Where We Stand
A Homily on Genesis 45:1-5 and Matthew 15:10-28
by Griff Martin
For the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (and the Twenty Second of Covid Worship)
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
August 16, 2020
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
We prefer a very sanitized Jesus, one who tells a good parable, keeps his arms open wide, performs healings and offers ‘spiritual but not religious’ sayings which warm our heart. We don’t prefer the angry Jesus, the Jesus who speaks directly at us and to us, who confronts us where we don’t want to be confronted, who flips over our sacred tables, who tells us we are not even close to getting it.
Literally, it’s why if you look at the official reading for today in terms of the lectionary, which is the church-wide reading schedule (think of it as your church syllabus so that we are all on the same page), today’s Gospel reading is from Matthew 15 and the first part of the story, verses 10-20 are a parenthetical reference, an option, and then we focus on the latter part, which is still hard but it involves Jesus healing a woman’s child who is demon possessed.
We skip the tough, finger-pointing Jesus for the healing Jesus. But we do that at a price, and today we need the Jesus we often skip over.
Jesus begins with one of his koans, “Listen, and take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up.” Take some time and ponder that; if it does what it is supposed to do, it’s going to upset you, keep reading the story.
The disciples come to Jesus, "the religious leaders are very upset over what you have said." To which Jesus of course says, “What offensive thing have I said? How do I tame my language, what do I need to do to get in with the religious powers of the day? How can I make this easier to hear and to handle? How do I water this down?” No. Jesus shrugs and says, “Of course...”
He continues, “Of course this would upset them… because what I am talking about is what we have been talking about all along since the 10 Commands, the wrongs we do to one another, the ways we misuse and abuse one another, the ways we fail to take care of one another, the ways we break community, the ways we fail to care for the least of these… I am talking about those things and not just if you follow cleanliness codes and kosher meals.”
What Jesus says is, "I am not making this any easier, my Kingdom is about equality and justice and care and I want people to treat one another in love and kindness and equality and I won’t ever change that. The Gospel is always about that."
Which means our sermons need to be about that, as well. Which means that yes, we are still talking about the issue of race, the problems of whiteness and what do we do. One of you emailed me recently, “We are still talking about race? I think we got it. Move on Pastor.”
I am going to spare you the horrible preacher joke about preaching the same sermon over and over with that punchline, “I will keep preaching it until you all start living it.” First, that is not my theology of preaching… I do not preach from any place of authority or judgement like that, my task is not to judge how you all are living or to guilt trip you; the only heart I judge is mine. I prepare and preach like this: getting in touch with my heart and trying to live in community and connection to your heart so I know what we all need to hear, largely based on what I need to hear. I prepare for sermons with our community in my heart, holding the Bible in one hand and the news of the world in the other and both ears listening to the Spirit.
And what I am hearing this morning is Jesus saying to the church today… “Oh you guys, you have gotten this one so wrong so long, focusing on the religious rules and not the matters of the day… what really matters and is really important are not the things you have been concentrating on for a long time now… There are issues of justice and equality and people are dying. Start there.”
Start with truth we don’t want to hear… Truths like: The list of the ten richest Americans is 100% white. White median wealth is about $444,500 which is almost $300,000 more than upper class Latinx and black families. The Black poverty rate is nearly triple the white poverty rate.
Or the fact that Black infants die at twice the mortality rate as white infants. And the statistics for mothers are even more alarming, Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than white mothers.
Or the fact that unarmed Black bodies are twice as likely to be killed by authorities than unarmed white bodies. Black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans. That Black bodies make up 40% of the prison system.
We are not doing well. In recent history, we have seen hate crimes motivated by race and ethnicity rise almost 20%. And yet numerous studies show that Blacks will clearly state there are racial issues in our country that are directly impacting their lives and well beings, whereas white people seem blind to this truth (although this has changed in the last year, we are waking up).
Or we could just say the names: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland.
