Broken, Part 6: Bearing Witness

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Fifty-some years ago my mother and her beloved younger sister, had a falling out. Her sister became engaged to be married and the man she was marrying was Jewish. And – not without careful and prayerful consideration – she decided that she would convert to Judaism, so their children could be raised Jewish. And my mother thought this was completely and unequivocally wrong.

My mother was a lifelong member of the Lutheran church; she raised me and my sisters in the Lutheran church. I discovered later, in my own relationship to my mother, that for her being Lutheran was an inherited part of her identity. To turn your back on it was practically sacrilegious. I know it hurt her deeply to see her sister turn away from this faith tradition, but I also know her response to it was guided by prejudice. There is a strain of antisemitism that has run through Lutheranism since its beginning.

The unfortunate truth is that Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, and the Lutheran Church in particular, held some appallingly bigoted views toward the Jews. “Set fire to their synagogues,” he advised, and “toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.” I hate to think how Luther, a German, would have behaved had he been alive during the Third Reich – I am afraid he would have joined the Nazis.

This year when we celebrate the 500-year anniversary of the Reformation, which began when Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door, we would like to forget about this side of the man. This is a part of our history we don’t speak about and many don’t even know about. Yet, we need to acknowledge it, and that this kind of bigotry is very, very hard to snuff out. We know that it has never gone away. It has smoldered for centuries, occasionally being fanned into flames – as it has been this year in our nation. Neo-Nazi White Supremacist groups have proudly stepped out into the open, as they did recently in Charlottesville, to demand what they think are their rights.

A horrific amount of violence has been perpetrated because of bigotry like this. Luther was certainly not the only one to blame. The truth we need to acknowledge is that there is a sordid history of cruel bigotry in Christianity. The crusades, in which many thousands of Jews and Muslims were killed by Christian soldiers. The Inquisition, in which thousands more were tortured and killed. The strains of bigotry that drove these institutions has never completely died.

Today, when we see Nazis, KKK, and all their fellow white supremacy groups promoting their cause, we see their Christian roots.

The point I wish to make is that the church bears much responsibility for racist institutions that exist. The church bears responsibility for its historic role in racist violence. And, if we denounce that history today, which I believe we do, then we bear responsibility for standing against it. We must acknowledge the evil that is committed, too often in the name of white Christianity, and we must loudly and clearly condemn it.

From where I’m standing now, it is hard to imagine how a serious student of scripture could read Paul’s letter to the Romans and find cause to hate the Jews. Yet I know that it has been put to that use by many pastors from many pulpits. Granted, Paul’s arguments are difficult to follow, but not because he was trying to obfuscate or mislead. The difficulty is certainly due to the fact that he was winding his way through what was, for him, some extremely complex and challenging terrain.

If Paul’s world was divided into the Christians and the Jews then he had a stake in both these tribes. From his birth, through his training and his vocation, Paul was a Jew, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. But when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, he became a Christian – an apostle for Christ. From that point on, he began to forge a path through this uncharted territory, seeking to understand what new thing God was doing in the world. We see his struggle in the words of this epistle.

In this section we read from today, Paul is clear on one thing: that God has not rejected God’s people; that God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. And he theorizes that it was, perhaps, necessary for the Jews to reject Jesus so that there would be an opportunity for the Gentiles to receive the gospel. This does not, by any means, suggest that there is a finite amount of room, a limited number of tickets, to heaven. The Jews did not have to vacate so the Gentiles could enter the fold. What Paul’s argument suggests is that when we look back at the events that unfolded we see that the resistance Paul encountered in the synagogues happened alongside the tremendous success he found among the Gentiles. Is it possible, Paul wonders, that there is a connection? Or I might put it this way: would the young church have been so accepting of the Gentiles if the Jews had not rejected them?

Perhaps things had to shift in this way, for the sake of the salvation of the world, Paul thinks. But if so, this is only temporary, he argues. God has not forsaken the Jews. God does not renege on God’s promises.

Ultimately, Paul admits, it is a mystery. It is well beyond our gifts and capabilities to comprehend God’s plans for the world God created. We simply trust in God’s word and God’s inherent goodness, seeking to be always faithful in our words and actions. Which brings us back to the events in Charlottesville. How do faithful people respond to this white supremacy movement?

