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The Company He Keeps
Amos 6:1-3 Luke 5:12-16
One of the last conversations I ever had with my father happened to be about parenting. We were arguing whether there was any rhyme or reason to it. My father, who the older he got grew more and more laisser faire, was arguing against rhyme or reason. "But surely parenting is not just a crap shoot?" I protested, fearful that all my parental ministrations over the last thirty-five years had been for naught. My father stubbornly maintained his position. "But look at the massive influence you had upon my formation," I persisted. "Ah, but look at the utter lack of influence my mother had upon mine," he countered. He had me there. My father and his mother were the original odd couple. And so we digressed, as people do before a mystery that has never been solved, and revisited their relationship.
My father was an only child, born of parents well into their forties. His mother wore the pants in the family. After my father arrived, all of her time and energy and ambition were focused upon him. She had such high hopes for him. She wanted him to be successful; that is, successful as she defined success – She wanted him to be a man of prominence and respectability – complete with a lovely wife, a stately home, a prestigious career, and upward social connections -- a combination, perhaps, of Cary Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Henry Ford.
But my father was not the stuff of her hopes, so very early in his life, the battle lines were drawn. The battle was not violent or vicious. It was more of a standoff. My father had his own center, as some people strangely do, and sensed that her regime was one to be lived out. And so throughout his youth, she proposed, and in one way or another, he disposed. He remained true to his center, despite all the forces she could marshal.
My father did grow to be a successful man. He was a pastor, a professor, a theologian, and an author. But it was not as his mother defined success. He was, in fact, a disappointment to her. Every time she would see him approaching in his corduroy and tweed, his hair after the fashion of Albert Einstein’s, a look of long suffering would come into her eyes.
Even after my father was well into his fifties, when there was no hope for her hopes, she never relinquished the battle. By this time, however, there was little in her arsenal except various adages that offered the proof of her position. "Oh Ron," she’d say, every time she cast her eyes downward, and they lit upon his desert boots, "Don’t you know you can judge a man by the shine on his shoes?" Or when one of her neighbors approached, "Remember, Ron, that a firm handshake makes a firm impression." Or as he pulled up in his beat-up Volkswagen Wagon, "How many times have I told you Ron, that nothing succeeds like the appearance of success."
My father and I in that conversation didn’t solve the mystery as to how he grew to be the man he was free of parental influence, but I did come to understand why he believed there was no rhyme or reason to parenting. As we were ending the conversation he said, "You know, there was one adage of hers I actually took to heart." "Oh, yeah?" I said, "Which one?" "You can judge a man by the company he keeps." I just laughed. I thought he was being ironic or sarcastic or some such.
He knew I had missed his meaning, but my father had a funny way of allowing himself to be misunderstood. He had a funny way of trusting that his words would some day come to be apprehended. I guess it’s not so funny really.
And Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed.” Somehow, for my dad, allowing himself to be misunderstood was an act of faith – faith, I guess, that the truth will eventually out.
And it worked, because just last week I was passing the place where his house once stood, and it summoned memories of the company he kept. First there were the animals. He was an animal rescuer and took on the tough cases. He favored big dogs, better to say enormous dogs, since they were hard to place. Dugan, for instance, his otter hound weighed nearly 200 pounds, and most of that was fur and slobber. And then there were my foster brothers and sisters of all colors, shapes, and sizes. He was always giving the older ones advice and direction for when the system cut them loose. And then there were the war protesters. I grew up during the Vietnam era. My father had been a conscientious objector during the Korean War and was concerned that their protest take legitimate forms. He made one exception in the case of a young man on a hunger strike who took up residence in the basement. My sister and I thought he was a living skeleton. And then there were his students. The house was always full of them, and my father’s conversations with them always seemed urgently important. And then there was his mother. After his father died, he took her in, and she lived with us until she died.
You can judge a man by the company he keeps. I realized as I reminisced that my father wasn’t being ironic or sarcastic. He really took that adage to heart. He thought you could judge a man by the company he kept. He wanted to be judged by the company he kept. And this, it would appear, is because Jesus did.
Think of the company that Jesus kept. First there were his disciples, his closest company. And who were they? Peter and Andrew, James and John were fishermen -- Am ha’aretz, men of the earth – peasant stock, uneducated, ordinary, rough around the edges…. nothing in particular to recommend them. Then there was Levi, a despised tax collector for the Roman Empire. And Judas, a frustrated revolutionary. And Thomas, a skeptic. A rag tag group if you ask me – his closest company.
And we hear in our Gospel Lesson about the first man with whom he kept company after he called his disciples. It was a leper, a carrier of a disease that was infectious and disfiguring, a disease without a cure. This of course, made him an outcast, just as similar diseases do today. But not to Jesus. Jesus cured him, and then to vouchsafe that he would be an outcast no more, recommended him to the established methods by which he could return to his community.
