What Are We To Do For The Next Generation To Balance Self Interest With Justice?
Good Morning Friends,
During Advent, we contemplated the life of John the Baptist and his incarceration. And then after Christmas we looked at an encouraging letter from Paul, he wrote to the Thessalonians. And the reality that Paul spent a lot of time in jail for the cause of the faith comes to mind on this Martin Luther King Day. And so, this morning I listened to U2’s Pride- In the Name Of Love, and I decided to read again a letter from Dr. Martin Luther King written, to the church, while he was in a Birmingham jail in 1963 and a letter from Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote to his parents from inside of a jail cell in Germany in 1943. And I must admit that Dr. King, the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist and Dietrich Bonhoeffer have some complementary themes with U2’s song and today’s scripture. And so, looking at today’s lectionary selection from Hebrews I am amazed that Christ as a priest would gently deal with the issue of our weakness to perfect us. And in the Gospel of Mark I am intrigued as to how Jesus sandwiches in two parables about the trial of social change that relates to today’s question. What Are We To Do For The Next Generation To Balance Self Interest With Justice?
Scripture: Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 5:1-10 (NRSV)
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
Mark 2:18-22 (NRSV)
Message: The thing is that we are uncomfortable with transparency when it comes to self-interest and the issue of justice. We lament our addictions and weaknesses but too often suppress them instead of use them to form us for a purpose for the Kingdom. You see, Jesus never desired pain and suffering or the cross but knew and followed the will of the Father for our salvation anyway. We are to learn from Christ’s obedience to love with greater risk. We are to learn about the challenge and cost of social change. So today we look at the problem that happens when people in the name of religion developed practices and certain rituals they expected everyone else to follow so that they might control others. We see it in the behavior of the Pharisees confronting Jesus for not fasting and in the atrocities of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis, and perhaps even in the excessive crime rates and lack of voting rights for incarcerated minorities in our own nation, though Florida has made some progress on this issue. As a teaching tool in response to this overall challenge of social change Jesus presents two parables, which are similar, that make the same point. The first one, about the fabric of society, says you do not put a new patch on an old garment, and the second says you do not put new wine into an old wineskin. In the first parable, if you put a new patch on an old garment, when the new patch shrinks due to washing, it will tear away from the older garment, making the tear worse. Similarly, new wine needs a new wineskin because as the new wine expands during the fermentation process, it stretches the wineskin. An old wineskin will burst under the pressure of new wine. These two parables illustrate the fact that we cannot mix old religious rituals with new faith in Jesus. Jesus’ disciples were not fasting along with the Pharisees and John’s disciples because they were now under the new covenant of grace and faith in Christ. Now there are things related to this that a prisoner might understand better than other people. John the Baptist, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul, Martin Luther King and Jesus posed a serious threat to the establishment. In calling for those in power to repent they all are saying that peace predicated upon tyranny and maintained by terror is not peace but sin. Therefore, we cannot just sit back and wait on the Prince of Peace to return. We cannot just submit ourselves to the logic of a sin, sick society. We cannot declare that we are preparing the way of the Lord, while accepting the status quo. And as we make our way through this post Advent season, on this Martin Luther King Day, I believe we must seek a message for our nation—a nation that might well be unraveling at the thinly stitched seams of law and justice on the divided patched cloth of the rich and the poor. So, let us not put our heads in the sand. The natural consequence of ingrained behavioral patterns that are passed down from one generation to the next, poses a threat to our faith. Sorrow for what has happened is not enough. We must take personal responsibility where we can. Fear and self-protection are not the right motivators to be forgiven. Penance does not work. True repentance and lasting change is a gift from God that requires more than a little mercy and a lot more love than we typically share.
Pray we are set free to love. Pray we awaken from our false sense of comfort and prepare the way for the one who seeks to deliver from captivity. Pray we acknowledge that something has gone awry, and we have a responsibility to confront it by embracing a new way. Pray we choose not to live within the myth that there is always a direct correlation between a person’s social class and their personal character. Pray we find peace, but not a peace predicated upon tyranny and terrorizing others. Pray we not wait to love. Pray we not wait to extend God’s grace. Pray we not wait to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before God. Pray we not wait to repent and prepare the way for the one who has and will give us perfect peace. Pray we not deceive ourselves about the challenge of our society’s addictions. Pray we are honest and transparent in our expression of feelings of pain and suffering and sorrow. Pray our feeling of pain and suffering can help us to know Christ. Pray we submit to a higher calling. Pray despite the pain and suffering in our lives we never feel that God is distant and never wonder if our prayers are heard. Pray that when we suffer we immediately turn to prayer. Pray we realize that there is no escaping the presence and awareness of God if we choose to love beyond identity politics. Pray we pass on to the next generation an intimate life-giving relationship with God. Pray we genuinely love one another in a way that cannot be contained.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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