I have heard many people suggest that it is best to ignore it; that acknowledging it only makes it worse. This is not a new argument.

When I was a high school student in the suburbs of Chicago during the 70’s, Nazis fought a court battle to march in Skokie, only a few miles away from where I lived. Skokie was the home of many holocaust survivors; there was no doubt that the Nazis chose Skokie for that very reason. The residents fought hard against it, although, I can remember, there were some in the surrounding communities who argued against fighting it. These voices said that the best thing to do would be to deprive these Nazis of the attention they craved. Just ignore them. Let them have their silly march and pretend nothing is happening. Nothing bad will happen if you just ignore them.

Those who had seen the effects of Nazi ideology up close and personally simply could not do that. Because they bore witness, and history bears witness, to what can happen when the world chooses to just ignore them.

We simply cannot remain indifferent. When evil is exposed to the light of day, as it was in Charlottesville last weekend, we cannot turn away and say just ignore those fools. It is wrong to make excuses for them when they commit acts of violence, suggesting that they might have been provoked by their opponents. We cannot fail to condemn their ideology and actions.  Please let me be very clear about this: I don’t say to condemn them as evil people, but to condemn the evil ideologies and systems that they have chosen to affiliate with. We must not fail to do so; we must take them seriously, because it is quite likely that the next Dylann Roof is among their ranks. And, in case you don’t remember, Dylann Roof was the young man who walked into Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, joined a group of nine members in prayer, and then shot and killed each one of them.

Our land is riddled with the scars of these acts of hate. But we are not without hope. God’s mercy rains down. I believe the Apostle Paul, in his trials and tribulations, came to understand that God’s love covers everything; God’s love is greater than we can imagine. He came to see that, while we are, all of us, broken human beings, God will use us for God’s divine purposes. God will use us broken creatures to bring about wholeness. And so it is our calling to name and condemn evil wherever we see it, and we may see it in surprising places.

For the world is not divide into good people and evil people; as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “the dividing line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Once again, understanding our own brokenness is the first step. We are at our best when we acknowledge our own fault lines, our own brokenness, our own need for forgiveness. As Paul wrote, “God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

In the end, it is good to remember the words of the prophet Micah, who spelled it out nice and simple: this is what the Lord requires of you: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Let us never be afraid to stand up for what is right, and let us strive to do it with kindness and humility.

photo credit: from USA Today (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/08/kkk-holds-rally-virginia-and-met-protesters/462146001/)

Broken, Part 5: Beauty in Brokenness

Romans 10:5-15

The passage we face this week is a hard one. That is the first thing my lectionary commentary told me when I opened the book – this is a hard passage for preachers. Thank you, lectionary commentary, you are correct. And the Sermon Roundtable agrees with you too.

So, we leaned heavily on the commentary and the biblical footnotes to understand what Paul was doing in these verses. If you look at the text you will notice that there are a lot of quotation marks in it. Paul is quoting liberally from other texts. The commentary and footnotes tell me that these quotes are coming from the Old Testament law and prophets, which he may, in some cases, be paraphrasing. He is quoting from the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the prophets Isaiah and Joel. But what is really interesting is that he is sprinkling in some Christian interpretation along the way, inserting them right into the quotes. Paul is interacting with the scriptures.

He is engaging with the texts in a very creative way, keeping it lively, keeping us on our toes along with him. It is a dance of interpretation. And the meaning, the purpose, of the dance is to make his theological argument: that while it is not, perhaps, necessary for the Gentile believers to follow the law of Israel, for the people of Israel, the law is grace – the law is blessing, along with the glory, the covenant, and the promises. In other words, to the Gentiles we might hear Paul saying, “It may not be for you. But don’t dismiss it. And don’t dismiss the Jews either, for you all, we all, belong to God.

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him,” Paul writes.  

It is true, then. We are all broken, every one of us. We are all in need of the mercy and grace of God.

The matter of our brokenness is a weighty matter. I want to tell you a story about Bryan Stevenson – he tells the story himself in his book, Just Mercy.

