|
THE SERMON
I AM PREACHING today on the lesson from 2nd Corinthians. Paul actually wrote somewhere between four and five times to the Church in Corinth, because they proved to be a difficult community. They fought; some of them engaged in incest, it was not the kind of church modern day people would want to belong to, and Paul had a hard time working with them.
Remember that Corinth is not in Palestine; it’s in Greece. It’s on a narrow isthmus between two Greek ports, and as such it was predominantly non-Jewish in population. Corinth was a crossroads for commerce, communication, and the arts.
So not having the ethical and moral foundations of the Hebrew culture to draw from, Paul is having to accomplish several goals when writing to them. He’s trying to cast a moral and spiritual vision of life that was at odds with their cosmopolitan surroundings. He is trying to defend his apostolic authority, because there were false teachers who had tried to discredit him. And while he is trying to “win them back” to his own authority, he is also trying not to grovel for their approval.
The hardest task of all, however, is that Paul is trying to assert his authority as their spiritual father, while also trying like crazy to keep from forming a cult of personality around him! Talk about threading a needle!
He’s got to win them over, but without making them think he is trying to be their Lord and Master. Paul doesn’t want to be their Lord and Master. He wants their hearts to belong to Jesus Christ and to know in their bones, as Paul does, that Christ has, through his death and resurrection, reached into human life and pulled us into a new life of grace and virtue.
The whole of Christ Jesus’ teaching, saving death and resurrection altogether offer them—equally—a happiness and a spiritual contentment that no other religion or philosophy had been able to offer.
And it gave something absolutely revolutionary in its time that continues to be a counter-cultural value, even in the United States: equality. That we are equal in the eyes of God, and should be equal in the eyes of our fellow humans.
In these first century Greco-Roman cultures, the norm was inequality in every conceivable arena. You knew your place in life because of who was above you and who, if any, were beneath.
It was an honor to be a servant, because it meant you had value, but the price of that value was to be less than, not equal to your master.
Jesus behaved in an altogether different way. He taught that the sick were not sick because of their lack of value or sin, but because they needed help. He honored women, and saw their value beyond their ability to produce children, or serve men.
He broke purity codes in holy scripture in order to raise up those who had been cast away from society: lepers, Samaritans, Syrophoenicians, tax collectors, prostitutes, anyone who had been cast aside by the Jewish people.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus went to Tyre and Sidon, beach towns in the northwest of Palestine: Phoenicia then, Lebanon today. What the Gospels don’t spell out is that Galilee was the bread basket of Palestine. It’s where the crops were grown.
So there was this interesting economic dynamic between Galilee and Phoenicia in which Galilee needed to sell their crops to make money, but they didn’t like that their crops were being purchased by non-Jews.
So Jesus grew up in a culture that understood that God has people everywhere, and we all need each other to survive. And even if we don’t want to be in relationship with Phoenicia, we all need to eat.
Jesus knew that we all needed to eat. And we all need to be loved, and that the world does not just run on prayers and grinning.
So he fed people. All people. And he enshrined that value as one of the last things he did. He said, I want you to eat together to remember me. And I want you all to eat together. Even though you aren’t all from the same family. Even though some of you are fisherman, some are tax collectors, some are farmers. Even if one of you is ultimately going to betray me. I want you to eat together and remember that we all are equal in the eyes of God. We all have to eat, and we all need each other. Life is hard. But if you are able to love God and love each other, it won’t be as hard.
And the community of disciples took the bread and wine, and empowered with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the community grew.
At every conceivable opportunity that the Church encountered people who just a little bit different, the devil said, “You can’t let them eat.” Why? “Well, they’re not like us.” Why? “Well, they’re different. Look at them. Different background, different skin, different manners, different politics, different customs…And then look at how they live!”
Yeah, but we’re not perfect!
“Yeah, but not like them.”
…But Jesus wanted us all to eat together and be friends…?
Do you know what had to happen? Every time the church had to struggle with this, and every time it took some courageous people to say, “But I’m proud of them. They are my friends. They get hungry like I do; they need to be loved like I need to be loved. And didn’t Jesus always break through the barriers?”
“I’m proud of them. Because they are who they are. Because they can’t change who they are, or be inauthentic to who they are. But why would we even want them to change?
The flowers grow and we don’t complain when they bloom orange instead of yellow. The tree grows fifty feet in the air and we accept that it was never going to stop at only ten.
I’m proud of them. I’m proud of their courage to be true to who they are, because I know that deep down there is the wildness of nature in me, too. There are passions and wants and interests that I can’t fully understand, and I would hope that if anyone were to find out what they were, that they’d still be proud to be my friend.”
We aren’t celebrating Pride in ourselves, here. We’re protecting our friends by being proud of them, and by trying to erase the distinction between us and them so that one day they don’t have to worry about whether or not they belong—whether or not they will get to eat with us, and drink with us, and be loved for who they are, and have same rights and opportunities.
And most importantly, we want all people to live without fear.
We don’t know what that fear is like, those of us who are white and straight. We just don’t. We don’t have any idea what it’s like to walk around wondering if a slur is going to be made, or someone might get violent.
Women know something of this fear—when a man stares at them, or follows them, or says something inappropriate. Many women do not know what it’s like to walk down almost any street at almost any time of the day without fear. Or go somewhere alone.
We are celebrating Pride because that strong righteous man of Galilee had the audacity to be proud of shepherds, and fisherman, and tax collectors, and prostitutes, and lepers.
And is so, so proud of you and me, even though we make mistakes, and stumble, and screw up relationships, and can be cranky and selfish and egotistical. Even though we think thoughts we are not proud of.
So don’t let the devil tell you that the flowers shouldn’t bloom, that the clouds shouldn’t rain, that tree should have only been 10 feet tall.
Don’t let the devil tell you that the bread and wine is only for us, that the church is only for us.
Because the devil can’t decide who your friends have to be, or who the church can’t accept.
And because we can take Pride in all of them.
| 
