is real; one who names what is really going on in society. Like all true prophets, it was not something that made him popular with the big wigs, while the poor and oppressed heard him loud and clear, and rejoiced.

Each one of us is also called to this dangerous precipice. We are called to name injustice, cruelty, hatred, theft and grift, disobedience of the rules of basic human decency. This can get us into what John Lewis called “good trouble.”

Who among us would not confront a person beating a dog, or stealing from an elderly person? Who among us would not stand up to violence against a weaker person? These acts are the stuff of prophetic living and they are risky.

Now I understand that not all of us would have the strength to jump into a fight but we can all take actions to call upon others to help bring justice. This is what it means to be a decent human being.

Now let us turn to St Paul’s message to the Colossian church. He tells them that they have strong faith and love and hope, because the good news that Jesus did and said was bearing fruit in their lives. He also pointed to the Holy Spirit as the means by which they could do what seemed impossible, giving them wisdom, understanding, strength and joy, even as they endured troubles. The promise of our faith is not just a warm fuzzy feeling, but the gifts of God necessary to step up to live prophetically in the world so that all might see who God is and how God loves.

This brings people to take actions that are political, but they are not done to further a political party or leader. They are done to fulfill our callings to serve God in our daily living.

As Fr Richard Rohr says: “We must not be discouraged when people say, you are making the message political and not spiritual! The prophets speak about misuse of power, but always from and inspired basis, and at a higher level of morality. Think of Martin Luther King Jr. calling for civil rights; Catherine of Siena’s advocacy for reform of the clergy and peacemaking; Sojourner Truth’s activism for the abolition of slavery and civil rights for African Americans and women; Cesar Chavez’s work in organizing farmworkers. Their critiques and promises were stated in concrete historical terms, but with a clear spiritual meaning and motivation. Their messages were received gladly by the powerless and then exploited or rejected by prideful profiteers and narrow nationalists.”

What is more, our ideas of who God is and what God wants of us can change – and that is never fun. As theologian Bruce Epperly has asked in the context of the Jonah story: “What would you do if God asked you to challenge everything you though was true? What if God told you to turn your back on the religious values you learned in church and the Bible?…. Worse yet, what if God changed God’s mind to expand the circle of grace to include our nation’s worst enemies….? Moreover, what if the God you believed in… changed the rules of the faith, threw out the spiritual guidebook that shaped your life, and commanded you to adopt a different, and unprecedented, approach to life? Would you follow God’s new directions, stay put, or run away from this rule-changing God?…”

God does not change, but the circumstances and our understanding do, and God asks us to grow in response to those changes, and see how God is calling us into new outlooks and actions, because Christ is always taking down the walls that divide us from one another, opening us up to the humanity of the other and inviting us to see with new eyes, so that we can act prophetically in the work of this day.

So my friends, I am not here to tell you to vote one way or another, nor to become part of a party. I am here to encourage you to allow the Holy Spirit to work within your spirit to lead you in all wisdom and justice to take a stand like Jesus did, in the midst of our current crisis. Hold tight to the love of God, the wisdom of the Spirit, and the grace that is given to you. Look at the world with prophetic eyes to see what is really happening, and then let the Spirit guide you to take actions, break old boundaries, and give yourself for true love, compassion, justice and neighborliness,, as Jesus would commend. Amen.