After that it was a man who was paralyzed, another whose condition rendered him an outcast, for not only was he handicapped, it was deemed in those days that his sin made him so. Again, that he might be returned to his community, Jesus cured him with a word of forgiveness.
After that it was a Roman Centurion. The Jews were at that time occupied by the Romans. A Roman Centurion should have been counted his political enemy. After that it was widow who had lost her only son; after that a woman who had earned herself a notorious reputation; after that Mary Magdalene, who was demon possessed; after that a beggar; and after that a group of little children.
Yes, Jesus kept strange company, noticeably strange company, the kind of company that would make you take notice, that would make you rubber neck, even. So I think it’s safe to conclude Jesus wanted to be judged by the company he kept. And so, if he wanted to be judged by the company he kept, what judgment can we make of him for the company he kept? We can make the judgment that everyone mattered to him. Everyone - though he had a special place in his heart for those in need, and the greater the need the more special the place.
And if Jesus wanted to be judged by the company he kept, we should seek to be judged by the company we keep as well. It begs the question, what company do we keep? Does the company we keep reflect that everyone matters to us?
For there is always the risk that it’s more like what is recorded in our Old Testament lesson. In it, Amos takes after the notables…ones…to whom the house of Israel resorts. The notable ones were the upper crust, the elite, the prestigious - to whom the people of faith pandered to keep company. And what did Amos have to say to them? That the people of faith, for their arrogance of class and race and nation, would come to punishment.
How surprised Amos would have been to discover that in the fullness of time Jesus bore that punishment himself, in the hope that he could soften arrogance of the people of faith; in the hope that he could make everyone would matter to us – that God’s people could be one. Amen.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, enslaved the People of Israel. It was not out, as you might assume, out of cruelty. It was, rather, out of judiciousness. The People of Israel were not Egyptians. They were foreigners. They were the rough equivalent of what we today would call the undocumented. So now as then they were deemed to be threats. Add to this that the People of Israel grew increasingly numerous, as numerous even as the Egyptians themselves. This intensified the threat. In those numbers they could simply take over. Or Egypt’s enemies could induce them to fight for them, as a kind of built in fifth column. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had to act. And so he enslaved the People of Israel. It was the judicious thing to do. But his judiciousness was not rewarded. In slavery, unpredictably, their numbers only increased. Pharaoh’s patience with the People of Israel grew thin. Judiciousness then crossed over to cruelty. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder the infant boys as they delivered them. That would thin their ranks. But the Hebrew midwives refused to do so, and with their refusal, civil disobedience was born. They chose to heed God not man. But Pharaoh King of Egypt was not so easily undone. He ordered his army to search out the infant boys and throw them into the Nile. Thereafter, cruelty no doubt took on a life of its own. Pharaoh King of Egypt rightly ranks with the likes of Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. One wonders why it is that so many who rise to power become murderous and maniacal tyrants. The human cost - the suffering and misery and despair and tragedy -- are unimaginable and incalculable. Against this backdrop, a woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a healthy and beautiful infant boy. It would normally be the occasion for celebration and joy, but it was for her the occasion for anguish. When a child is born, a mother’s first instinct is protectiveness. But how could she possibly protect him? She thought desperately at first that she could hide him, and she did so for several months, but that could not go on forever. He could any day be discovered. The lesser of two evils was to abandon him to his fate. So she plastered a reed basket with bitumen and pitch, and she cast her hope upon the water. Low and behold, the daughter of Pharaoh happened upon the basket. She peered into it, beheld the crying infant, and she had compassion. The daughter of Pharaoh has never received the appreciation and respect she deserves. She is, inexplicably, overlooked. What she did was exemplary. Normally when people enslave others, they find justification for it. The enslaved are not deemed the equal of their enslavers. They are deemed subhuman. Slavery, therefore, is a necessity. More than this, it is morally right. That’s what the South advanced in this country, after all. But the daughter of Pharaoh did not fall prey to justification. She had compassion. And she acted upon that compassion. Here is an important reminder. It is not enough to have compassion. To have compassion, or any other altruistic emotion for that matter, does not make you a good person. You must act upon it. If you have compassion and you do not act upon it, that makes you decidedly less than a good person. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And here is something truly astounding. Her act was to adopt him. That was, to say at the least, a courageous thing to do. It certainly would not have put her in good stead with her father. I can just imagine it. “Father, I have a surprise for you. You have a new grandson.” Such an announcement could only have dumbfounded him, but his confusion would have given way to horror as she went on, “I have adopted an infant boy from among your slaves.” If nothing else, we can now set the record straight. We can give Pharaoh’s daughter the appreciation and respect that she deserves. But we can do more than that. As I said, she is exemplary, and so we can follow her example. We can show compassion to those who have cast their hope upon the water. Yes, a mother forced by dire circumstance to give her child up for adoption, hoping that her child will be loved and cherished. But too, one with an atypical identity, hoping to be accepted for who he or she really is. One of a different race, creed, or income level seeking to relocate, hoping not that she will be welcomed, for that would be too high a hope; but hoping she will be at least be tolerated. One who has transgressed, hoping he will be forgiven. One who has something difficult to impart, hoping she will be understood. We can show compassion for those who have cast their hope upon the water. For someone greater, much greater than Pharaoh’s daughter did the same. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, that she may live.” “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Jesus, come before my son dies.” “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers terribly.” “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” They cast their hope on him. And he showed compassion for them all. And when we cast our hope on him, he will show compassion for us -- unlimited even by a cross. Amen.
