Holy Grumbling Part 1

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
World Communion and Peacemaking Sunday
October 2, 2010
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Luke 15:1-10
“Holy Grumbling Part 1”

A few weeks ago a handful of our high school students saw the new movie, Devil. I received many questions following that movie as to the nature of evil and the devil. As a result we spent the next two weeks of our Wednesday evening bible study looking at what the bible had to say. I looked up every reference to the words Satan, Demon, and Devil in the bible and all of them put together did not equal a whole page. I then took a very large concordance which has all the words used in the bible, Old and New Testament, and dropped it on the table. Next I took that sheet of paper and dropped it on the table. My point was that the amount of time the bible spends on the devil, demons, or Satan is far less than many movies would lead you to believe.
Unlike movies which show the followers of Jesus battling with the followers of Satan, the bible does not show such things. In other words, it is not as exciting as most movies and televisions specials might lead you to believe. Throughout his ministry Jesus does cast out demons and is tempted by the devil. However, the greatest struggles Jesus encounters are from the religious community. The greatest causes of Jesus frustration and even anger are reserved for the religiously observant and the disciples. In fact, a majority of the struggles Jesus faces are over who is welcome and who is pure enough to be part of the faith community.
When I hear the charges that Jesus is guilty of welcoming tax collectors and sinners my first reaction is to think how that the religious leadership is foolish and ignorant. After all, for those of us who know the stories, we expect Jesus to eat with the sinners instead of the saints. However, the religious community has a different set of standards. In the religious community we are supposed to first decide who are the sinners and then demand they repent before we are willing to eat with them and welcome them. The message from the faith community seems to be, “get right” with God as we think you should, and then we can talk. Get your life together, make yourself pure, do everything right, and then we will have a place for you in church. The church says, “Repent and then you are welcome here.” In contrast to this message we have Jesus who seeks out those who have been excluded ad goes and eats with them. Then and now this does not sit well with the faith community.
If there is one thing the faithful Pharisees know how to do is grumble. Hearing the grumbling of the ‘holy crowd,’ Jesus tells a story. Instead of arguing or preaching, Jesus tells a parable. The parables are well known to the church. However, this parable has a couple of twists. In fact, these parables make no logical sense, not then and certainly not now. When Jesus asks the question about who wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine sheep to find one lost lamb, the logical reasoned answer is that no one would. It is foolish and risky. To leave the ninety-nine sheep puts them all at risk. To do so is actually irresponsible. It is not good stewardship. But Jesus does not end there. He goes even further by commending the use of labor to find a coin which is not even valuable enough to cover the costs of the time spent looking. So when Jesus says, who would not do such things, the religious community must respond, we would not do those things it makes no sense. That is the offence of Jesus actions. Actions like this are foolish and a waste of time. And yet, Jesus says this is how God works.
Last week the Congress invited well known comedian Stephen Colbert to testify over the issue of immigration. For those of you who do not know Mr. Colbert, he is a comedian who plays a character that is modeled on the Fox News Commentator Bill O’Reilly. He was invited to testify because last summer Mr. Colbert took up the United Farm Workers challenge to work in the fields for a day. This invitation by the United Farm Workers union was intended to address the belief that migrant and immigrant labor are stealing jobs from Americans. It turns out that very few people were actually waiting to take those jobs, none in fact. While the investigation was little more than political theatre, Mr. Colbert’s answer to the final question asked of him left me speechless. Mr. Colbert was asked why he would bother with the issue of immigration. For the first time during the hearing it was clear that Mr. Colbert broke character and said, I like talking about people who don’t have any power. It seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are Migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here and at the same time ask them to leave and that’s an interesting contradiction to me. And you know “whatsoever you do to the least of these my brothers,” and they seem like the least of these, right now... They suffer and have no rights. He went on to say that there are many people who are the least of these, these days, but this is where he feels compelled to spend his energy. While his testimony and presence at the hearing was ridiculed by many people, his final words left most of his critics unable to respond. In that answer he was not trying to score political points or to settle scores. Mr. Colbert was giving a public witness to his faith and the foundation for his actions.
When Jesus shared the parables with the Pharisees it was not meant to chastise them or to score political points or to show them up. Instead, Jesus is calling them to change. He was inviting them to repent of their judgmental and exclusionary practices. It is a message that is as timely now for the faith community as it was then. I believe Mr. Colbert is right that migrant workers are without a voice and are in need of our voice. But there are more people who are considered the least, who are considered unclean and who need people of faith to go out, eat with, befriend, and to share the love of God with them. Gay teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide then heterosexual teens. In the last month alone four gay teens have committed suicide because of harassment and bullying. Tyler Clementi was a college student who jumped off a bridge after his roommate, without his knowledge, taped him having sex with a man and posted it on the internet. On September 23rd, 13-year-old Asher Brown, from Houston, Texas, shot himself in the head after being persistently harassed by other students who thought he was gay. Fifteen-year-old Billy Lucas, of Indiana, hanged himself because he had been bullied for years over his sexual orientation. 13-year-old, Seth Walsh from Minnesota, died in the hospital eight days after attempting to hang himself. He too is said to have endured taunts and abuse for being gay from other students.
Growing up as a boy I remember the fear of being thought you might be gay. If you talked, walked, or acted a certain way or if you participated in certain activities you risked begin considered gay. What I remember as a teenage boy was that there was no fate worse than being thought to be gay. So as long as there were some boys who were considered Gay, then you were safe and would just stay silent when the bullies would go after them because you were afraid they would come after you instead. If you spoke up, you might get a reputation of welcoming and eating with gay people. Unofrtunately, I didn’t learn anything in church which would help me navigate those difficult adolescent waters.
If you want to talk about people who have been sinners, unclean, and unwelcome it is gay and lesbian folk. Unfortunately we have much in common with the Pharisees on this one. We will welcome and share God’s love with the tax collectors and sinners when you change. But Jesus invites us to a different way of living. Instead, we are called to go to any place and any people who are being excluded and labeled sinner and outcast and eat with them.
The ‘eating with’ is an important piece particularly in the ancient society. I have come to believe that the Pharisees did not eat with tax collectors and sinners for more than just exclusionary reasons. They do not eat with them because to do so means that they become equals instead of objects of mission to be served or sinners to be converted. If they do not eat with them they can maintain a distance. ‘Those people’ become objects of mission instead of a possible brother or sister in Christ. The simple truth is that the mission of the church is not to fix anyone or to convert anyone. The fixing, changing, conversion, transformation, and more importantly the healing are all in God’s hands. And, God has a tendency of doing all that in ways that are often surprising and often unwelcome by those of us in the church. Instead, our calling is to befriend people. Listen to them, learn from them. Go out and spend time in the fields in which they work. Do not tell people what you know they are seldom interested. Instead give them the time of day, get to know them ask them about themselves. In doing so you show the love of God in Christ because you let them know they matter because you listened. This is the mission of the church and it is our calling. We are called to risk our reputation for the kingdom of God. That is the calling of Jesus disciples. Amen? Amen.