October 26, 10:30am (Kevin Westling)
So who are we in the Jesus story? We’re not God. We’re not Jesus. We’re not the disciples. We’re not the crowds. We’re not the poor bastards begging for health or food. We’re not the Judeans clamoring for a Liberator. We’re not the Temple clergy snarling at the upstart rabbi. Who are we? We have a silent part with no lines. We are the scenery that shapes the story in every act but is never recognized or observed.
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Sermons @ Trinity
October 11, 2009
“Naming Our Place in the Story”
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
This is one of those stories
where we can see oh so clearly,
Jesus’ class bias.
Not that it is disguised ever,
but there are some stories and events
where it is quite clear that you and I
are not the intended audience of Jesus’ stories –
we are the foil.
Frankly, if I can get on my high horse
and soap box for just a minute,
one of the things that just irritates the heck out of me
about North American Christianity,
is how utterly blinded we are
to our place in the Jesus story.
We are who we are, of course,
all of us accident’s of birth,
but let’s get real about who we are.
When we hear these stories
we imagine that we are the disciples
Jesus is speaking to,
or we identify with the crowd Jesus is preaching to,
or we commiserate with the leper, or blind guy,
or woman getting stoned, or some other poor miscreant coming to Jesus for help.
If we are forced to,
we might get pushed into imagining we are
part of the obnoxious crowd
cheering for Jesus on Palm Sunday
and demanding his head on Good Friday.
We’ve been taught not to identify with Jesus,
and God only makes behind-the-scenes appearances
as a voice or angel or supernatural fireworks that are never explained.
So who are we in the Jesus story?
We’re not God.
We’re not Jesus.
We’re not the disciples.
We’re not the crowds.
We’re not the poor bastards
begging for health or food.
We’re not the Judeans clamoring for a Liberator.
We’re not the Temple clergy snarling at the upstart rabbi.
Who are we?
We have a silent part with no lines.
We are the scenery that shapes the story in every act
but is never recognized or observed.
We are the Romans.
Not Caesar or the Senate,
but the ordinary Roman citizens,
far away from the margins of the empire
but benefiting daily from the resources imported
from far away places,
and from cheap labor
that keeps those resources cheap.
You know what the clever and wealthy Roman citizens did? It was so ingenious.
They sent their agents out to the hinterlands
like Judea and Galilee,
and instructed them to wait for disrupted
growing cycles,
when the land was too wet from floods
or too dry from draught
and the harvests were thin and disappointing.
Peasants who scrapped by on the land
would be in need of loans
to buy seed for the next cycle,
and so the agents of the Roman investors
would get the peasants in debt and then,
at the first default,
take their land.
Then the peasants would have to lease the land back
and give a dedicated portion of the crop yield
to the distant Roman owner.
The peasant would then live forever in debt,
and no matter how good their crop yield for the year,
they would remain a veritable slave
to the distant landlord –
who could also throw them off the land on a whim.
With no land
a peasant would become homeless and destitute.
Most of us here know something about
the burden and vulnerability of debt;
but we probably do not know the choice between
slavery and destitution.
Yet we do not have to travel very far
to meet people,
millions of people,
who live in that relationship to us
through our economy,
and through the owners of capital that fund
the corporations who are our agents,
just like those Roman citizens of old.
You see,
the system continues today
in more sophisticated and even more merciless ways,
and you and I are the beneficiaries of it,
and to the extent we own stock in those companies,
we are investors in that system.
We are the Romans.
In the story of Jesus,
you and I are the Romans
living well in their own country
totally oblivious to the plight of Jesus and his disciples,
and millions of peasants at the margins
of their empire,
and guarded by legions of soldiers
to keep the homeland safe and secure.
Now don’t get me wrong,
we can benefit from listening in on the conversation
between Jesus and his friends,
between Jesus and the other peasants,
and between Jesus and the agents of the empire
who control the environment in which they live.
But we need to recognize that we are outsiders
looking and listening in
on a conversation that does not include us,
or is even directed against us.
Because it is in remembering who we are
that we also hear the wisdom and the hope
that is there for us.
So my little soap box
is built from frustration with hearing
so much Christianity espoused
that doesn’t recognize our part in the story,
and would have us believe that we are the favored
friends and companions of Jesus.
You can see the irony of that presumption.
I could be fooling myself,
but I think that is one of the valuable gifts of Trinity.
We listen to the story
to hear what it has to say to us,
and we try recognize who we are
and acknowledge both our brokenness
and our culpabilities.
Now I know we get defensive sometimes.
We can get angry and hurt and alienated
when challenged with this story from time to time.
I know that when I have to talk about such things,
I feel kind of naked up here –
because I am a Roman too.
But we don’t talk about it in order to feel guilty.
When we talk about Jesus hosting an open table,
we mean that even us Romans are invited.
Even us imperial colonizers,
who live off of the cheap labor of peasants
so that we can have extensive wardrobes,
nice cars, and cheap electronics,
even we are welcome at the table.
The reason it is important for us to remember
who we are in the story,
is that we can get kind of arrogant and self-satisfied
about the openness of this table,
and imagine that we are the hosts
and that it is natural for us to be here,
and isn’t it we wonderful that we let those others in.
