June 14, 2020 | Scripture, Sermon, & Prayers
With our routines and world upended by the Shelter in Place Order that affects all of California, we are looking for ways to stay connected during a mandate to physically stay apart from one another. This is a continuation of our time together, even though we’re in different spaces.
Opening Hymn • Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, 16 • Page 16, Chalice Hymnal
Opening Prayer
Lay Leader: Mary Jo Renner
God of compassion,
you have opened the way for us
and brought us to yourself.
Pour your love into our hearts,
that, overflowing with joy,
we may freely share the blessings of your realm
and faithfully proclaim the good news of Christ. Amen.
Special Music • In Your Service, Lord • Written and Performed by Mary Jo Renner
Tithes and Offerings
Checks can be mailed to:
Grace Community Church
C/O Rene Horton
P.O. Box 368
Auberry, CA 93602
Holy Scripture • Exodus 19:2-8a, Romans 5:1-8, and Matthew 9:35-10:8
Lay Leader: Mary Jo Renner
Children’s Time
Coloring Page Based on Matthew 9:35-10:8
Church at Prayer and The Lord’s Prayer
All are invited to email me prayer requests for next week’s prayer, or to get in touch any time during the week. We are in the midst of an unprecidented global event, and I am available as a compassionate ear if you find you need to talk through what’s going on.
Hymn • Amazing Grace • Page 546, Chalice Hymnal
The Message
Sermon Transcript
Last week my daughter Mollie and I picked up Emma by Jane Austen and decided we would work our way through it together, one chapter at a time, trading off who reads aloud every other page. It’s no secret that I love Jane Austen, I’m part of several Jane Austen groups on Facebook, I closely follow regency fashion recreations on Instagram, and I love the differences between film adaptations, the choices made by each director, each costume department, each musical score. The same text can be expanded upon in ways that Austen herself never dreamed by applying a different critical lens to the screenplay, the choices in cast, the emphasis on some pieces of character development, or downplaying of others. And yet, even with such differences between adaptations, each new iteration of this beloved text is still Austen’s Emma. This is because text is a living thing. The creation of a story does not end once the author sets down her quill with a finished manuscript. As I learned while studying literature, one does not write about a text as though it is something that has already happened, but as though it is current, alive and thriving with each new reading. The critical lens we bring to it with our own experience, or by looking for certain themes and elements provides a fresh, ever evolving piece of work, even though the original writer may have passed into glory centuries ago.
This can also be said of reading scripture. Each time we pick up our bibles and read through a passage, the text leaps forward, freeing itself from antiquity and it becomes interwoven with our world, our perspectives. It interacts with current events, it joins us on the mat as we wrestle with societal unrest, it presents a bridge between ancient daily life and our routines, giving us reassurance of continuity even when we feel that our own world is upside down.
We can take from literary criticism helpful ways to interact with scripture to bring it to life, but it must be handled with even greater care than works of fiction. Scripture carries with it a holy tradition, and offers spiritual truths, and so our interpretations of it must be multilayered to allow for the complexity that can be found within. In literature, a formalist approach is acceptable, and reading through Emma focusing solely on the text and structure without taking into account any of the historical context or any influences the author might have had wouldn’t be detrimental to ones reimagining of the novel. With scripture, however, this is a dangerous game. To merely pluck a chunk of text out of its context and apply it to our modern life without also considering the factors that went into its writing is irresponsible. We look to scripture to guide our path, to inform our spiritual growth, and to help us make decisions that are rooted in ancient tradition. Historical context is key in separating the deep wisdom found within the scriptures from the way it interacted with the “current events” of a few millennia ago.
I’m going into depth with this this morning, not because I want to transform our worship service into a Literature 101 class, but because these are the skills that are necessary to a faithful reading of the Bible. If we merely wander into these texts, heavy with their own applications to a way of life that no longer exists, and we don’t consider how their world influenced their writing, we are in grave danger of misunderstanding what is being taught in these passages. Once we have the contextual piece in place, then we can begin to apply the layers of critical interpretation to it, and watch as the words become timely guides through our own context and time.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. The Bible has been used in pieces and fragments, severed from it’s context to promote atrocious agendas and perpetuate oppressive ways of thinking. A text which overwhelmingly states again and again to care for the poor, the oppressed, the harassed and helpless, can be weaponized against those same groups if read and regurgitated without proper time spent understanding why it said what it says. None of the versions we read are the original, unless we are proficient in hebrew, aramiac, biblical Greek, and other languages which the source texts for our translated canonized version were written. We must take into consideration that words often have multiple meanings, and when translated those meanings may shift due to inadequate words in one language to express a words from another. We read these texts realizing that for thousands of years men were the ones to write history, to compose the written versions of oral histories passed down. We approach the numerous translations and remember that political motivations and alliances have served as catalysts for these books to be set in print. And yet, even with all of these factors floating about as we read, still the Word lives.
From our own place on the timeline, we are coming out from a week where the effects of racism on this country still dominates national headlines. There were confusing reports coming to us from the WHO about asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, and we have had to listen and dig deeper for the facts, all while bars and salons reopened for the first time in months, and while numbers in reported cases still climb. We had the devastating news about the end of protections for trans persons seeking medical care, and if we looked hard enough or the algorithms on newsfeeds were just right, we heard about the murders of two black trans women. We need the guidance of our ancestors, the stable and steady hand of ancient wisdom now more than ever. And we need to make sure our understanding of the wisdom is rooted faithfully rather than plucked out and used a-la formalism to prove a point.
