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Remembering and Re-envisioning |
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by |
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Megan Rohrer, Director of the Welcome Ministry |
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Preached at Old First Presbyterian Church |
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San Francisco, California |
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June 13, 2004 |
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Old
Testament Later
the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel,
beside the 5 His wife Jezebel came to him and said, "Why
are you so depressed that you will not eat?" 6He said to her, "Because
I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, 'Give me your vineyard for
money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it'; but he
answered, 'I will not give you my vineyard.'" 7His wife Jezebel said to
him, "Do you now govern 15
As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said
to Ahab, ‘Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which
he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.’ 16As
soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard
of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. 17
Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: 18Go down to meet
King Ahab of 20
Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’ He answered, ‘I
have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight
of the LORD, 21I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut
off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel;
New
Testament 36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus* to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’ 40Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ 41‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii,* and the other fifty. 42When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus* said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ 44Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ 48Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ 49But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ 50And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’ Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.
Grace
and Peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The
Bishop, Andrea DeGroot Nesdahl, when she came into office, tried to solve this
problem. She took one person who
always stood up and one person who always sat down, and they went and visited
the first Bishop who had presided over the very first assembly that was held
there. She said, “Okay, there are
people who, during this time in the service, always stand up and those who
always sit down. So tell me, is it
the tradition that people always stand up?”
The Bishop said, “No. That’s
not the tradition. That’s not what
I remember.” The people who always
sat down smiled, and they said, “Well, then it is the tradition that everyone
always sits down at this time!” The
Bishop said, “No, that’s not what I remember!”
She said, “I don’t know what to do.
I came because I wanted help. At
this time there are people who sit up and people who sit down, and they yell at
each other, and no one knows what to do!”
The Bishop said, “Yea! That’s
the tradition!” The Gospel of Luke is much like the traditions of our church and the South Dakota Synod Assembly. While there are not two distinct groups who sometimes stand up and who sometimes sit down, there there are people who believe that the ordering of the world follows structure and that power is given to those in authority or who are men or who have priestly roles. And then there is another group of people who are unseen and unnamed, and they follow a different set of order, a different set of rules. Both of these traditions are in Luke’s gospel and follow with the author into the Acts of the Apostles. A good way to see this is to look at the genealogy stories that begin Luke. Luke is very careful to give a list of the names of the Father and the sons that make up Jesus’ heritage, even though Luke clearly states that this is David’s genealogy, and that Jesus is not a product of David. Luke deviates from the genealogy that is found in the Hebrew testament, because Luke thinks it is important to make sure that Jesus is the first born son in a line of many other first born sons. If you go back to Ruth you will see that it is impossible for the genealogy to go the way Luke wrote it, But it was more important that Jesus be in the line of first born sons than to get the story right or even to follow the story that people had told before. In Luke, there is one group that wanted patriarchy to be the rule. There is another group of people who wanted the unseen and the voiceless to be a major part of this new movement, who thought it was important that women for the first time are able to speak as well as other people who are unseen. This tradition is represented in another genealogy story. In the narrative of Jesus' birth, Jesus is born and the voice of Mary is the one that gets to proclaim the greatness of God, and the voice of Zechariah who works in a priestly position is the one who is silent. This story is one where a woman's voice is able to speak and a man's voice is made silent. This is a complete reversal of the patriarchy that Luke was holding up when he tried so hard to make Jesus in the line of first born sons. Again, when we look at this story of the sinful woman who carries
an alabaster jar, we also see two different lines of thinking: what is
said and what is not said. The
story of the woman with the alabaster jar is probably very familiar to you.
It occurs in all four of the gospel texts.
In every other gospel this story is a story about Jesus’ betrayal.
It ends with people turning Jesus in or Pharisees plotting and trying to
get rid of Jesus. This story ends
with people supporting Jesus and giving all of their money to support Jesus’
ministry. In the other gospel text
this is a story where Jesus’ head is anointed to show that Jesus is the
Messiah, anointed in the way of Kings. This
story doesn’t have the sinful woman anoint Jesus’ head.
In all of the other gospels this is a story about the poor where someone
says, “Don’t anoint Jesus’ head with this oil because it is too expensive,
and there are many poor people, and we can sell it." But that does not occur in
this gospel. Now
let's look at what is not said. It is not said why Simon the Pharisee,
whose entire life’s goal is to learn how to more completely and more
faithfully walk each step in God’s path, why
does Simon the Pharisee not have hospitality towards Jesus?
