|
Back to Sermon ArchivesFebruary
8, 2009
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
“All Things to All People: Willing Subservience of
Liberated/-ing Love”
Here’s a soaring song from somewhere – as we imagine our favorite eagles --
Those who wait on
the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall rise up
on wings as eagles!
They shall run and
not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Help us Lord, help
us Lord, in Thy way.
The image of “eagles’ wings” here lends a less dogmatic, more natural, earthy
way to be “born again” –lifted again, raised up again –out of the pits and potholes
we find ourselves in. The race is not just to the young, the swift.
The race is also to those whose dreams, whose ideals endure to the end! Salvation
is not to the holy. It is not to those who “look down” on others – except
perhaps to get that eagle-eye view of the “big picture.” Salvation, says Paul,
is to those who find most in common, in solidarity -- most to identify with in others.
Salvation is to those who pick up on Jesus’ habit of healing whomever, wherever
he goes.
Even our young ones, warns Isaiah, will faint and be weary, will fall exhausted.
We lay terrible burdens on them. I have kept this Robert Toles political cartoon
for over 20 years and find fit to use it over and over. It is “The Reading
of the Will” by a teacher in front of a class. See if it sounds fatigue-ingly
familiar –
Dear Kids, We, the generation in
power since World War II, seem to have used up pretty much everything ourselves.
We kind of drained all the resources out of our manufacturing industries, so there’s
not much left there. The beautiful old buildings that were made to last for
centuries, we tore down and replaced with characterless but inexpensive structures,
and you can have them.
Except everything we built had a
lifespan about the same as ours, so, like the interstate highway system we built,
they’re all falling apart now and you’ll have to deal with that. We used up
as much of our natural resources as we could, without providing for renewable ones,
so you’re probably good until about a week from Thursday. We did build a generous
Social Security and pension system, but that was just for us. In fact, the
only really durable thing we built was toxic dumps. You can have those.
So think of your inheritance as a
challenge. The challenge of starting from scratch. You can begin as
soon as – oh, one last thing – as soon as you pay off the two trillion dollar debt
we left you. Your parents
P.S. We’re not dead. We’re
enjoying our pensions and Social Security.
Sisters and brothers, older ones, even elders – how do we pass hope on to young
ones and others outside the system? It is the determined refrain of Harvey
Milk in the new movie about his life and work – “We have to give them hope!”
Isaiah means hope to those who endure conquest and capture, exile and expropriation
– loss of all they are, all they have. Yet learn to “wait for the Lord!”
To renew strength and hope! They allow themselves to be lifted up, raised
up, born again! To run, yet not grow weary – to save ourselves (and each other!)
for the long distance! To walk, yet not faint – knowing when to speed up,
when to slow down. How to move in rhythm (as Jesus between public healing
and private praying – contemplation and action) – a balance for going the distance.
How to convey that to our youth -- while they still have a chance to change our
ways?
We have to practice Paul’s art of “cross-identifying,” code-shifting, shape-shifting,
we call it. It is a capacity – a skill and a will – to identify ourselves
– freely, fully, non-judgmentally – with others. To put ourselves in their
places – to see through their eyes, hear through their ears, perceive through their
experience, insight, wisdom, etc. It is literally being “all things to all
people.” It is living in compassion – literally, passion with – and solidarity
– standing with, standing by others. Not only with one or a select few others,
but with a multitude of others – as many kinds as we – like eagles’ wings! – can
bear! I am grateful for our congregation’s support of theater. It is
so much a part of acting and other performing arts to put ourselves into the role,
the work of another – to co-create a new world with them.
Paul says Christ offers us this wondrous, scandalous, dangerous, outrageous freedom
– freedom to decide, in Paul’s terms, to make ourselves “slaves” to all others!
Perhaps that is not a welcome word to those of us actually descended from brutal
slavery. But Paul is not talking here about slavery to any one master.
This slavery is not limited to any one relationship, any one color, nation, faith,
or language. Paul is speaking of slavery to all! Is this universal slavery
-- as a sign of universal salvation? Is this slavery as a lifestyle, as a
mission – a willing subservience of liberated and liberating love? I think
the Greek word for this kind of slave is “doulos.” A friend enrolled in a
mid-wiving program by that name. She became slave, or servant in the sense
of one who does what is needed to bring forth new life in the world! To
see that every life has a chance in the world! That every person has a
chance really, and fully to live as a loved child of God!
Paul calls us to enslave ourselves to all others -- so that we might, by all
possible means, “save” some of them! The thought of “saving” others, of
dividing us all into camps of “saved” and “damned,” can be arrogant and
arbitrary – as Paul surely is sometimes! But if we think through the
work of a midwife, then “saving” becomes pretty basic to life. It is
securing the very right to exist. The right to be who we are. God is
that “saver,” that “salvager,” that seeker and finder for us, that gleaner and
recycler of us all. We are saved as first step in a sequence or cycle --
saved and set free, healed and made whole. It goes on not once – but
throughout our whole lives – through everyone’s whole lives. For Paul
salvation/ slavery are not ends in themselves, but means to all compassion, all
solidarity!
