Crocus Bloom
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In this season of get-togethers and parties, I’d like to share an excerpt of a sermon my pastor preached not long ago in a series on Hospitality. Hospitality as resistance! (There’s more of the series found here.) These comments are fitting with some of our recent conversations here.
…The Pharisees, as you may or may not remember, were one of the renewal movements of Jesus’ day. They were attempting, in a time of Roman occupation, to keep their identity as a people intact by being “holy, as God is holy,” to keep themselves separate from everyone else.
Do you remember what I said about how after the exile, some of the Jews were trying to become pure again, to regain their identity as God’s chosen people, by divorcing their foreign wives? Well, now hundreds of years later, the Pharisees are essentially doing the same thing. They are scared that they are going to be assimilated into the Roman culture, scared that they are going to disappear. How do you fight that? You stay separate from everybody else. Kind of like some of our fundamentalist Christian sisters and brothers today.
And so practically, what that meant for the Pharisees (and for some of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters) was that their major focus had to do with the laws regarding purity. The Pharisees didn’t have the police power to enforce these rules about purity, but what they did have was the power to ostracize. If you didn’t conform to the purity rules, then you would lose your civil and religious rights… You would lose your place as a child of Abraham in the life to come (once again, similar to Christian fundamentalists, who say that if you don’t follow a certain set of rules, you’ll go to hell).
And the major tool that the Pharisees used to ostracize people was to refuse table fellowship. To share a meal with a person was an expression of acceptance; to refuse to share a meal symbolized disapproval and rejection. And so, of course, the Pharisees would not share a meal with the non-observant, or the unclean. It was their way of keeping everybody and everything in its place, including the economic structures.
By the way, when the Pharisees here say that Jesus is eating with sinners, they’re referring, not to people who have individually sinned, which is how we often use the word, but to people, who because of their status in life, because of their occupation, or because of physical differences, or because of their poverty were deemed sinners.
And so after the Pharisees criticize Jesus, saying, Why is your Teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus responds by saying, It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: “I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,” for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
Jesus confronts the Pharisees with the fact that for all of the talk that they’re doing about making the people of Israel into a holy people, a kingdom of priests, the only ones they’re interested in are the ones who are already holy, already righteous, already paying their dues.
Jesus, on the other hand, is going after the riffraff, the sinners. Jesus is building a radical new society made up of all of God’s people, and he, of course, interprets who God’s people are in a totally different way. Jesus is painting a picture of what Israel was to be, an inclusive community reflecting God’s compassion, a table of hospitality, where everyone is welcome.
27 comments:
This is a wonderful sermon Dan. I'll read the rest of the series when I have more time. But I do have to say honestly, that for me, the sermon would have worked a lot better if the little digs against "our christian fundamentalist brothers and sisters" weren't in there. Your pastor made her point, she didn't need to do that.
Fair enough, point noted.
From my point of view, many of us at Jeff Street have come from that background. This is not a dig at pharisees or fundamentalists so much as a reminder to all of us to acknowledge the desire to keep separate and yet remain in our popular context. To be "in the world but not of it," to wax biblical.
If this is what you believe, you have a poor grasp of Christian fundamentalism. It's easy find zealots... in any religion. But while Christianity is NOT a religion, in the classical sense, many so-called fundamentalists make it one, as do many progressives.
It's really cute how you equate pharisees with Christian fundamentalists while being-- seemingly ... Nope, not going to go there... but neither will I backspace...
I don't take umbrage at being called a fundamentalist Christian. Anyone with an ability to read and understand, having read the Gospels, would see that Jesus' "Way" is strict and difficult in light of man's propensity for self-determination... otherwise known as "sin". Man wants what he wants, when he wants it, but Jesus expects us to want what HE wants; in all things, at all times. A difficult road to be sure, but that's not to say there isn't freedom in the path He would have us walk.
Still, you'd do far better attacking the specific issues wherein Christian fundamentalists have erred, rather than Christian fundamentalists in toto. For if your point here is to compare Christian Fundamentalism with the Pharisees of Jesus' day, it is you who is now in error.
Still, I don't disagree entirely with the spirit of your post...
