by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Psalm 137, Luke 17:5-10
Transcribed from the sermon preached on OCTOBER 2, 2022
I have to admit that when I first read the scriptures suggested by the lectionary for today, I wondered what the committee who picked them could have been thinking. At first glance, both Luke and Psalm 137 are problematic for me. First Psalm 137 offers a brutal vision of the desire for vengeance. Speaking to the Babylonians, “Happy are those who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! And then Luke has Jesus using the obedience and subservience of slaves as a metaphor for the disciples’ obedience to God. If these are Jesus actual words, they make him look pretty human, someone who is firmly embedded in a culture for which slavery is established without question.
It begs the question, what do we do with scripture and tradition, with our ancestors, history, and culture; with people in our tradition who clearly lived in a different time and place with different standards and beliefs about what was ok and what was not?
The first lesson we can learn on this problem is that scripture has been put together in a way that there are different points of view within scripture. One part of scripture doesn’t necessarily hold the same perspective or point of view as another. And being written over an 800-year period, points of view of the culture and the authors do not stay the same. On the one hand they all think they are worshipping the same God, but on the other, they do not always discern God’s word for them in the same way.
Let me give you a few examples of changing or different perspectives in scripture.
Around the time of Abraham and Isaac, child sacrifice was not uncommon. Some people heard some gods asking them to sacrifice children. When God pulls Abraham back from sacrificing Isaac, a new trend is set. People heard God saying, God does not want that.
King Solomon had 800 wives and apparently, that was ok with the culture, the religion and God at the time. By the time of the New Testament, monogamy was the moral standard. I suspect this had to do with an increasing desire for equality. Maybe it is not ok for one person to have 800 of something while others are left with none. We don’t think having 800 wives is ok today, but it is fine for people to have 800 million dollars while others have one, and there is no shortage of people like Jeffery Epstein and our last president who use money and power to manipulate and take advantage of many young women.
Ecclesiastes shares a kind of middle of the road philosophy. Perhaps he is like Woody in Toy Story. He doesn’t go for fanaticism. As far as he can tell, the best way to live life is by being as honest as possible, work hard but not too hard, be religious but not too religious, have fun but not too much fun, and enjoy your family while you can. No matter what we do, we are pretty small, so things won’t change much. No need to freak out or get fanatical. Do the best you can, enjoy as much as you can, love as much as you can while you can, because life is short.
Then way in the back of the Bible we have the flip opposite point of view, the Buzz Lightyear perspective in the book of Revelation. Revelation is a call to absolute radical non-violence just like Jesus. John denounces lukewarm people like Ecclesiastes. Everything in life is a test of cosmic proportions and we are soldiers on the battlefield of time, to infinity and beyond, light against darkness, God against Satan. And we are to hold out faithful even under torture and death. In fact, a faithful death is a victory for team God. We can be joyous about it.
Now there is a big difference in the socio-cultural context between Ecclesiastes and Revelation. Ecclesiastes is a fairly wealthy and educated landowner who is living a comfortable life while Christians of John’s Revelation are the poor and slaves being crucified and fed to the lions in the great arenas of Rome. Part of the reason Christianity grew in the Roman empire is because brave Christians stood in the arenas before the wild animals and said, “Bring them on!”
One of the great surviving testimonials is the diary of Perpetua, the daughter of a wealthy landowner who became Christian. Her father and everyone beg her to sacrifice to the emperor, for the sake of her baby, but ultimately it is her body and soul, her choice – she and her friend Felicitas march proud and joyous into the arena. When it was time for them to be slaughtered by the sword, the martyrs gave each other the kiss of peace and awaited their heavenly reward. They are gored by a bull. This special note about Perpetua. “Perpetua that she might taste some pain, being pierced between the ribs, cried out loudly, and she herself placed the wavering right hand of the youthful gladiator to her throat. Possibly such a woman could not have been slain unless she herself had willed it, because she was feared by the impure spirit.
God does not have the same message for every single possible situation or cultural context. The People of God we hear about in scripture are attempting to discern God’s will for them and their people, for their particular time and place and circumstances. They don’t always get it right, and what they do get right is not necessarily right for everyone in every time and place.
We may not know what it is like to be powerless before the imperial army of Babylon as they burn crops and houses, destroy the temple, rape women and murder children and drag survivors into slavery.
