Our Several Callings

Matthew 10:24-39

June 25, 2017

“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

 

This is one of those texts we tend to avoid – a sword instead of peace; turning against one’s family, taking up the cross and losing one’s life. None of that sounds remotely pleasant, and, honestly, it all sounds like something I’d just rather ignore and avoid – especially on a nice summer weekend!

But there it is, right there in the text. Moreover, it’s a dangerous text as well as a difficult one. To ignore a passage such as this one is to cede authority over it to others, and this one has been used and abused, for example, by cult leaders to manipulate followers into leaving families and by defenders of state violence to sanction such violence in the name of Jesus.

So, with a certain amount of fear and trembling, let’s take a crack at it.

Let’s begin by naming what disturbs us about it. Let me read it again. … What bothers you or disturbs you and gives you pause in these words?

I want to focus on a single word for a bit: sword. When, in verse 34, Jesus says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” the word translated as bring also commonly meant toss, or cast aside not caring where it lands. Elsewhere in Matthew the author uses the same word to describe casting out demons. So a rather stilted literal translation might have Jesus “casting peace” and “tossing the sword.”

So, while sword is certainly a correct translation, the context suggests that we think a bit more broadly about just what Jesus is tossing around here. One probably wouldn’t deploy a sword so casually in battle, but one might bring a sharp implement to cut things into two pieces, to cleave them.

Cleave is one of those wonderfully rich words that means both one thing and its opposite. We can cleave things, as in cut them, or we can cleave to things, as in cling to them. The cleaving sword is an incredibly complex image, perhaps even a metaphor for faith in action. I think Jesus is bringing a metaphor to a sword fight here.

Acts of faith tend to cut both ways, as it were. To step out in real, risky faith, following the call of Jesus, tends to involve turning points, markings in time that separate us from what came before and, to some degree, cut us off from the past even as we are bound to a new future.

Martin Luther King often told the story of sitting alone in the kitchen of his home in Montgomery, Alabama, in the midst of the bus boycott that sparked the Civil Rights Movement and thrust King into national prominence as its vocal leader. He had been threatened, his home bombed, and the young movement was facing one of its many early crises. He was all of 26 years old at the time. He sat alone, late at night, worried and wanting to step away from leadership. In that moment, he felt the presence of the Divine promising him, simply, that he would not be alone.

It was enough for the moment, and King determined that he would follow the call that pressed in on him leaving behind the life he thought he was going to lead: parish pastor for a few years then into the academy to teach. He dreamed of life as a professor. The sword of faith cut him off from that dream, and opened him to another, larger dream that he would cleave to for the rest of his life, and articulate for the nation and the world just a few years later.

King lived through a time when the nation was cleaved apart precisely over the nature of the dream he gave voice to. We are living through the midst of another season of deep and dramatic division in our national life.

What needs to be left behind? To what shall we cleave as we live into the future?

I don’t pretend to know the answers that only history will provide, but I can read some of the signs that seem increasingly clear to me.

Massive and growing income inequality gives the lie to the promise of shared prosperity. The bitter  legacy of white supremacy gives the lie to the promise of equality before the law. The rapidly changing global climate gives the lie even to the promise that we are securing anything – even the planet – to our posterity.

If we are to respond faithfully to the demands of the present time we’ll need some clarity around calling. Each of us has several callings in our lives – to be faithful partners, to be parents, to be children and siblings, to be employees or students, to be citizens. Each of these roles demands something different of us, and each invites us to live up to certain standards.

Our common faith, however, calls us to a singular standard: the heart of the gospel calls us to love God with all of heart, mind, and spirit, and to love neighbor as self. Who is the neighbor? In scripture it’s pretty clear that the neighbor is the one before us, including, especially, the poor one, the outcast one, the widow and the orphan. The neighbor is the one with pre-existing conditions. The neighbor is the one whose nursing care if paid for by Medicaid. The neighbor is the one whose debilitating condition will cost several lifetimes of income to treat.

We are called to love neighbor as self, and at the very least this means wanting for neighbor what we desire for self. This week, let’s start with decent and fair health care coverage.

The central and fundamental calling of our faith may well come into conflict with our other callings. To which will we cleave?

Some of us will face this conflict in the days to come. Some may, in exceptional circumstances, confront difficult choices with respect to deep relationships. And I want to pause right here and suggest that in the text at hand Jesus was speaking of exceptional familial circumstances in which the “master of the house” is demonic. Most households – most families – are not demonic, but if familial life is demonic may the sword of faith cleave you from it. And through that same faith, may you cleave to the family of choice that is the community of faith.

Some of us will have to choose between the demands of faith and the responsibilities of work. This one, I know, is more common. I also know it’s a choice that can be made and survived. Indeed, when I faced it years ago, and called a mentor to seek advice, he responded, “David, if we are doing our jobs there will be scars.”

Such scars come from the cleaving of the sword Jesus tossed.

My prayer is that we all learn to bear such scars, for the times confronting us demand much. Our faith does not promise that we will not be scarred along the way. It merely promises that we do not bear these burdens alone.

The present moment feels confusing and often like some thick undergrowth of twisted vines impossible to penetrate. May the sword of faith cleave a way through it such that we can cut a way toward a future otherwise. We make the way by walking it, and the deepest promise of our faith is the simple assurance that we do not walk alone. May we feel the Spirit’s presence for the living of these days. Amen.