Our gospel text comes to us from a point in Matthew that follows a series of healings, cleansings, and miracles. Jesus has been busy leading up to today’s reading. If you back up just a chapter and a half, you’ll read about Jesus encountering lepers, breaking fevers, casting out demons, curing medical ailments, restoring vision, and bringing people back from the precipice of death. It reads like the highlight reel after a sporting event, you can almost picture the camera angles on the girl, waxy and pale with death upon her, the crowd gathered to mourn, and then it cuts to a quote from Jesus saying “Go way, the girl isn’t dead. She’s asleep.” and then the shot of her hugging her parents, alive, vibrant, as it pans to Jesus walking quietly out the door and onto his next miracle.
When we get to the reading for today, it is the summary of this highly active time of caring for those who need it the most. Those who are at risk of marginalization and poverty. The ones who would have pre-existing conditions and be denied care. The ones without formal protections built into the law about being treated. The ones entrenched in systemic violence against them because of factors beyond their control. What does Jesus have to say about this? “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”
Jesus isn’t telling his disciples that they’re about to go out and pick plums. He is tasking them with a mission, he is introducing them to their new calling of compassion. The text lists them all by name, commissioning each one of them to the work of casting out the ills that are plaguing the land. And he keeps this first missionary expedition close to home. He instructs them to begin at with their own people, to start the transformation among Israelites rather than going among Samaritans or gentiles. This isn’t to draw a line, because if we take this in context of the larger body of text, we know Jesus opens up and begins ministering to non-Jewish peoples at another point in the timeline. But for now, he highlights the importance of fixing ourselves, caring for our immediate needs, before we can then move beyond our own circle.
This made me think about the church mission trips that take youth into other countries, putting kids wealthy enough, or from affluent enough communities for international travel into the lap of extreme poverty for a week or two, posing for photos and giving voyeuristic “saving” help across continents, while then coming home to ignore the struggles of impoverished communities right in their back yard, falling back into the American individualist way of blaming them for their own lack of resources, their own moral failing that prevents them from pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. First, Jesus asked the twelve to understand and transform their own community. They were instructed to do this work quietly, simply, and without fanfare. Not to benefit from other’s misfortune by proving their own righteousness in stooping down to lift someone up.
As I read this I am also remembering the words I have read from black activists giving white allies guidance on how to best be part of the movement for racial justice. Do things that no one will ever know, don’t make this about you, when you attend a protest don’t take selfies for Instagram. Jesus’ words “You received without payment, give without payment.” are especially poignant as we grapple with what white privilege means and how we could possibly have it when we have faced hardships too. For the twelve disciples given instructions to heal and perform miraculous acts, these gifts came from God, freely given, and so they are not to expect any money in return as they invoke the privileges of casting out demons or healing long-lasting physical conditions. To do so would be extortion. As we look at this in our context, we can see how we are to contribute to the healing of the societal ailment of systemic racism. Recognizing that we have not faced the same obstacles and oppression as others simply because of our skin color (even though other factors have made our lives hard, they were not exacerbated by racial factors) we are to use the privilege of being part of the dominant group in order to cast our the demons of white supremacy without expecting monetary gain, building our personal brand, or a pat on the back and a cookie for using something we never had to ask for. This looks like stopping when you see a black person being stopped by the police, and using your whiteness to buffer the situation, knowing that violence may not escalate as severely if a witness from the dominant racial group is present. That feels icky and awkward—we don’t like to think of ourselves in racialized terms, but that’s only because we don’t have to because it isn’t a life or death situation. It can also be in providing financial assistance to organizations that are doing advocacy work without expecting to have a wing of their building named after you. It happens in the educating one another and ourselves about oppression we have not experienced firsthand, trusting the lived experience of those who have experienced it.
Jesus had compassion for the “Harassed and Helpless” in his own community (9:36) and sent the twelve to do the anonymous, unglamorous work of making things more equitable for those who were never fully integrated into society due to physical difference. Fun aside to highlight the earlier point about translations having different meaning, the Greek word used to indicate the compassion Jesus felt for the harassed and helpless can be more closely translated as to have a stirring of the bowels. We lucked out that this was taken to mean he was overcome with a deep emotional response that was manifested as a gut feeling, but it is worth remembering the way it was initially written down, and the difference in meaning between “bowel movement” today and in the first few centuries after Jesus’ death. But to come back from that little linguistic interlude, we are Christians, and we are to follow Christ’s lead in all we do. This means we are, before anything else, to look around us and see who has been harassed. Who is calling out in desperation? Who are the people right here in our local communities that are truly oppressed and calling out for us to do something with the resources we have? We are to do it, not for recognition or to clean our consciences, but because it is what must be done. And, possibly hardest of all, we are to expect nothing but unsettling silence in return, instead of a fruit basket or bottle of wine with a thank you card attached.
Jesus sent the twelve out without extra sets of clothes, without extra money, to be profoundly uncomfortable while performing transformative acts among their own people. As believers and lovers of Christ, we too are called to move through our personal discomfort to bring greater justice and healing to our country.
God be with you as you discern for yourself how our Christian traditions are beckoning you toward transformative action.
Closing Hymn • Here I Am, Lord • Page 452, Chalice Hymnal