It’s not in there. It is,
maybe, because in every gospel the disciples are the ones who always get it
wrong. I believe it is because of
the radical inclusivity of the gospel message.
Though it keeps with the order and patriarchy, sometimes, this text also
gives voice to the voiceless. Though
the sinful woman with the alabaster jar never utters a word, she still is seen
as someone who is faithful. Another story that is like
this that is unseen in its absence in the lectionary cycle is Luke 7, Chapter 1
where Jesus cures a centurion slave. The text says that it is a slave that
is the most favored one, which in the time, probably meant it was the
centurion’s gay male lover. Jesus
cures the man without ever seeing the centurion, without ever seeing the gay
male lover and proclaims at the end that not even in Israel has Jesus found such faith. The
people who have the greatest faith, the people who promote their faith in the
world, the strongest, are the ones who are unseen and sometimes not recorded
even in our lectionary. This
radical inclusivity goes along with a radical new economy.
The women who are mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 8, not only follow Jesus in the way that the men did, but they sell all of
their properties and give it to Jesus. You
may remember here the story where Jesus tells the rich man to sell all of his
property and come back, and the rich many says, “I don’t think so” and
doesn’t show up. These women have
chosen to sell their property because the author of Luke and of Acts has a radical economy.
In this economy, everyone, when there is need in the community, sells their property and
lays the money at the feet of the disciples. This can also be seen in Acts,
Chapter 4, Verse 32. "The whole group
of those who believed was of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private
ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common."
Can you imagine what this would be like if we held to this practice in
our church today? Imagine Barry
Clagett (the treasurer) coming to your front door and knocking and saying, “Well, there are
people in need in our congregation, and it is time that you sell your house.”
Then put this money at my feet, and we will distribute it to people who
need it. We
wouldn’t do that here. Instead we
have an offering plate, which we can give freely whatever we think the people of
God need. This radical new economy
is one that can only exist in a society where 98% of the people are poor.
The people who had money were the Romans, and they held everyone else in
slavery. They used their money as
leverage. They forced people to work.
They tried to take away their God and take away their food.
In this economy where 98% of the people were poor, if you had money and
people had no food, it would be ridiculous for you not to share everything that
you had. There was a new type of
hunger being fed, and that was the hunger for the spirit of God.
It was beyond food. It was
beyond money, and it was beyond the understanding of people who followed and
rules and order. As
I came back from South Dakota
I realized that I, too, live in a world of more than one tradition.
I went to South Dakota where people are the most gracious people I could
ever know, where there aren’t people living outdoors, because people could
hate you, but they would let you live inside, where the feeding program has a
two-year long waiting list to volunteer. People
give out of the graciousness of their hearts. There is virtually no
homeless problem, because even if people disagree with your life or your
lifestyle, they will give you a warm plate of food and a warm bed to sleep
in. But, at the synod assembly that I attended, they voted not to allow
gay and lesbian people to become ordained in the Lutheran church or to bless
same-sex unions. They have an openness and
willingness to accept people you disagreed with, but at the same time, an
ability to push people away. So as I got off the plane, and I saw the huge
rainbow flags on Market Street that mark Pride Month in San Francisco, I felt
comforted in a way that I wasn’t in South Dakota.
I come back to a culture that embraces people who are different
socially but at the same time has a program where huge 100 gallon tanks are
used with high-powered hoses to spray the homeless three times a night as they
sleep. We have the same dichotomy of
inclusiveness here. We
live between traditions. We
have all been broken. We have all
been sad. We have all felt like we
weren’t a part of the community. We
have probably all been out in San Francisco and wished there was a bathroom we could go to and haven’t been welcomed.
We have all mourned. We have
all suffered. We have all been
sinners, and we have all been made saints. We
gather together in this church because we want to be in community, because we
want to find hope, and because in coming together we can share in the very real
and very transforming power of God. We
may sit here as broken, partial people, not whole in some sort of way, but in
sitting together, in communing together, and in praying together we become the
one body of Christ. We, living in
our two traditions and in a new economy, find peace here and hope and
love. We remember that like the sinful woman, we are the alabaster jars, the clay pots
molded and formed by God, for God has claimed us and named us in our baptism,
knows us intimately to the number of hairs on the top of our head, and still
believes that we are good. May we
have the courage to believe the same thing.
Amen
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