All Flesh? You Must Be Kidding

Numbers 11:24-30

June 4, 2017

Last Wednesday that Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn insisting that “the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

Such a belief about international relations rests on a similar conviction about personal relations and the motivations of individuals, and from such convictions grow controlling ideas about scarcity and personal choices driven by fear that the other – every other – is always out to get you.

That afternoon I was sitting in a coffee shop reading. I know, quelle surprise, right? In any case, a young woman walked up and asked if the table next to me was available. I wasn’t paying attention to the folks who had, apparently, left and left behind their dishes. The young woman wanted to know if they’d left for good.

I honestly had no idea, but from the looks of the table I actually thought they were probably coming back. My first impulse was simply to say that and return to my reading.

But I was reading a spiritual memoir whose introduction concludes with these words: “Faith, for me, isn’t an argument, a catechism, a philosophical ‘proof.’ It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act.”[1]

So, I gestured at the other half of the round café table I was occupying and said, “I don’t know, but you’re welcome to share this table if you like.” Now, I’d love to tell you that we then had this long, earth-shaking, world-changing conversation that will lead to peace on earth and the end of slow internet connections, but actually she set her things down, went to the restroom, and, when she came back she rightly concluded that the other folks were gone for good and so she took that table. We never exchanged more than those few words and gestures.

But it struck me in that incredibly simple and utterly insignificant exchange that we were actually dancing quite close to the heart of the gospel there in the coffee shop. Sara Miles, whose memoir I was reading, writes that in embracing Christianity, she “discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored.” (1)

I was certainly not welcoming the despised and the outcast in the coffee shop last week. On the other hand, as a woman of color the person I invited to share my table had no doubt be taught, at some level, to be suspicious of men of pallor, and, as a white man I have been taught to be suspicious of people of color.

Gestures of hospitality that create tables of welcome are the heart of the gospel. It doesn’t take a great saint, a bishop, an ordained officer of the church to articulate the heart of the gospel and to practice the deepest aspects of the faith. The heart of the gospel is for all flesh.

In fact, that simple message is the heart of the reading from Numbers, as well as the heart of the story of Pentecost. The gift of the spirit is not reserved for the few, the proud. The gift of the spirit is for every child of God. The call of God goes out to all flesh.

As the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian church, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things,” he went on, “there is no law.” And, he could have added, no limit. These gifts are neither scarce not controlled by a few, but, rather, abundant and available to all.

The charge to the church implied in the story of Pentecost is simple: go into all the world and share this good news: God’s love is for all the world, and the gifts of the spirit are for everyone. Go out and use them! Use them all the time because you can’t use them up!

Use them whether you are young or old, part of the in crowd or an outsider, one of us or one of them, a leader or a follower. Use them on behalf of those who most need love, those who most need to experience a little joy, those who live far from peace, those who do not experience much of the goodness of creation.

Use the gifts of the spirit to create and sustain communities in which the light of love shines through every darkness, through which the waters of justice roll to parch every thirst, and across which the wind of the spirit blows to bring life-giving breath to every constricted soul.

That’s all beautiful and metaphorical and there’s nothing wrong with such poetry. But, as a dear member of the first congregation I served was fond of saying, “Ensign, you’re too subtle.” So let me be clear:

The Spirit of God is blowing through the church these days calling us to be bold in specific ways:

It’s June – Pride month in many communities – so let’s be clear: God is calling us to stand on the side of love and continue to be a witness for justice and equality for our GLBTQ friends. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen domestically under the present administration, so we’ll live with eyes wide open at home particularly, these days, with respect to policies in schools. Beyond our borders, we know that sexual minorities are under threat and repression in many nations. The Spirit of God is calling us to stand in solidarity, and to press our public officials to take action for justice wherever GLBTQ persons are being persecuted and oppressed. And a friendly tweet from the president’s daughter won’t cut it.

It’s June – summer in our part of the world, and we’ll be reminded more than once in the coming months, I suspect, that it’s hot outside. Our president just declared that against the global scientific consensus and common commitment to confront the climate crisis, the United States is going to withdraw from the Paris Accord. The Spirit of God is calling us to care for creation and to pursue political and economic policies that shift us away from dependence upon fossil fuels. There are plenty of actions each of us can take – I posted one list of such actions on the church’s Facebook page last week. But it takes more than that; it takes a serious politics that takes serious issues seriously. Remember that when election day rolls around again.

It’s June, the garden is growing, and we are harvesting fresh food for hungry neighbors. Meanwhile, our nation’s leaders are considering budget proposals that will drastically cut funding for basic food support programs. The Spirit of God is calling us to proclaim clearly that access to healthy food and to clean water is a fundamental and universal human right not a privilege reserved for the affluent. If we make such a proclamation, we are called to live into it by championing policies that move beyond the aspirational to the implementable. Our acts of charity – in the garden, at AFAC, with A-SPAN – are good and right and appropriate, but we must act also for food justice.

If we are a people who gather at a “table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored,” then that table is where we begin to put flesh on these dreams of a future otherwise, these aspirations to live in a world that is more than an endless cycle of often violent competition for ever-dwindling resources.

Mr. McMasters and Mr. Cohn have chosen a particular lens through which to view the world. Never forget the simple truth that the way you look at something determines what you see. Their lens is not the only lens available, nor, it seems to me, is it the clearest one.

As for me, I shall choose the lens of faith, and when I look through it I see a table with a place for everyone born. Let us gather at that table and celebrate that faith. Amen.

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[1] Take This Bread, 2