A Reflection for VIII Pentecost (Proper 10) All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, N.C. July 14, 2013 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
How do you treat a stranger who comes to town?
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem; anybody with any
brains knows that this is an up and coming prophet who is gaining a following.
A prophet is one who sees, a seer, what God is saying to God’s people in their
time and place. That is both good news and bad news. The good news is that some
people who are hearing the good news are overjoyed because it challenges their
view of the universe - that they are
the isolated center of the universe - and they now understand that God is with
them in their daily life. They rejoice
in thanksgiving of knowing God’s love in their lives. The bad news is that some
people who are hearing the good news are threatened because it challenges their
view of the universe - that they are
the isolated center of the universe - and now they are in fear that that they
have missed the point of their lives. As usually happens when people get
defensive, they try to limit the damage by attacking the messenger.
I have spent a lot of years in academic settings - one
undergraduate degree, working on two Masters’ degrees, most of a Doctorate,
being on the faulty of a college, and being a chaplain at a university - and you
can tell when an academic is threatened by a presenter or a visiting lecturer.
It is called the time for questions after the lecture. The question goes
something like this: “Professor, could you expound on the particular point you
were making when you said . . . ?” But that question is not the real question
because the real question is the follow up question, which contains a “gotcha”. In the case of today’s Gospel
lesson, the lawyer asks the softball question about what must he do to have
abundant life. Since he is a lawyer and not a Pharisee, he probably doesn’t
believe in an afterlife as a reward, so “abundant life” for him means having God
pleased with him and God giving him his just reward of material prosperity in
this life. The question is settled by the quoting of the law, and so he now
asks Jesus the “gotcha” question, “But,
who is my neighbor?” He wants to narrow the definition down so he can calm his
anxiety and congratulate himself on being justified by God. The answer he wants
is the literal definition which is “the people who live next door to you, your
family, and close friends and partners.”
Except Jesus tells a story about the enemy, the
stranger, the undocumented alien, the religious heretic, the half breed, all
rolled into one as the neighbor, which we call the Good Samaritan story. The
neighbor is the one who acts in love and how does it change you when your enemy
is acting as your neighbor. How well did the answer go over? Well, the lesson
ends on verse 37 and verse 38 begins with the words, “Now as they went their
way they came to another village . . .” so the implication is that Jesus and
his followers were given the bum’s rush out of town.
How do we treat the person who is different from us?
I think that is one of the themes of the other two lessons as well. In the
Hebrew Testament lesson from Amos, Amos is a visitor from the Southern Kingdom
of Judah, and he is attending a sort of Bi-Centennial event in Bethel, the
Spiritual Center of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Kingdom’s elite are celebrating their
material wealth and prosperity, rejoicing that it is God’s will that some have
prospered. The Kingdom’s prosperity is high but narrow in that it is enjoyed by
only a small portion of elite, the one percent of their time and place, and
built on the exploitation of the poor, the use of a regressive tax system,
corrupt government, and crony courts to cement their advantage. Amos is not a licensed
prophet, a lapdog of the state bought and paid for by the rich. His profession
is a shepherd and a dresser of the sycamore fig fruit, which is food for the
poor, but Amos says that God called him to be a seer, one who sees what God might
be saying to God’s people - in this case, good news for the poor and bad news
for the corrupt. How does the message go
over?
If you read the paper you may have seen how the
government in Raleigh is dealing with people who give that same kind of
message, standing up for the poor against the rich and well connected, on what
is called “Moral Mondays”, as of now over 700 hundred people have been arrested.
Last week my daughter sent me a picture of my ex-wife, her mother, being led away in
plastic handcuffs by two burly policemen on that Moral Monday in Raleigh. They
get arrested for disturbing the peace and since we live in a democracy, they submit to arrest as part of the faith
in civil disobedience. Leonard Pitts wrote in his column last Wednesday: “Civil
disobedience is, almost by definition, an act of faith. Not faith in
government, nor even in law, but faith in vindication. It is an act that says,
I am right, so I refuse to obey this law and will take my medicine until you
see that I am right.”
Amos and Jesus as seers do not say they are right
but how they see that God is right, and for that they were willing to pay the
price in the hope of vindication. Vindication for Jesus is in the resurrection
and for Amos that his words still resonate as he says: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream.” Jesus
lives in 1st century Judea and Amos faces 8th century
Israel and both were not democracies. Amaziah, the Master of Ceremonies at the
Celebration, brings Amos to the attention of the authorities for disturbing the
peace and says to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn
your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for
it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom." Amos is
declared an enemy of the status-quo and we don’t know what really happens to
him. A legend written down seven centuries later says that he was tortured and
killed by Amaziah’s son. That is one way
to treat people who are different from us - label them as outside agitators, enemies,
strangers, undocumented aliens, and religious heretics all rolled into one.
In the letter to the Colossians, the writer is probably
one of Paul’s followers using Paul’s thoughts, when Paul was the stranger, who
was also the seer, the one who sees and proclaims God’s message. How does he approach these strangers? He
prays for them and gives thanks for them. He treats them as neighbors and is
willing to help them and share their load and calls them brothers and sisters
and fellow saints. “Saints” does not mean people who are good but people who
are loved by God.
I remember 523 Sundays ago a stranger walked into
this church called All Saints’. The search committee had vetted him and the vestry
had hired him, but to most people, he was a stranger intent to be a seer, one
who sees and proclaims what God sees and is doing. He wanted to go to work immediately
and assume the role of Rector, proclaiming that the stranger indeed had a place
here, but the vestry had said that he would assume the position at the
beginning of August and not the second Sunday of July. So the stranger was
nervous because he could not dazzle them or have the authority of preaching
from the pulpit or officiating at the altar, and all he had for protection was
the good will of the people, some of whom would probably not agree with all of
his ideas. But the people, who all came to the Outer Banks from somewhere else,
knew something about being a stranger themselves. Like Amos, you have stood up
for the poor and for justice for the outsider. Like the writer of the letter to
the Colossians, you prayed for and gave thanks for the stranger - me and my
family - and treated us neighbors, agreed to disagree, and were willing to help
us and share our loads and call us brother and sister and fellow saints of All
Saints’. Like the Samaritan you have helped bind my wounds, and put me up. I
thank you for that following of the Good News and for being neighbor to me and mine
and so many others.
Come; let us continue to work on how we can see together
what God sees and is doing.
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