6 Epiphany A February 12, 2017
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Hutson
Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 + Psalm 119: 1-8 + 1 Cor. 3: 1-9
Matthew 5: 21-37
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
There’s nothing that defines and separates people quite as much as flying on a commercial airline. When we check in we are given a boarding pass that defines precisely where we shake out in the hierarchy of this particular flight. We would like to invite our first class passengers to board via the red carpet on the right side of the podium. This is first class passengers only. After those folks have boarded, it’s usually time for the Gold, Platinum, Credit Card, spend a lot or fly a lots to board. Again, through the right side of the podium and on the red carpet. The rest of us board by number… literally….either a zone number or a row number…..on the left side of the podium where the carpet is dirty and if you need anything you are on your own.
Every time I fly back east to see family or on our sabbatical trips, this system drives me crazy. Crazy! Unless, of course, it’s one of those rare circumstances where I am one of the lucky ones being called first. This hasn’t happened very often, but there have been one or two times when we’ve accumulated enough frequent flier miles to upgrade to the good side of life. I wish I could tell you that it’s not that much better then flying coach with everyone else, but folks….I’d be lying. It’s awesome. I love having a roomy seat with space for my legs to actually stretch out a bit, instead of having my knees under my chin. I love getting a glass….a real glass….of champagne before take off. I never knew that was a thing! And the first time they handed me a hot towel I was completely confused! I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. So I just held onto it and drank my champagne while the minions in the back of the plane fought for space in the overhead bins.
On an airplane there is a curtain that the flight attendants draw after the plane reaches cruising altitude; the curtain divides the haves from the have nots. The privileged from the oppressed. The ins from the outs.
It seems, these days, that life is just one long transcontinental flight and we are very busy trying to determine who should be riding up front. Every two or four or eight years the passenger manifest changes, though, and some of us, find that instead of a glass of champagne we are holding a diet coke and some free peanuts if we are lucky.
This way of dividing one another into categories is simply how we manage to feel better about ourselves than we deserve. And the problem is, that after we’ve ridden in first class for awhile, we come to believe that the divisions are appropriate and that we deserve to be in the seat we are in, complete with all of its privileges.
The Epistle readings (Epistle is just a fancy church term for letter) for the last few weeks have been from Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. Paul had founded this church and he loved them. But they had started arguing and bickering amongst themselves and Paul found it necessary to write to them about those disagreements. Specifically, in the portion of the letter we are currently reading, the people are arguing over whether they are loyal to Paul or Apollos, who was Paul’s partner in ministry…rather like an associate pastor or maybe an intern. The people were arguing over which of them was the better shepherd of the flock and they were pledging their loyalties accordingly.
It is an ancient and terrible tendency to divide ourselves according to loyalties. Unless we are talking about sports, I can think of nothing good that could come of this.
I cannot name a single time or instance or example when division, when determining that one is better than another, is life giving in or to any community.
Can you remember a time when you were separated….named as less than others? When you were told that because of something about you, be it your gender or your race or your religion or your economic status you were invited to take a figurative back seat to someone else?
I’m willing to guess, that because of the demographics of this congregation, at least some of us either could not name such an occasion or had to work hard to name one. And for others, these encounters are a daily occurrence.
From time to time, I am privileged enough to hear and hold these stories from some of you and from our neighbors. And, from time to time, I am the one being marginalized. For me, this most often happens because I am a woman in ministry, which one would hope would no longer be the case in the world since it is 2017. But it is the case. Just last week two men decided to gang up on me during a social media conversation once they discovered I was a pastor, which they felt compelled to write with “quotation marks.” “Pastor.” Assuring them that I was a credentialed and called pastor, they said that they were unicorn ranchers, credentialed and called. I am absolutely certain that this would not have happened to a male colleague.
Imagine then, what our sisters and brothers who are trans or queer, who are black and brown, who are from Syria or Iran, who are Muslim or Sihk….imagine what they experience if this is what I experience as a white, middle class, Protestant, American….but female pastor.
When we encounter our neighbors who are being oppressed, we have two options. We can choose life or we can choose to engage with the ways of the world and act from our own privilege. We listen rather than talk, because we’ve done the talking for long enough. We’ve been riding in first class for the whole flight.
The Church has set it up this way, keeping women from temple access, keeping us from serving as clergy, keeping the laity from the chancel…do you know that’s why we have this rail? It’s not so you have something to lean on when you kneel. It was designed in the early churches to keep the laity out of the holiest part of the sanctuary.
But Jesus had something different to say…something about loving our neighbors as a life giving way of being. God called the Israelites to it: Choose life! God said.
This might not feel like good news for us…what fun is it to sit at the best table if all the tables are equal? What fun is it to ride in first class if there’s no curtain separating us from the riffraff in the back? Where is the good news?
The good news is in the grace of God for all people. You see, if God were the divine ticket agent and God’s airline had a merit system instead of a grace system, I might not make it in. We might not. A Mexican strawberry picker might make it and I might not. A Syrian refugee might make it and you might not. But, thanks be to God, there is no red carpet for some and not for others in the Kingdom. There is only wide welcome and grace and lots of space available in the overhead compartments for the baggage we’re bringing along for the ride.
How are we going to get to this point, though, in a nation that is so divided and so determined to show that some are better, more deserving than others? That some are the greatest or the first or the best? We’re going to get there by telling the stories of Jesus with dogged persistence. We are going to keep telling the stories even when it is painful and even when it exposes us as the people who hope we get to fly first class. We’re going to stop choosing Paul or Apollos and start choosing life….life that is abundant and full because it is centered in the life giving love of Jesus Christ, that is poured out for all people….every one….with equity and abundance and grace.
The flight is boarding. All are welcome.
Thanks be to God, and let the church say..Amen.