I attended a funeral recently. It was for my high school math teacher. He was one great guy. Everyone loved him. He taught math at my high school for forty years, and he also coached wrestling. By the time he retired, he had become something of a legend in his own time. The funeral was upbeat, not like so many funerals that are so very sad. He lived a full and long life, and we gathered to celebrate that. But for one man – a classmate of mine who wrestled for him. He was absolutely devastated. I approached him in the parking lot after the funeral and asked if he was okay. He broke down. “That man was everything to me,” he said. “I was O.K. so long as he was in the world.” Then he shared his story. His mother died when he was very young. His father was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. By the time he was in high school, he was far down a bad road. He hadn’t the support to do well at school, so he didn’t. He was very angry, so he was a behavior problem. The only friends he could make were kids like himself, so he hung out with a tough crowd. And he had begun to dabble in drugs. He was pretty much a lost cause at the age of sixteen. Enter my math teacher. He approached him one day out of the blue and told him he could tell by his gait that he was born to wrestle. This could only have been a ruse to intervene. Even I, who knows nothing about wrestling, am suspicious that you can identify one born to wrestle by his gait. At any rate, the ruse worked. He intervened. And he made him into a great wrestler. On top of that, he made him into a great young man. His advice, understanding, and support were unwavering. He helped him to deal with his past in such a way that it didn’t destroy him. He filled his present with new found responsibility, purpose, structure, and discipline. And he paved his way to a future. After graduation he went to college on a wrestling scholarship and eventually became a doctor. “I feel so lost,” he concluded his story. “What am I going to do now?” While he was sharing his story, I could not help but think how hard life can be. We here are generally prosperous and privileged, so we can afford to put up a front. But behind that front life can be hard. Because it’s out there -- loss, abuse, addiction, and a host of other afflictions. It’s enough to make you lose your way. And as I said, we here are generally prosperous and privileged. What if the loss, abuse, and addiction are compounded by poverty or racism? Then it’s all but a foregone conclusion. Your way is lost. Yes, life can be hard. Life takes casualties. Lots of them. It can make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. We want to make things better, but what could we possibly do? The answer is no farther away than my late math teacher. What could we possibly do to make things better? We could reach out, like he did. And what is in view here is not merely a good example, although we must never underestimate the power of a good example and must always strive to be one. But there’s more in view than that. It has to do with the Bible. The Bible may seem like a forbidding book. For one thing it’s thousands of pages long. It makes War and Peace look like a short story. For another thing, it’s unimaginably ancient. The Bible’s story begins 2,000 years before the Common Era. I just read that a sizable portion of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust was. To them that’s ancient history - a mere 75 years back. The Bible is more than 4,000 years back. That’s unimaginably ancient. For yet another thing, it traffics in extremely complicated and sophisticated theology, plumbing in its unfolding the depths of such mysteries as our nature, the predicament that our nature has landed us in, and the means of our redemption. And it does so all the while purging itself of false starts or conclusions. So it may seem forbidding. But at the same time, ironically, the Bible lends itself to succinct summaries. Here’s one: God lives. Here’s another: Good triumphs over evil. And another: Love triumphs over fear. And another: Practice universal justice. And another: Love one another. And here’s one that’s right on point: Reach out. The Bible can be summarized in just two words. Reach out. Think about it. That’s what God did. God reached out. God reached out to Abraham and told him that from him would one day issue a nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that would somehow bless all the nations by bestowing upon them redemption. God reached out to Moses and bequeathed him an ethical law so that God’s people could bear his righteousness. God reached out to David and told him that from his descendants would emerge one who would embody that redemption. And that one in the fullness of time emerged. God reach out to his son. He told him that if he would make a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, it would be the means for all people to reach out to one another. In a real way. A way that advanced God’s own being and cause. And his son made that sacrifice. And in his brief ministry that preceded that sacrifice, he reached out to everyone. And I mean everyone. Lepers. Prostitutes. Beggars. Even a bitter little man perched up in a sycamore tree. So reaching out is not just a good example. It is nothing less the mechanism that God that employs to bestow redemption. Yes, life can be hard. Paul knew this. “We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” But Paul goes on. “So we must make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” And this means reaching out. “I feel so lost now. What am I going to do?” asked my grieving classmate. I told him that his coach had already showed him what to do. I told him to reach out. Amen.
