How Now?

How Now?

June 5, 2016

Luke 7:11-17; Psalm 146

The lectionary today cuts off the text from Luke at a crucial and unfortunate point. Immediately following the healing story we just read, we get this central passage concerning a brief exchange between John the Baptist and Jesus. Listen, again, for a word from God:

Luke 7:18-50

The disciples of John reported all these things to him. So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’” Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 

The blind have new sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead have new life, the poor experience good news! That is how you know God is present. That’s how you know that Jesus is in the house. That is the gospel. That is amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

And yet … and yet we live in a world where the blind stumble and fall, the poor remain destitute, the dead remain dead. Where is the good news in that? How do we proclaim life in the midst of death? How do we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

Capital Pride is underway in metro DC, and we’ll join the celebration as part of the annual Pride Parade next Saturday afternoon. Isn’t proclaiming life in the midst of death precisely the point of such celebrations as Pride?

If it doesn’t exactly feel that way late on a summer afternoon walking through the craziness of DuPont Circle, let memory take you back to a Pride parade in, say, San Francisco, in, say, 1986 or thereabouts, at the height of the AIDS epidemic and the depths of the larger society’s indifference to it.

Most of us are familiar with the history: Pride commemorations grew out of a memory of resistance. In particular, Pride celebrations mark the resistance of queer folks to the police raids at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village on the last weekend of June in 1969.

When I find it hard to imagine such a time of – and sometimes, thank God, I really do – I simply think of our friends who are raising a transgender daughter in rural Virginia. I hope and pray – and work – for the best for that child, but I also know that almost 2/3 of GLBTQ teens feel unsafe at school, that they are twice as likely as their straight peers to attempt suicide, and that one in four transgender teens will attempt suicide.

It’s really not that hard, in light of such statistics, to recall a time when gay men were routinely harassed by police because they went to a dance club. When I can’t imagine such a time, I read the Twitter feed from Black Lives Matter, and remember that I do, in fact, live in just such a time.

In one sense it’s an odd thing to remember and celebrate such a time – police oppression, threats of humiliation, job loss. Even insisting that the celebration lifts up the resistance to such horrors rather than the horrors themselves still recalls the horrors. How do we proclaim pride in the midst of humiliation? How do we say, “black lives matter” when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary? How do we proclaim life in the midst of death?

We do this, in part, of course, by way of saying, “never again.” We remember resistance and proclaim that we will continue to resist. That is, in part, why we commemorate. We also remember in gratitude to honor the work and sacrifices of those who have gone before us, and we remember, also, in order to be inspired by their examples. We celebrate and remember resistance, and, in doing so, we place ourselves in the same tradition, commit ourselves to continue the work, and renew our spirits for the journey ahead of us.

That’s why we remember. It’s certainly important to understand why we do these things, but that’s not the question that pressed in on me as I wrestled with the text and our context over recent days. I’m still struggling with the “how” questions. How do we proclaim pride in the midst of humiliation? How do we proclaim life in the midst of death?

There are clues in our texts this morning, including a well-known one from 1 Kings that we didn’t read. In that passage, the prophet Elijah is on the run fearing for his life after pronouncing a prophetic word sharply critical of the powers that be. God instructs him to go to Sidon where a widow would care for him.

Jesus, in his first public sermon in Luke’s gospel, recalls that moment in Elijah’s story, and the people of Nazareth take him out to throw him off a nearby cliff.

Why? Sidon was the wrong side of the tracks, the home of infidels, and other outsiders. A widow in Sidon would have been among the least of the least and the last one upon whom God would grant favor – if, that is, God grants favor in the same way that the powers that be grant favors.

Imagine, in our time, suggesting that our national leaders turn for advice on immigration or economic policy to a professor at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, That’s not quite right: imagine consulting with a street person in Mexico City for advice on immigration or economic policy.  That’s the widow of Sidon.

We only grasp this reality – and allow ourselves to be grasped by this story – if we read it from the perspective of the widow. My friend and colleague Aric Clark, writing in a recent issue of Presbyterians Today, suggests a “rule of the last” for our reading of scripture. Augustine famously offered the rule of love – any reading that does not enhance our love of God and of one another is a misreading. Aric suggests, similarly, that reading from any perspective other than that of the marginalized will miss the point.

The key to the Elijah story, then, is not the named prophet, but, rather, the unnamed widow.

Elijah follows God’s instructions, even though the widow is none too thrilled to have him show up asking for food when she has only enough for herself and her child to survive the day. Yet she trusts the prophetic word and offers costly hospitality to a stranger. She doesn’t do so knowing in advance that things will work out for her and her child. She does so simply living in response to the call of God embodied in the prophet’s presence. Living faithfully involves giving extravagantly, and trusting the outcomes to God.

I think that’s how we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, how we celebrate pride in the midst of humiliations, how we insist that black lives matter, how we proclaim life in the midst of death.

Such proclamation does not deny the reality of suffering and death, but it does situate us clearly on the side of those who suffer, those who are humiliated, those who are sick, imprisoned, poor, oppressed, marginalized.

Perhaps it helps to recall the traditional words of the communion liturgy: “so long as we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.”

Faithful living does not deny suffering and death, but neither does it embrace them. We remember, we call back to mind the horror and humiliation of Jesus, to affirm his humanity and our own. Yet we recall at the same time, in sharing bread and cup, Jesus’ “fierce commitment to heal and overcome the evils that afflict humanity,” and thus reaffirm, also, our own commitment “to confront and alleviate all human suffering.” (From Donald Senior’s Why the Cross?)

The table is central to our common life, because this is how we proclaim life in the midst of death, this is how we sing the Lord’s song, this is how we resist.

Come to the table of life, the table of remembrance and resistance, come to the table of grace. Amen.