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