I just finished watching Ken Burn’s documentary about The US and the Holocaust. In it we learn that the US has had a mixed relationship with immigrants for a very long time. Racism, ethnocentrism, and selfishness has constantly showed itself. Hitler and other Nazis looked to the US treatment of Native American and Africans as a model for their own imperial dreams. Antisemitism in the US was very strong as Hitler rose to power in Germany, so we resisted taking in Jewish refugees, leaving them vulnerable to the horrific genocide of the Nazi regime.
I have studied history enough to know most of the ugly parts of the story before watching the film. The new perspective I gained was the valiant effort of our President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his brilliant wife Elenore. Much of liberal Protestantism and the country was tired of violence and fighting after WWI. So, there was a strong desire to stay out of war and to believe in peace. So, we laid back and let Hitler amass a huge military and roll over Europe. There were a few Protestant Christians arguing early against the predominant isolationist, anti-war stance of much of the Church and nation. Reinhold Niebuhr was one of them.
And we can imagine Jews in concentration camps praying psalm 137, hoping for vengeance against the Nazis. Now we know that Jesus was all about non-violence and a pure and unvarnished faith. I will not fault anyone who feels that strong call to holiness, love and peace, no matter what. But if the bible’s conversation with itself is any indication, God may hold up that sacrificial holiness and purity of Jesus and at the same time send the United States to kick Nazi butt. 8 O daughter Nazi Germany, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us!
Now onto this metaphor of slavery used by Jesus. We know that over and over and over again Jesus calls his followers to be servants. Those who would be first must be last. So, we know that according to Jesus, faithfulness means being unselfish, humble, considerate, kind, loving and helpful to everyone. Slavery does not fit that bill.
Last week in our Study of Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, Don Worth asked an interesting question. Niebuhr points out that even the religiously zealous who commit their lives to renouncing pride and selfishness get a sense of pride from being unselfish. We feel special for being good. So, Don asked, “Well, I wonder if Jesus had a sense of pride at his unselfishness.”
Later on in the day I thought of the time when someone called out to Jesus, “Good teacher, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus said, “Don’t call me good. No one is good but God alone.” So, Jesus is even humble about his humility.
But he is also addressing this problem of self-righteousness of those trying to be faithful in today’s passage. Don’t think you are all hot stuff because you are nice and loving and peaceful and treat people equally. Don’t think that gets you put up at the front of the line. That is simply what you are supposed to do. For a servant of God that is standard operating procedure. So, you are against slavery. Big whoop, that is basic faithfulness.
So, we look back in history and judge the prejudices of our fore parents and ancestors. We recognize that this land was taken from native Americans, we recognize how racist our country has been and make sure we put up a rainbow flag and a Black Lives Matter poster, and we post all the politically correct things that come across our twitter and Facebook pages. We denounce the bigots and the fascists and hope that maybe people will see all this and think we are worthy, we are one of the good ones, better than people of other cultures. We are better than people of the past. We should get moved to the front of the righteous people line. Jesus is saying, don’t be looking for pat on the back for doing what you ought to do, whether anyone is paying attention or not.
So, we have a perspective that is somewhat more evolved than people who lived before us. Big whoop. If we think that means we are righteous enough for power and privilege, that power and privilege wouldn’t corrupt us, we haven’t learned as much as we think.
The Bible is complicated as life is complicated. As humans we are both fallible and finite. We are both imperfect and sinful, and we have a limited view of time and space. We dare not judge ourselves better than our ancestors, or victims who want revenge, or those who would seek justice with power, especially when we sit in the comfort of the power gained from the moral compromises our ancestors made.
Jesus is not implying that we should not take stances for justice and equality. He is only saying that we shouldn’t think we are hot stuff because we do. We are just another group of people doing our best to discern God’s word for us, given our gifts and challenges, our time and circumstance.
It is a privilege to do God’s will. The prize when we do the will of God is that we get to do it. It is a privilege to sit together with our brothers and sisters from across the world. All across the world today Christians who speak different languages, have different histories, and deal with different circumstances are sharing communion. For we all recognize our need, the same need for God’s grace. We all recognize that despite our differences, we were created by the same God and are called to love one another as Christ loved us. Despite the differences of time and space, language, and culture, we are one family of God.
We don’t get bonus points for sharing this meal together. The sharing of the meal itself is the prize. Let us enjoy this feast.