Bryan grew up in Delaware, attended law school at Harvard, and found his way down to Alabama to work with death row inmates, many of whom had been wrongly convicted. For years he worked tirelessly, against the odds, to get men and women a new trial, to get their sentences modified or vacated. He still does. Often with success. But there was one point when he almost quit.

He was working on behalf of Jimmy Dill, a prisoner on death row in Alabama. Jimmy, as so many others like him, came from nothing – no family, no money, no competent counsel to represent him, no one who cared about him. He sat on death row for years. Every opportunity for appeal came and went without a single soul lifting a finger to help him. When Bryan got involved, it was just a month before Jimmy’s execution date. He tried everything he could think of to get Jimmy another chance – a hearing that might bring him some relief. But repeatedly he was told no, it was too late.

The night Jimmy was to be executed, Bryan was on the phone with him, to give him the terrible news that their last appeal had been denied. Before hanging up Jimmy said to Bryan, “I want to thank you for caring about me. I love you for trying to save me.”

Bryan almost quit that night. And he asked an important question. He asked, “Why do we want to kill all the broken people?”

Why do we want to kill all the broken people?

Because it is easier than fixing them, or fixing the broken systems that failed them.

Because we see them as utterly different from us, deserving of condemnation.

Because if we kill them we can continue to deny our own brokenness.

We are all, every one of us, broken. We are all in need of God’s grace and mercy. And we are God’s hands and feet in the work of fixing the brokenness of this world. But the challenges we face are real. Mending the broken things can be very hard, presenting new challenges that might seem even harder than the old ones.

Mending the broken things demands that we work together, cooperating with people we might not like working with; sometimes admitting that they are better equipped to mend things than we ourselves are.

Mending the broken things can take a long time.

Mending the broken things might not even seem possible to us.

But seeing our own frailty, our own brokenness, can make it possible. Trusting in God to make it possible, even when we don’t see the results.

There is beauty in brokenness because it allows us to let God in and see God’s hand at work. There is a song that says, “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” In our own brokenness, we see God’s light, God’s love and tender mercy.

Broken, Part 4: All-Inclusive Grace

Romans 9:1-5

There is a song I thought of this week – Would You Harbor Me? The lyrics take the form of a question, asked repeatedly in many ways.

Would you harbor a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew,

a heretic, convict, or spy?

Would you harbor a runaway woman or child,

a poet, a prophet, a king?

Would you harbor me?

Would I harbor you?

It is the kind of question that seems to be important for this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It asks, simply: Who is in and who is out? Who is worth our resources – our time, attention, love, or money – and who is not.

It is clearly a matter of great importance to Paul. The stakes are high, for he knows both sides intimately, and loves both sides deeply. If there are to be winners and losers in this argument, Paul does not see an outcome that would be bearable for him. Paul is in anguish at the very thought of his brothers and sisters, the Jews, being excluded from the covenant with God.

This is what is at stake. And it’s remarkable, when you think about it, that in just a few short decades, things could have turned around so completely. As Paul was writing this letter, it wasn’t very long ago that Jesus was born and raised, lived and died, as a Jew. He lived among Jews; taught, healed, and performed miracles among the Jews; he called the Jews to be his disciples; he died as a Jew.

And now, the good news has traveled so far and become enculturated in so many places already, it is leaving behind its roots, quickly taking on the perspective of a new people, to whom these people, the Jews, and their law and customs, are foreign. It happened quickly.

It wasn’t too long ago that the Apostle Peter had experienced a powerful vision telling him that Jesus Christ was not only for the Jews, but they were to carry the gospel to the gentiles as well. “Do not call unclean what I have made clean,” is the message Peter receives in his vision. God’s love was more inclusive than they had thought it was.

And it wasn’t too much longer before Paul and his partner in ministry, Barnabas, were traveling from city to city carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ – first, to the synagogue and then to the gentiles in each city they visited. And on these travels, they began to have such great success among the gentiles, the inevitable question about them was raised: have they been circumcised? Have these gentile men been properly brought into the covenant? Were Paul and Barnabas evangelizing properly, were they doing it kosher? The answer was no, they were not. Forcing the question of whether one had to become a Jew before one could be a Christian.