Jesus was always one to bring the party. All he had to do was show up, and lots of others showed up too -- eager for engagement, eager for excitement, eager for something new. It was little wonder. Here at last was someone who had something to say. Something different. Something provocative. Something truthful. Jesus had a way of uttering truths that had never been uttered before, but at the same time, were strangely recognizable. And it was happening once again. Once again, Jesus had brought the party. He showed up at the house of Mary and Martha, and suddenly the place was filled with men who immediately took their place at his feet. This gesture was an indicator that they were ready and willing disciples. They wanted him to teach them. And so he began to teach. That was Martha’s cue. She sprang into action. After Jesus’ teaching, it would be fellowship hour, and as we all know, fellowship hour is predicated upon food. And in ancient times, you couldn’t rely on your reserves from Costco. Feeding a room full of men was labor intensive. Animals had to be slaughtered and dressed. Bread had to be baked. Water had to hauled. Martha went directly to work, expecting Mary to fall in place behind her. But what did Mary do? She went and sat at Jesus’ feet with the men -- shirking her role, defying expectations, and leaving Martha to shoulder the burden alone. I can imagine Martha’s frustration. I can imagine her passive aggressive attempts to get Mary back in the kitchen. Staring daggers at her from the threshold. Uttering loud sighs as indicators of her strain. Dropping pottery on the floor to startle Mary to awareness. But Mary took no notice. None whatsoever. Martha should have counted to ten. How much strife could be averted if we could all just remember to count to ten, or perhaps twenty. Martha for her part shot like a rocket from outrage to outburst. “I’m doing all the work in here Jesus, while Mary has yet to raise a finger. It’s hardly fair. And have you even noticed? Do you even care?” And there was doubtless more to it than the fact that Martha had to provide all the hospitality on her own. There too was the fact of what Mary was doing. She not day dreaming or singing idly out the window. She was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She was in there with the men. Martha was doubtless chagrined and embarrassed that Mary did not know her place. It certainly did not reflect well on the family. But Jesus did not vindicate Martha. Jesus chastised her, “Martha, Martha,” (and when someone says your name twice, wait for some kind of a correction to follow) “Why are you so distracted and stressed and scattered? Let it go. Mary’s right where she should be.” We’re left to wonder how Martha felt at that point. I bet she wasn’t happy. She simply didn’t get it or she would not have reacted that way in the first place. Now normally this text is interpreted as a caution against busyness. Martha with all her busyness is a prototype that we should avoid. Not that productivity is a bad thing. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all. But there’s a certain kind of busyness that’s not good. It’s when we become enmeshed with worldly or personal concerns and address them with obsessive application – application that mixes with pride, competition, insecurity. It becomes a kind of self-perpetuating force. And it causes us to lose all perspective. It causes us to become disoriented. We forget that we’re supposed to be at Jesus’ feet – his disciples, listening to him. And this is a fair enough interpretation, but I think there’s something else here. An elephant in the living room. Mary was right where she should be. She was at Jesus’ feet, his disciple, listening to him. But Mary was, obviously, a woman. Women did not seat themselves at the feet of rabbis. Women were not disciples. All they needed to know was taught to them by their mothers. Women did not sit side by side with men learning. It was unheard of. It was forbidden. And yet Jesus told Martha that Mary was right where she should be. Her place was with the men. Really Jesus? A woman’s place is with the men? Really Jesus? In first century Judaism? Jesus was a revolutionary and a radical, and don’t ever forget it. All down through history and even to this day there has an unspoken and inviolable code. It could be expressed as a variant of a line from the wedding ceremony. What society has divided, let no one unite. And Jesus was saying the polar opposite. A women’s place is with the men. Think about what this means by extension. Women, your place is with the men. Men, your place is with the women. Whites, your place is with blacks. Blacks your place is with whites. The wealthy, your place is with the poor, and the poor, your place is with the wealthy. The powerful, your place is with the powerless. The powerless, your place is with the powerful. The old, your place is with the young. The young, your place is with the old. Jesus was smashing down all dividing walls. His disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated. This is simply too radical, simply too revolutionary. But that’s who Jesus was. This is why he brought the party. It’s because he spoke God’s truth. Disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated, and this in service to humankind that is to be completely and utterly integrated. That all should be one. But this is so radical and revolutionary that it is very seldom approximated. It’s too hard. But is it really? Is it really that hard to forge the way? Is it really that hard to reach out? Is it really that hard to cross the aisle? To be vulnerable? To be risky? To be open? To be accepting? To be understanding? One thing’s for sure. It’s a lot easier than hanging on a cross in faith it could be so. Amen.
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