Just wanted to make that clear.
Eric said:
"you'd do far better attacking the specific issues wherein Christian fundamentalists have erred, rather than Christian fundamentalists in toto."
I'll point to the sermon, which said:
"what that meant for the Pharisees (and for some of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters) was that their major focus had to do with the laws regarding purity..."
This IS a problem with fundamentalism, with which we are intimately familiar first hand at our church - both having come from it ourselves and having been on the "receiving end" of this sort of fundamentalism.
This is not a problem with all who'd identify themselves as fundamentalists, but it is a problem that seems fairly endemic to fundamentalism. And it is understandable, to a degree.
We DO need to be in this world but not of it. We DO need to be holy, set apart, unique.
What I get from this sermon is that the pharisees tended to - the fundamentalists tend to - set themselves apart largely by their notion of sexual purity. The sermon's point would be that the more biblically consistent way to set ourselves apart is by our work for justice and love.
To the degree that those who'd identify as fundamentalists agree that the way to set ourselves apart is by our love, we're in agreement. To the degree that the primary markers of Christianity are that we aren't gay and don't dance, I tend to think they've missed the gist of the Gospel.
What Cindy doesn't address in this sermon is how we keep from being conformed to the world's ungodly values (e.g., materialism, militarism, etc.) WITHOUT this kind of obsession with purity/separation. I'm not saying she's wrong. This is how I read Jesus' conflict with the Pharisees and her application is a good one. Elsewhere, she has preached on our need not to be conformed.
What hasn't been addressed is how we do BOTH at the same time: show unconditional hospitality and be a distinct and different community. Our Anabaptist ancestors also wrestled with this--and not always successfully. They sometimes applied the ban and shunning in very harsh and judgmental ways. But pure openess allows the world to set the church's agenda--as with all the Christians who want to be just as rich and violent as others.
We have yet to find guidance on how to be universally welcoming while being distinct.
I always find the story of Sodom and Gomorrah interesting in this respect. Many Christians today think that those cities were destroyed for homosexuality, when in fact the Bible specifically says they were "arrogant, overfed and unconcerned" and that "they did not help the poor and needy." (Yes, Jude mentions that they were going after "strange flesh," too, but that doesn't necessarily mean homosexual behavior). Jewish tradition has held that the cities were destroyed for their lack of hospitality. Perhaps the next time a major U.S. city gets slammed by a hurricane, we can blame American greed and lack of hospitality, instead of gay people and sexual sins.
Was New Orleans "slammed" because of greed and a lack of hospitality? Or was it plain good old fashioned sin?
Actually, New Orleans was just located in a site that has regular hurricane patterns and that means occasionally it will be hit by a hurricane. That so many people were damaged and killed by it is a great sad fact of life.
We die. Whether it be by hurricane, tornado, driving too fast or just plain old age, we pass on, are mourned and become a part of the great circle of life.
It's how the game works.
In the meantime, being gracious and hospitable is a preferred way to live - by biblical standards as well as just humane standards. Being ungracious and inhospitable doubtlessly has horrible effects, but hurricanes can hardly be part of them and WJ is well aware of this.
He was just making a point and made it quite astutely, seems to me.
"Actually, New Orleans was just located in a site that has regular hurricane patterns and that means occasionally it will be hit by a hurricane...it is a great sad fact of life."
Actually, Dan, you are wrong.
There were many prophecies given by many prophets beforehand concerning a calamity about to hit New Orleans. And it was because of the city's sin.
Right.
Larry, forgive me but that is bullshit.
You want a prophecy? How's this:
God does not use storms to kill and harm innocent people. But yea, verily, shall God's divine wrath fall upon those religious charlatans who use natural phenomena to try to instill a fear of a wrathful God in the hearts of people.
Amen and amen.
Sin has consequences. Indeed, it has been suggested with some scientific backing that there is a possibility that storms such as Katrina our related to our sinful pollution. The devastation that happened may have been due to our sinful neglect of people or our sinful hubris in building a city in a flood plain.
But God did not order up this storm or its consequences.
Dan,
Of course, you are forgiven for your crude remark.