Paul was called before the Church council in Jerusalem, where he argued passionately for the gentiles, that they should not be burdened with unnecessary requirements. And after some debate, the council agreed.

As the church grew and pushed across border after border, the distance grew between Jews and Christians. And now it was a question not of whether the Gentiles could be saved but whether the Jews could be saved. It is clearly a very painful question for Paul.

Paul is in anguish over the idea that the Jews would somehow be excluded from the love and promises of God. But it is not only because Paul is by heredity and upbringing a Jew – a Pharisee, by training. He is not partial; Paul’s perspective, his love, his commitment, is astonishingly inclusive.

He fought for the gentiles in Jerusalem and he fought for the Jews in Rome. Paul didn’t claim to always understand the way God was working in the world; as he wrote to the church in Corinth, “I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He tried simply to keep his eyes fixed on Jesus. We can hardly go wrong to do this, ourselves. For Jesus’ love was inclusive.

Paul’s expression of anguish for his brothers and sisters, in this letter, is powerful. His love is so selfless that he would go so far as to cut himself off from Christ for the sake of the Jews, if it would somehow bring them to Christ. He would sacrifice himself, a very Christ-like sentiment, if it would bring his people into the fold of Jesus Christ.

The letter to the Romans is, as I said a few weeks ago, the most theological of all Paul’s letters, and it reflects a very mature theology. Scholars believe this letter to be the last one written in his life, at least among those we have seen. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome reflects a lifetime of experience working for the sake of Jesus Christ and his church. Some of his sharp edges have worn down with age and experience, but his passion clearly has not dimmed. His love of Christ and all his people is strong, his joy in knowing Christ is deep. And he knows the love and grace of God to be inclusive, not exclusive.

It’s a valuable perspective for us to try on. It shakes us out of our complacency. To think that there was a time when it was not at all clear that God would be for us – descendants of gentile believers. Jesus came as a Jew, to the Jews and for the Jews. But God opened the door wider and let us in. We were invited in. This is a perspective we are not accustomed to taking.

It follows, then, that we should ask how God might be opening doors now. Is there some way God is challenging us to widen our perspective, to challenge our assumptions? Is God calling us to, in some way we may not recognize yet, have greater compassion for others? Is God challenging us to open the doors wider?

Last week among our guests was, David, who pastors a church in Queens. He said that the overwhelming majority of his congregation is from the West Indies. In fact, not all of them are Christian. There are Hindus who are faithful participants in the work of this church. Tell me: what does this mean for us?

It is actually not all that unusual in New York City to see multicultural – even multifaith congregations. I remember visiting a congregation in Greenwich Village on a baptism Sunday when six families came forward to present their children for baptism into the church. Three of the six families included a parent who was of another faith – Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist. Tell me: what does this mean for us?

I read about another congregation in Manhattan (I guess New York is the center of the universe) where Jews and Muslims are faithful members.  In fact, they come forward to receive the sacrament of communion, to the table about which we say, “Jesus welcomes all.” Tell me: what does this mean for us?

It seems as though the boundary lines are moving, just as they were moving during Paul’s lifetime. The natural reaction for human beings is to resist it, but why? Why do we resist the inclusivity, the expansiveness of love?

Where are the boundaries that trouble us? In the book of Acts, the Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip had no answer to that. Later, when a Roman centurion named Cornelius, came to Peter’s door, to listen to what Peter could teach him, Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?”

Barriers were being broken, as it was being discovered that God’s love and grace is more inclusive than anyone thought possible. And so we must ask ourselves, what are the boundaries that God is challenging us to break through today? Where are we being pressed to offer welcome, to offer sanctuary, where we have not before?

Who would we harbor?

Who are the people Christ would have us embrace, just as they are, not asking them to change themselves into something more like us? Indeed, Christ is actually pressing us to transform ourselves to become more like him – men and women who cross barriers with the mercy and grace of God.

I dare say that in our past the church has scared off many people who could use some mercy and grace in their lives.

Who are the people in our community we might approach with the love of God we know through Jesus Christ – not to make demands, not to set a hurdle before them, but simply to offer the love and grace of God, which is inclusive.

Who would we harbor?

Photo: Chagall Mural in the Art Institute of Chicago