February 5, 2012

“Good Question!”

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay

Isaiah 40:21-31

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

I must have hit some button in my car.

Instead of FM radio tuned to the usual stations, my radio was broadcasting AM.

It was tuned to WCCO and there was a talk radio program that had to do with the decision by the Catholic Bishop to take aim at the right of same-sex couples to marry.

The issue is coming before voters this fall.  It is already illegal in the state of MN for same-sex couples to marry.  The amendment coming before voters has to do with creating another barrier to the one hundred plus rights given to those who marry in our state.

The Catholic church has committed nearly 3/4 of a million dollars and lots of energy and people hours to augment the already standing denial of marriage to same-sex couples.

The moderator of the show, who is Catholic, was upset about this.  He asked others to call in their comments.  Pretty much across the board callers were distressed.

One comment made jangled my heart.

The moderator kept talking about “the church”.  He spoke of how it is we are a people of the book - Scripture that calls us to tend the needs of the poor and teach our children compassion and feed the hungry and how is it, he asked, that the church would put so much energy and passion into this issue when clearly there are so many issues we seem to blithely ignore.

What is it with Christians, he asked?

Oh, it hurt.

What is it with Christians?

I am a Christian.  I am a Christian, much like Paul, who feels astoundingly blessed to share the good news of Jesus Christ.  

I experience you as Christians who I believe feel astoundingly blessed to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

So how is that the hardest thing I encounter in ministry is the huge mistrust people have of the people called Christian?

How is it that a moderator on talk radio can make a statement:  What IS it with Christians?! and those listening nod their heads in agreement because the good news, my friends, the good news of Jesus Christ is being served up in ways damaging to the movement of the God who asks us -

Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  Our God is immense and the wind under the wings of creation and our God calls us to invite people into the movement of Jesus because the movement calls us to the hard work of hearing each other’s hearts and tending each other’s bodies.

The apostle Paul was an educated Jew.

He lived privilege.  He was a man, so he could have a public voice.  He had credentials as a Pharisee, so he had authority in his culture.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth as a man of privilege.

We need to know this:

It is radical that a man of privilege would emulate Jesus and take on the role of slave to all.  Slaves in Paul’s culture had no power, no privilege.  They were tools. 

It is radical that Paul says that no cultural sorting of folk into worthy or unworthy would keep him from sharing his message of the good news of Jesus the Christ.  So he names his willingness to interact with Jews and Gentiles and anyone he encounters, because his status doesn’t mean a thing if he cannot connect with people.

Seventeen hundred plus years later, John Wesley names this intention when he says “I submitted myself to becoming more vile to take the gospel outside the walls of the church”.

Wesley too was a person of privilege:  he was seminary educated, male, and given authority by the church to preach the gospel.

And you and I sitting in this sanctuary?  We are privileged.  We live in this nation dedicated to the concept of justice for all.

We have roofs and heat and schools and while many of us live paycheck to paycheck, compared with most of the world, we have great privilege.

And, one fifth of our children live in poverty.

Our schools are challenged to provide quality education for all because children come to school hungry and in need of medical care they cannot afford.  Their families are trying to raise them to be whole and productive but just keeping one step ahead of homelessness takes incredible energy.

And while we have the energy to tsk tsk at these loutish parents, we seem to feel not much compelled to figure out how we can help.

So what is it with we Christians?  

How are we sharing and living the good news of a God who promises power to the faint and strength to the powerless?

We’re not sharing the good news.  Or a radio announcer could not throw out that soul-jangling challenge:

What is it with those Christians?

What Paul provides us with is a discipling model.

As followers of the Way, our work is to hear the hearts of those different than us.  Our work is to develop relationship with those who, in the words of Rogers and Hammerstein in South Pacific, we have been taught to hate and fear.

So how do we become evangelists for Christ?  How do we hear each other into wholeness?

Here’s what it looks like to do that kind of hearing.

In our men’s bible study group, we are studying the book of Leviticus.  It has many strong teachings, does Leviticus.  Teachings meant to guide the life of God’s people.  We read the book, as we read all Scripture, with an awareness of why it was written, who the intended audience was, what does the teaching teach us about the Holy, and what do we know today that might influence our interaction with the text.

We agree that interpreting the teachings literally would have us all busted.  Some of the teachings have to do with death for those who disagree with their parents.  

And some have to do with same-sex relationships.

We talk plenty about why it is some of the teachings are easily dismissed as no longer relevant and others have been lifted up as written in stone for all time.

As a people called United Methodist, we interpret our ethical grounding through Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience.

One man spoke of how it is his heart has been changed by being open to another.

He spoke of how it is he is in relationship with a family member who is bright and lovely and committed in a same-sex relationship.

It has changed his heart, this relationship.

In appreciating her and in listening to her and opening his heart to her, he has come to see that she is no less than he a beloved child of God and that as a disciple of Jesus, his is not called to judge who it is she loves.

His is to be in relationship.

Anyone who knows this man knows him to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  It radiates from him.

By opening his ears and heart to another, he not only teaches the gospel, he is the good news.

Like Paul, we are people of privilege.

Like Paul, the gift of our life is to share the love of Christ Jesus with ALL of God’s people.

So who is it we won’t condescend to allow into our hearts?

Who is it we have determined is not worth our compassion?

Paul would say it’s exactly those people we Christians must claim as kin.

Not easy work.

It’s gospel work.