The Elijah List (www.elijahlist.com) has reported many prophetic words concerning Katrina. Check the words out.
God is a God of Love. Not cheap parlor tricks.
There's a second prophecy for you.
I was curious and checked out the elijahlist.
Sheesh.
Was some dope selling his wares to suckers.
I hesitate to feed lunacy, but it might be instructional and it fits with the topic of the post, I'm guessing, so...
Larry, which sins of New Orleans do the prophets of old say caused God to send a hurricane?
2 Peter 3:1-9
Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God, the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
(Note - all should come to repentance. No repentance - judgment.)
Interesting read, this, so far. In spite of concern that the 'prophecy' thing is getting off topic for the post, let me none the less opine that it's easy to witness current events and then artlessly paste some ill fitting Biblical prophecy on it after the fact. It's happened through out the history since OT times (which began in the sixth century BCE).
Everyone for the past twenty-six centuries has said that the prophecies of the Bible were talking about events in their own day.
God doesn't use storms to kill people, right. But there is a karmic factor: sew the wind, reap the whirlwind (in this case, literally). New Orleans was devastated by Katrina because it kept filling in its wetlands--designed by nature to act as stormsurge protection. Half the city was literally below sea-level long before Katrina hit. It isn't nice to mess with Mother Nature.
Add to these sins against the environment, the structural sins of racism and classism which made New Orleans one of the poorest cities in the nation--and one with one of the largest gaps between rich and poor. Then look at who got out and who didn't. The harm done by natural forces was compounded by the harm done by humans--systemically and then in response--and those sins are still going on.
The greed and lack of hospitality of the rich (and the way most of us who are white desperately want to pretend racism no longer exists) combined to "slam" New Orleans. Our poor attention rates are continuing things. This isn't "incompetent" government, but the result of policies designed to make people expect nothing good of government--and reduce the function of government to fighting wars and making the world safe for the rich few at the expense of everyone else.
Everyone for the past twenty-six centuries has said that the prophecies of the Bible were talking about events in their own day.>
There have been times of repentance also and after repentance, things would improve and continue on but that does not mean that there is not a day coming when judgment will occur. When that day is, no one knows but the Bible does tell us that there are signs of the time that we can see and that is enough to cause us to want to put our houses in order.
There were also prophets in the OT that gave the "good" messages that people wanted to hear and they were not of God. God is good, full of love and righteousness, but He is also a God of judgment against sin and rebellion.
Just to be clear, I have no problem with prophets. I just have little use for the penny ante fortune tellers who pass themselves off as prophets.
Just to further clarify, "prophet" as it is mainly used in the Bible is not some soothsayer, but a person who speaks truth - sometimes a damning truth. And the truth they spoke nearly always was a condemnation of the rich, powerful, oppressive and their systems.
That's an essential point, Dan. The literal meaning of the loan word 'prophesy' is 'speak out'. When the Bible talks about someone seeing the future, they are called a 'seer' and it is very rare.
Thanks for the Amen, there, brother E.
So, a modern prophet may "speak about the future," but it would be closer to those who propesied against waging a war against Iraq, saying "Lo, this will only lead to a decrease in security and an increase in terrorism" or those who say, "Yea, verily, if we keep overconsuming oil and create a economic system dependent upon it, the market will suffer a horrible crash - and soon! And there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth."
But such "foretelling of the future" is not in the spooky Seer mode, but rather in the plain speaking of truth and straightforward interpretation of the facts at hand mode.
So, too, in the Bible, as a rule.
THIS is prophecy. Not, "You're holding the Ten of Spades! and also, a hurricane will descend upon New Orleans because you behave naughtily during Mardi Gras..."
Man, I was readin' along, munchin' on an egg-and-cheese biscuit from McDonalds, and WHAM: There's that God-whacked-New Orleans malarkey!
I got ocular whiplash.
Oh, and an egg-and-cheese-and-biscuit spit take is gross.
Oh, and an egg-and-cheese-and-biscuit spit take is gross.
"plain speaking of truth and straightforward interpretation of the facts at hand mode."
Is this then your take on Isaiah 7:14?
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