Getting the word out.
Blog Layout
The Human Family
Ruth 1:15-18 John 19:23-27
When the tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004 it devastated more than just the human family. The animal kingdom was devastated as well. One story that came out of that devastation is particularly remarkable; and it holds, I think, a lesson for the human family.
Flooding from the tsunami washed a family of hippos down a river and carried them out to sea. There was little hope that they would survive and little that could be done for them. Rescue teams were meager and had to be deployed to help people. And indeed, the hippos perished, all except for a baby who was found the next day stranded on a coral reef. The sight was so heart wrenching that the rescue teams left off helping people to save him. He was named Owen for the man who was able to wrestle a net over him. Physically, Owen was fine. Emotionally, he was a wreck. He was described by the rescue team as traumatized and terrified. Since he could not survive in the wild, he was brought to an animal sanctuary.
There, Owen immediately rushed up to a giant tortoise named Mzee, and the rest, as they say, was history. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Mzee had no prior experience as mother, especially considering the fact that Mzee was a male. And Mzee was no spring chicken. He was approaching the 150 year mark. But despite his inexperience and his age, Mzee took to motherhood right away. The two slept side by side that night, and the next morning Mzee shared his breakfast with Owen then led him to the water for a morning swim.
Within a week, they two were inseparable. Owen clearly adored his new mother. He was often seen licking Mzee’s face as they passed the time snuggling. And if anyone got too close to Mzee, Owen stood guard ready to defend him. Maybe he felt that he’d already lost one mother, and he wasn’t about to lose another.
When, a few months later, another hippo was introduced to familiarize Owen with his own kind, Owen was polite, but indifferent. By this time Owen and Mzee had developed their own way of communicating. They found a sound they could both make – a sort of hiss – and they used it to call to each other or attract each other’s attention. Baby hippos stay with mothers for several years. Clearly they had both settled in for the long haul.
As I said, there’s a lesson in all this for the human family. I suppose, in fact, there are several lessons. There is a lesson about resiliency in the wake of catastrophe. There is a lesson about hope when all is lost. But the main lesson, for me at least, is a lesson about family. You can’t deny that Mzee and Owen were an atypical family, but neither can you deny that they were a family. They found each other in life - in this life, not storybook life, but life that is riddled by disasters, natural and otherwise. They found each other in life, and they created a family.
They did, after all, just what family members do, or at least are supposed to do – they nurtured each other, they supported each other; they depended upon each other; they protected each other, they learned from each other. And dare I say it? They loved each other. Yes, they were an atypical family, but precisely therein lies the lesson about family. The lesson is that a family need not be typical. It need not be comprised of the typical members. What creates a family is the relationship between its members, no matter how atypical those members may be. Go tell Owen that Mzee is not his mother. I dare you.
There are members of the human family, however, who would not be quick and eager to internalize this lesson, and a good many of those members happen to be church goers. This is because the church, by and large, has not smiled upon these atypical families. You could even state it more strongly and say that the church, by and large, has refused to countenance them. It believes that they fall somewhere on the sin spectrum and therefore undermine the church and larger society.
And of course. it enlists the Bible as support. Adam and Eve are chiefly called up. Adam and Eve - a typical family: a husband, a wife, and two sons. If the Bible supported atypical families, it concludes, there’d be no Adam and Eve. There’d be some kind of atypical family instead.
But maybe we need to squint at the Bible a bit harder. Is it really appropriate to call up Adam and Eve as support for the typical family? Eve, after all, occasioned nothing less than the fall of humankind, and their sons didn’t get along as well as brothers should. One, recall, murdered the other. Does the Bible really offer Adam and Eve as support for the typical family, or does it offer them as evidence of our self-imposed alienation from God and the violent havoc it wreaks within human relationships?
And while I’m at it, could it possibly be that the Bible’s import is to support the typical family over against the atypical family? Such relatively small potatoes as those? The most influential book in human history? A book that has served more to inspire humankind and advance human culture than any other? A book that proclaims the redemption of all the cosmos through the same word that created it? A book that is so profound and mysterious, so utterly great, that we can only but sense that it must point back to God?
And in fact, if we do keep squinting at the Bible, if we are allowed to look past Adam and Eve - who are presumably standing guard at its portal frowning upon the atypical family - we discover that the Bible in fact offers the very lesson that Mzee and Owen offer – that what creates a family is not typical members, but the relationship between its members. In fact, the Bible even goes so far as to offer that atypical families may have a thing or two to each typical families about the ways of God.
Consider our Old Testament lesson. It doesn’t seem at superficial reading to be as scandalous as it really is. What is not superficially evident is that Naomi was an Israelite, and Ruth was a Moabite. Israelites considered Moabites, stated bluntly, to be scum. It was only out of exigency that Naomi found herself with a Moabite daughter in law.
Naomi, her husband, and her two sons (a typical family) were forced to take refuge in Moab during a famine. The famine was so protracted that the sons had to marry Moabite women or not marry at all. So they did, but in short order Naomi’s husband and two sons died, leaving Naomi with Moabite daughters in law. When the famine ended and it became possible for Naomi to return it Israel, it wasn’t even on Naomi’s radar that she and her Moabite daughters in law should stay together. Moabites were scorned and despised by the Israelites. So Naomi told them that it was time for each to return where they had come from.
But Ruth wept, and begged, and clung to her. Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go…your people shall be my people, and your God my God… Naomi, after all, was the only mother Ruth had. And she loved her. And when Ruth returned with Naomi to Israel, she was such an exemplary daughter in law that the prejudice of the Israelites was overcome. The Israelites concluded, even, that Ruth was the agent of God’s blessing to Naomi. But what an atypical family. Two women, and of enemy peoples.
And consider our gospel lesson. In it, Jesus himself creates an atypical family. As he hung from his cross dying he looked down upon grieving Mary, and did the best he could do for her. He called down to the John, “Here is your mother.” And John thereafter took her into his home. But this, if you think about it, is surpassing strange in light of the fact that Mary had a large brood of her own children. Why did Jesus entrust his mother to John?
It can only be that at the time of Jesus’ death, his brothers and sisters had renounced him, took him be insane or demon possessed. They didn’t understand who he was or what he had come to do. But John did. John understood. Jesus knew that for this reason he would be a better “son” to Mary than his own brothers and sisters. Had he not taught, Whoever does with will of God is my true brother or sister?
And in truth it should come as no surprise that Jesus did just this. It is presaged all over his teaching that Jesus prized atypical relationships. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…If you love only those who love you, what reward is that?...If you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?...That which you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do unto me.
When it comes right down to it, about Jesus Christ there was nothing typical whatsoever. I’d name him to be the most atypical man who ever lived. He set out to throw his life away for the sake of God’s love and his love. Hardly typical.
Though, admittedly, the contest of biblical interpretation is impossible to win. In other pulpits a message opposite to mine is doubtless being preached this hour. So what how are we to conclude the contest of biblical interpretation?
I’d say an interpretation wins if it really causes us to think, really troubles our facile, conventional assumptions and self-interest; I’d say it wins if it brings those in the margins into the center; I’d say it wins if it takes cause with those who have fallen victim to stigmas and stereotypes; I’d say it wins if it defends the vulnerable, if it treats all people, and I mean ALL people, according to their God given dignity; I’d say it wins if it trusts other people to make their own decisions about how to live their lives, if it is sparing in judgment, if it affirms that fear may indeed be overcome with love.
Or maybe the contest of biblical interpretation is simply won by Owen and Mzee, when God gives us to see in them their Creator’s love. 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.
Subscribe to be the first to know.
Contact Us
Social
Created by Olive + Ash.
Managed by Olive Street Design. 