Frankly,
that is why I go to El Salvador
and why I encourage others to come with me:
because it is a reminder
that I am a Roman in the story of Jesus,
AND,
that even so, with God all things are possible,
as it says in Mark’s story of the rich young man.
Meaning that even though I am a Roman
and living off the cheap labor of people
at the margins of our empire,
I am not only welcomed to this table
but that we have much to learn
from that ancient peasant rabbi
who told stories at our expense.
We can do the same thing
right here in Buffalo of course,
by forming relationships of mutuality
across class lines –
which is another valuable asset of Trinity
because we are socio-economically diverse.
To name our place at the table,
as we are inviting one another to do,
means not only affirming our right to be here,
and our gratitude for the community,
it also means acknowledging our brokenness
and our culpability for the brokenness of others.
Naming our place at the table,
includes acknowledging who we are.
Now just to make clear,
I am using “Roman” as a metaphor for imperial.
There have been lots of empires of course:
Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Mongolian, Turkmen, Ottoman, Spanish, British, Japanese…
Take your pick.
Our empire is even more economic and cultural
than it is military and geographical,
which makes it different from those others.
So what I am getting at in all of this,
is that to really hear
or really understand the gospel,
we simply must take into account
the difference in perspective between Jesus and us,
and between the first audience and us.
Even those of us who are poor by US standards,
and who are in hawk up to our eyeballs
and leveraged to the max,
we are still enormously wealthy and powerful
as compared to those who live at our margins.
So what we hear from Jesus,
in addition to judgment,
is an acknowledgment of God’s mercy and love,
and a stern reminder to his colleagues
that class warfare
is not an acceptable option.
All are welcome at the table that Jesus hosts,
and he is willing to take considerable heat
from those who resent him for eating with us.
So I am going to leave that right there,
even though it is a perspective and topic
we could talk about for hours.
It is also a good segway into our
Naming Your Place at the Table campaign
we have just initiated.
If you did not receive a letter and brochure this week
or you got it but didn’t read it,
there are additional brochures in the red carpet area.
But I am going to say a word about it now
and we are going to celebrate its inauguration
in the chapel immediately following worship –
and BTW its just food and drink, no formalities.
We have at least four congregations
within our congregation.
We have four worship services:
8:30, 10:30 and 7pm on Sunday
and 7pm on Thursday.
There is some cross-over between them
but not much.
We do not assume that people are all looking for the same things
or that everyone should be part of the same thing.
That is a presumption
of an earlier generation of church which has changed.
What is the same for all four congregations,
is the mission of Trinity
and our effort to create, sustain and host
an inclusive, open and healing community.
So there are people who call Trinity home
that you have never met
and may never meet.
There are people who call Trinity home who do not know anything about The Episcopal Church
and could care less.
There are others who are utterly devoted to
The Episcopal Church and would not consider
worshipping in any other denomination.
There are people for whom Trinity
is the first church they have ventured to enter,
and they have done so very delicately,
one toe at a time
to make sure it is safe.
Likewise, there are people for whom Trinity
is the first church they tried
since being very badly burned in another church,
and they are tip-toeing around also.
Then there are others who are “Lifers” –
people who have grown up going to church,
for whom it is the most natural thing in the world
and don’t even think about it,
it is an assumed part of their life.
There are people who are connected to Trinity
by a social network of friends
that they would be bereft without.
Others are solitary,
not really connected yet and not sure they want to be.
In other words,
of the five-hundred and some people
on our mailing list of active participants,
there are dozens and dozens of reasons and ways
that people participate.
The mission and the community is at the center
and whatever else we do,
from worship to outreach,
is rooted in and shaped by that mission.
But we have struggled to help people that want to,
define their relationship and level of investment
in the community of Trinity.
In an effort to emphasize the openness of this table,
and underscore the radical inclusion we desire,
we have avoided previous membership definitions
that may not work for many people in 2009.
But that avoidance
has left some people hanging
and wondering what it means to be part of this community.
And so, after testing marking some options with those who have participated in Trinity Place seminars,
as well as the feedback we have heard for years,
we developed three “Covenants”
for those who wish to express and define their relationship to this community.
A covenant is a relationship of promise.
In fact, as you may have heard me say at a wedding,
it is the oldest theological idea
in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic tradition.
The idea that God is in relationship to a community
was a civilization-transforming,
world-changing idea
when it appeared in the ancient world.
In radically individualistic North American culture,
where Christianity became malformed
around the idea that it is all about
a personal relationship
with Jesus or God,
for us to try to recover the communal nature
of Christian spirituality
is really walking up stream.
But that is part of our effort,
and it is transformative when it happens.
Christian spirituality rooted in a communal relationship with God,
and expressed through communal aspirations
and action, is a crazy and radical idea these days.
But that is what we are about in so many ways,
and these three covenants we are offering
as a means of expressing our relationship
and personal investment,
is all part of that process.
You do not have to use them,
that is important to say up front.
If it is not an issue for you,
if it is not helpful for you,
if it is a distraction for you,
then ignore it.
If it creates an opportunity for you to engage in a discernment about your own spirituality,
then it will have been worth the effort.
The next three weeks,
regardless of whether or not you use the covenants,
we will be considering and celebrating
our place at the table –
discerning it,
naming it
and celebrating it.
Welcome to this community discernment
that begins with you.