This is radical stuff in Paul’s own life. Paul is a Roman!
An imperialist! An occupier! Yet Paul may choose to become as a Jew
– occupied and oppressed! Paul is free from every other law but the
law of God in Christ. Yet Paul may choose to suffer the consequences for defying
and breaking lesser laws – specifically laws of the nation-state! Paul, like
Jesus, dies as a threat to Rome. Paul shows such resilient strength and courage
throughout his work. Yet Paul may choose to become as one who is weak – a
beginner, a backslider. He may be just one of us -- always falling down, getting
pushed all around – just so he does not forget where he is coming from, and who
he is living/dying for! Paul becomes, quite simply, “slave for the slave,
weak for the weak.” For the sake of all who are “dissed” – disestablished,
disinherited, disinvested, disowned.
What an amazing freedom! A freedom, a liberation that allows us and leads
us, enables us and empowers us – to place ourselves altogether at the disposal,
the service, the use of all others. But listen to this, please! To be
at the use of others is NOT to be at the misuse or the abuse of others! Some
of that will happen to us. We must know the difference, not suffer it.
“Eagles’ wings” are there to bear us out of any abusive, “misusive” relationship.
Paul does not even take any money to preach. He does not live off the congregation.
He wants to be free from saying or doing only what congregations might expect of
him. Let us not look for a new pastor to tell us only what we want or can
bear to hear!
Speaking again of young people and others not yet in or otherwise outside the
system -- what they need from us is precisely that we put ourselves in their places.
Perspective is everything! Our views of everything are shaped by what sources
our senses have access to. We must be brave enough in the presence of youth
to be asked about everything – What do I think? Why do I think what
I think? What are the sources, the bases of what I think? Whose points
of view, whose perspectives have I heard, have I seen, have I shared, have I learned
from? Who has influenced and shaped me? Whose “word” do I take for things?
Whose “story” do I believe? Whose responses – especially war and violence
--do I allow to be made in my name? How can I more freely and fully build
up and trust my own experience and perceptions, my own insight and reflections into
any given reality? How can I take more responsibility for my own life, my
own thoughts and feelings, my own words and deeds? It ain’t easy, but it’s
faithful.
So this is indeed a strange kind of servanthood we are called to. Jesus
says later of his own life: I lay it down for others because I choose to lay it
down. I am free to lay it down. Gandhi – who names himself not only
native Hindu, but Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and Jew – also claims for us all
that, “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the
world – that is one of the myths of the ‘atomic age’ – as in being able to remake
ourselves!” Becoming the change we want to see in others! We remake
ourselves all the time for others, Paul puts it –not so much to “fix” them as to
“fit” with them.
Paul is pointing us in Black History Month to antiracist and nonviolent
strategies of learning to “cross-identify” – to put ourselves in the places of
others. I believe war and violence and the demonizing and dehumanizing of
others will end at last when we see through the eyes of the children – first and
most vulnerable victims. It is so easy for children and youth to blame
themselves for helpless, hopeless places they find themselves in. All of
us tend to shame ourselves for the evil, the cruelty, the anti-humanness we do
not seem able to do anything about changing.
Once we help one another deal with our shame at who and where we are -- and I
believe as a decent people we are dealing with national shame right now – then
we may become freely and fully human again! We may become more aware of
our limits but doing our best. We may see we all are children of God –
essentially interchangeable with one another! We are free to be anyone!
We are free to be everyone! No longer will we have to say in misery with
one another -- There but for the grace of God go I. Rather, we will be
free to say -- of any- and everyone else -- There by the grace of God go I as
well! There go we – together!
Brothers and sisters, feel it or not, we are fulfilled! That is what
Jesus proclaims – by his healing words and his whole-making deeds! He
proclaims Jubilee – time of fulfillment – acceptable time of our God! Once
we are fulfilled, we are free to obey, free to serve -- even as though we were
slaves. Then we are free NOT to act out of anger with violence – not to
hate, resent, or despise. We are free to know God in us all – even in
those who may attack us! How can those who need to attack really be all
that strong – all that confident, powerful, loved? They are as needy as we
are – and more.
How can we come to see our own anger in them? In their anger? How
can we see through their eyes? How can we come to ask what our enemies, our
opponents or our opposites have to teach us? Do we fight or flee each other
-- just so we do not have to engage with each other? Exchange with each other?
Entangle and endure with each other? The most famous Psalm puts it: A table
is prepared for us – right in the presence of our enemies! Right where we
might sit and eat, might speak and learn, might change and grow -- together!
Let’s see, how does that song go again?
We who wait on the
Lord shall renew our strength.
We shall rise up on
wings like eagles!
We shall run and not
be weary, we shall walk and not faint.
Help us Lord, help
us Lord, in Thy way.
Amen.
top of page
Archives
|
