Rev. Jane Acuff
September 02, 2007
Christ Covenant MCC
Decatur, GA 30030

Luke 14:1, 7-14.

An attitude of radical inclusiveness could end suffering in our world! Black and White thinking gets in the way of our being inclusive.

Good Morning

I grew up in the 60s and 70s. My country was at war with Vietnam but our bigger enemy was the communists and the biggest communists were the people of the USSR!

They were the enemy. They were evil. They wanted to kill us and take our homes. My parents, my church and my schools told me this. I believed them. I joined the military, partially because I wanted to do my part to protect my family, friends and country from the communists, the Russians!

Something happened in the mid 80s that put a clearer lens on my worldview, that something was named Yakov Smirnoff. You may remember him, he was, and still is, a comedian and a very good one. He put a human face on Communists and Russians. I found it increasingly difficult to hate and fear and take up arms against Yakov Smirnoff. It was easier to fear and hate millions of nameless and faceless Communists than a real live, breathing human being.

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus is at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. The word Pharisee is closely related to the word separate and Pharisees separated themselves from anyone and everyone that was unclean according to the Law of Moses. They did this as an act of faith toward God, lest any of us judge them too harshly. It was the common understanding in their denomination that certain human beings were not as acceptable to God as others. These included non-Jews and any Jew who was disabled mentally or physically. Jewish women were either clean or unclean depending on their menstrual cycle but they were never clean enough to be allowed into the Temple nor were they allowed to teach a man or to study Torah publicly. The Pharisees saw no issue with their attitude; they believed they were obeying God by obeying God’s Law.

Last week we heard about Jesus healing a woman on the Sabbath, a practice that some religious leaders thought broke the Sabbath Law to do no work. Now we hear Jesus doing what theologians love to do most, talk about God and the scriptures. Picture them all reclined around a low table with food and beverages sitting about. This is a group of Jewish men who are educated and pious. When they talk, people listen. It was a spiritual practice to talk about the Scriptures and debate how to best follow them. The Hebrew word for this practice is MIDRASH. Jesus is participating in this when he talks about not taking a place of honor at a banquet. Jesus is midrash-ing or expounding upon, Proverbs 25 which says: Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; 
for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’, than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

This conversation was typical for this type of gathering of learned Jewish men. They were probably relieved that Jesus was behaving himself and acting just like one of them, and that he was interpreting the scriptures in an acceptable, traditional and non-radical way.

But listen to what comes next, it is the Jesus twist. You know about the Jesus twist, the first shall be last, turn the other cheek, if someone asks for your shirt, give them your jacket also…Jesus addresses his host. Here it comes, it is not enough to just be concerned about the seating arrangement, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or you relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.” Imagine Jesus looking around, maybe even gesturing to the very relatives and neighbors who are reclining with him at the table. He goes on and says to the host: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. You will be blessed.”

The crippled, the lame, and the blind are all persons, who, according to the Law of Moses are ritually unclean. They would never be invited because their presence would cause the other men there to become unclean. Again, before we get on our high horses that this is outrageous, think about who you would not want to invite into your home to sit down to dinner with: Someone with Tuberculosis, someone who lived on the streets and had not bathed in weeks, how about someone with HIV? How about a Muslim young man or Hindu woman with Henna tattoos covering her face and hands? Tuberculosis is highly contagious and having Muslim young men as friends could invite the scrutiny of the FBI or worse, the Office of Homeland Security! Jesus would say to us, looking around our dining rooms, that we ought also invite these.

It seems to me that we categorize people to make our lives more manageable. We only have so many hours in a day and so much energy to devote to relationships. We often choose our friends and colleagues because they are available and because it is easier to be around persons who look like us and believe similar things to us.

Christ challenges us to look beyond those who are just like us. Christ is challenging the Pharisees to interpret the Law of Moses through the lens of LOVE. Jesus issued this challenge throughout his ministry.

We are challenged to look beyond not just color but gender, able bodied-ness, religious beliefs, dress, accent, wealth, political leaning and sexual orientation. In God’s economy (a phrase I use instead of God’s Kingdom) we are blessed when we extend ourselves beyond ourselves. Yes, it makes life easy to stay close to our own kind, but I will tell you from experience that blessings abound in the stretch toward someone who is OTHER.

I could give you many examples, but I invite you to have your own experience, your own blessings by reaching out.

We need not live either/or lives. As much as my government said to the contrary, the citizens of the US and I were not very different from Yakov or the citizens of the USSR. I held some political views in the 80s that could have been considered communist and many so-called communists held beliefs that were decidedly capitalist. As long as “they” were nameless, faceless and “other” I could maintain that they were my enemy and continue to distrust and fear them.

In general it is our fear of the unknown that keeps us isolated and blocks our ability to reach out. Many of us have worked with and eaten with homeless folks. Some of us have been homeless ourselves.

For some of you, participating in the Hosea Williams Holiday Gathering, or similar events, was and is life changing. You returned to your homes and friends from such an experience knowing at least two things, the people you prepared food for and ate with are not very different from you and the person that was most helped was yourself.

There are many ways you can share a meal with someone who can probably not pay you back. The United Way has a long list of meal programs that would welcome your help. I met a couple a few years ago that make sandwiches and hand them out in little 5 points on the weekends. They have no ones permission, only God’s.

I had a lot of fear around homeless people until I worked with them during seminary and also as a chaplain. The most important lesson I learned was to look people in the face, like I would someone I valued. It is my way of being present and miracles happen when I take the time to be present to someone that is different from me.

All these labels, black/white, rich/poor, male/female, conservative/liberal, gay/straight can divide us. And until we come out to each other, until we invite each other into our conversations, into our homes and share the most common human need, food and drink, we can blindly assume it is they or we. We can continue to see the extremes and not the reality that we are all somewhere in the middle.

Either/or, black/white, us/them thinking leads to the saddest division: All or nothing. Since we cannot do it all, we often end up doing nothing.

You cannot fix the problems of the world but you can reach out to one person in need.

Galatians 3 reminds Christians “as many of you who have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ.” I would add, there is no longer gay or straight, conservative or liberal, Sunni or shi ite, rich or poor, black or white. WE are given the opportunity every day to help make these divisions descriptions and not walls. And we do this one person at a time.

I invite you to participate in a radical inclusiveness. I invite you to see the Other as your self. I invite you to go from either/or thinking to both/and. There is blessing and eternal life in the middle. Thanks be to God.

Copyright © 2007 by Rev. Jane Acuff. Permission granted for non- profit circulation with attribution of author and venue. Other rights reserved.