Or we could read the countless stories that are coming out every day about racism in our country, what our Black siblings experience on a daily basis that we have never experienced or even worse, noticed.
You hear that echo again… It’s Jesus: “Church, you have gotten this one so wrong so long… what really matters and is really important are not the things you have been concentrating on for a long time now… There are issues of justice and equality and people are dying. Start there.”
You might also be hearing the echo of one of the greatest baptists in history, Dr. Martin Luther King: “First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
Which should perk our ears up to Jesus in Revelation -- I would rather you be hot or cold but lukewarm I want to spit you out.
There are issues of justice and equality and people are dying. Start here.
Start with naming the problem and our place in the problem. The two texts in front of us today, the first is the conclusion of our Genesis series and the conclusion of Joseph’s story, where he stands in front of the brothers who sold him into slavery… and the second, the Gospel text which concludes with Jesus healing a woman’s child who is demon possessed.
You have probably heard many sermons on those texts… for Joseph you have heard sermons about forgiveness, the importance of family, being put in the right place at the right time. And for Gospel, you have heard sermons about embracing all people, looking past mistakes. Which means you might not have really heard the text.
In an interview with Vanity Fair this month, the brilliant actress Viola Davis reflects on her role in The Help and states, “There’s no one who’s not entertained by The Help. But there is a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself and my people because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to tell the whole truth.” By not telling the whole truth, she says The Help was another film, "created in the filter and cesspool of systemic racism.”
By not telling the whole truth, we only add to the problem… which means that maybe we need to not hear the sermons we have always heard on these texts and we need to locate ourselves in a different place in these texts.
For instance, what could we learn if we located ourselves with the brothers who sold our brother into slavery… Or maybe we are the disciples standing at the edge of the crowd serving as gatekeepers for who can and can’t get close to Jesus.
The story looks a lot different from those places. Hurts a lot more.
But healing begins with pain.
And by starting in a different place we notice different things… With the brothers, we notice that once the truth is there -- we are the one’s who sold our sibling into slavery -- once they acknowledge that, well things change… they listen more than they talk (maybe their silence allows their hearts to fully process… silence gives us that gift), they let someone else lead for a change (again, silence…. A new perspective is always a gift and will reveal truth), they go get their father and fess up to their crimes and work to bring things back together again (focusing on the truth: love means doing whatever it takes to bring about reconciliation and wholeness), they lose the ego, they do whatever it takes for reconciliation to occur, they weep over their mistakes, they embrace.
Or notice what the disciples do, they stop urging Jesus on who is in and who is out (why do we still argue about this), they stop trying to keep people away from Jesus (why would we ever think Jesus needs a gatekeeper, in particular since he said he was the gate), they remember their role is not gatekeeper on who belongs and who doesn’t, they see that even those (maybe, especially those) whom they tried to hold back belong at the feet of Jesus. That the only place around Jesus is in his arms which embrace all (how different would religion be if we could let this and this alone be our Gospel... the only place we belong is in the arms of Jesus who embraces all…)
These are the actions we need to be taking, these are the actions your Antiracism and Unity Committee is looking at… how do we listen more than we talk, how do we let someone else lead, how do we confess our failures and silence and work towards unity, how do we lose our ego, weep over our mistakes, embrace one another, how do we do whatever it takes to bring reconciliation, how do we get out of the way so everyone can sit at the equal footing at the ground of Jesus, the ground of being?
There are issues of justice and equality and people are dying. Start there.
Or as Rev. angel Kyodo williams ask us, “If you have ever wondered how you would have shown up in the face of the challenge put up before white Americans when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, upending the social order, now is the time to find out.”
Again, it’s that Jesus that we don’t always want to meet on Sunday mornings: “I am not making this any easier, my Kingdom is about equality and justice and care and I want people to treat one another in love and kindness and equality and I won’t ever change that. The Gospel is always about that.”
May we be about that, too. Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Joseph Reunited With His Brothers IV by Barbara Hines
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