Race, Guns, Courts, and Other Irrelevancies (Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman)

Brad Sullivan
Proper 11, Year C
Sunday, July 14, 2013
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

    This weekend, we were in Austin for my niece and nephew’s 6^th birthday party.  The kids all had a great time together…so did the adults for that matter.  Friday night, the family was talking together, and my sister-in-law’s father who speaks Spanish and a little bit of English asked what we thought about the Zimmerman trial, nice easy topic for a Friday night.  With my limited Spanish, I could only give about a one sentence answer which was totally inadequate for my thoughts.  If I could have said more, I would have said something like this.

            Ever since Trayvon Martin was killed, we’ve been hearing about problems of race and racial profiling.  We’ve been hearing about problems of guns and violence.  We’ve been hearing problems about courts and judicial practice, and all of these headline grabbing, angst inducing topics are ultimately irrelevant to what happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.  We don’t know the specifics of what happened leading up to Trayvon’s death.  All we really know was that by the end of it, Zimmerman was beaten up and Martin was dead. 

            We don’t really know exactly what was going through their minds leading up to their confrontation, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch that both saw the other as a threat, first and foremost, rather than as a human being.  Race, guns, courts, all of it ultimately irrelevant.  Two men saw each other as a threat rather than as a human being.  That goes completely counter to the way of life in the Kingdom of God. 

Jesus was fully committed to the Kingdom of God, and he didn’t have time for anything else.  Jesus was fully committed to God’s Kingdom in which people were humans and beloved Children of God before they were anything else, and Jesus was against anything which got in the way of loving people and treating them with love. 

            Martha invited Jesus to her house for dinner.  Now, home is generally the place where all pretense is left at the door.  We can truly be ourselves at our homes, with our family.  So, when Jesus entered Martha and Mary’s home, Mary dropped all pretense.  By the culture of the day, she was woman and he was man.  She should have been preparing dinner, and any teaching he was doing should have been for men only.  Rather than let those customs get in the way of their interaction, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him.  Mary spends time with Jesus.

            Martha, on the other hand, invited Jesus into her home and then ignored him, spending all her time preparing dinner.  She was following the customs and the norms, but she was bound by them, enslaved to them.  He Man, She Woman, and Jesus didn’t have any time for that.  The Kingdom of God doesn’t have time for anything that gets in the way of genuine human interaction.  There is no place in the Kingdom of God for anything that gets in the way of loving our neighbors. 

            Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman saw each other as threats.  Well, it’s easy to eliminate a threat.  It’s easy to destroy and enemy.  Once that threat, than enemy becomes a human being, then it’s not so easy to destroy that human being.  So long as we are threats and enemies in each others’ eyes, then violence and anger, and darkness will have an easy time remaining strong in the world. 

            Proclaiming and enacting the Kingdom of God first and foremost, we don’t see each other as threats and enemies, but as human beings:  humans with parents, humans with children, humans with brothers and sisters, humans with blessing, humans with troubled pasts, humans who are just as afraid as we are, humans whose lives are every bit as much of a mess as ours are if not more so.  Living in the Kingdom of God, we don’t have time to see each other as anything else.

            As disciples of Jesus, if we are truly disciples of Jesus, then we will be fully committed to proclaiming and enacting the Kingdom of God, seeing each other as human beings first and foremost, loving God and loving each other.  As disciples of Jesus, we will be fully committed to admitting when we haven’t lived the Kingdom of God life, fully committed to making amends for those times, and fully committed to repenting and returning to the Kingdom of God life. 

There are people whose narratives are different than the Kingdom of God narrative, and they are fully committed to those narratives.  Martin and Zimmerman, it’s about racism.  Martin and Zimmerman, it’s about guns.  Martin and Zimmerman, it’s about…whatever.  The folks who have been championing these causes are committed to their causes.  They take every opportunity to voice their commitment to their cause.  Disciples of Jesus have even been part of these discussions, and yet I have not once heard someone say that the problem with Martin and Zimmerman was that two men didn’t see each other as human.  I have yet to hear a disciple of Jesus proclaim that two men, who were at least nominally Christian, viewed each other as less than human and weren’t, at least in that moment, living the Kingdom of God life. 

As disciples of Jesus, we need to stop getting caught up in these other narratives.  They have their place, but our narrative is primarily the Gospel narrative, and our way of life is first and foremost “Love God and Love People.”  All other considerations fall under those two ways of the Kingdom of God life.

            The narratives we’ve been hearing in the wake of Trayvon’s death are all reactive narratives.  Once a problem arises, they pounce on it, championing their causes.  In the Kingdom of God life, we’re proactive in proclaiming and enacting a loving world.  As a solution to crime, our laws focus on locking folks up to punish and prevent, on the back end of crimes.  That has its place, but the proactive Kingdom of God life tries to take away the reasons for crime.  I’m not talking about a political or governmental solution, but a way we live our lives as disciples of Jesus.  When Jesus saw people hungry, he fed them.  When Jesus saw people in pain, he healed them.  Jesus taught people a better way of viewing each other than as threats and enemies. 

Jesus treated other humans as beloved children of God, and he didn’t have time for anything else.  He didn’t get involved in the struggle against the Romans.  That wasn’t his arena.  “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.”  As we heard in the story of the Good Samaritan last week, Jesus’ arena was the Kingdom of God.  “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” 

That is our way of life.  That is our arena.  That is our fight.  We probably won’t win.  So let’s do it anyway.  Disciples of Jesus don’t live the Kingdom of God life because we know we’re going to win.  Jesus wasn’t concerned with the fact that it would take centuries for women to get to sit at Rabbis feet.  Jesus saw a woman who wanted to listen to him and he talked to her.  Disciples of Jesus aren’t concerned with winning and losing.  Disciples of Jesus live and proclaim the Kingdom of God life because that is who we are and that is how we live. 

          If some other way of life is going to win out in this world, then so be it.  We’re going to be disciples of Jesus.  We’re going to live and proclaim the Kingdom of God life.  We’re going to heal the hurting we see in the world.  We’re going to see other people as human beings, not as threats.  We’re going to be proactive in how we live, striving for justice and peace among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being.  We’re going to seek and serve Jesus in all people.  We’re going to live according to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles.  We’re going to resist temptation and repent when we fail.  We’re going to proclaim and enact the Gospel, the Kingdom of God life.  As disciples of Jesus, that is who are and how we live.  That is how we view the world, and we just don’t have time for anything else.  Amen.

Hey, At Least They Aren't Dead

Brad Sullivan
St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Bay City, Texas
Proper 10, Year C
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

            For the people of Israel back in the first century, about the worst thing you could be was a non-Jew.  It’s not as though all non-Jews were utterly hated or thought of as less than human, but consider this.  If you were Jewish and then gave up your faith in God, you were considered dead.  Life itself was diminished if you were not a Jew. 

So, you had Gentiles, all non-Jews, who didn’t have this life in them that the Jews did, and then you had Samaritans.  Samaritans were a religious sect that traced their roots to Abraham but which believed that they, and not the Jews, were the true followers of God through Torah.  Samaritans believed that they were the righteous descendants of Abraham and that the Jews were the unrighteous descendants. 

Jews may not have been particularly fond of Gentiles or at least not thought as highly of them as of other Jews, but Samaritans were held with the utmost contempt.  It’s not surprising that they were contemptuous of a group which said, “yes you believe in God, but your way of following God and your beliefs about God are dead wrong.”  You could liken it to the struggles and even wars between Protestants and Catholics during the height of struggles between those two groups.

So, when Jesus called the Samaritan a neighbor in the story he told, the importance of his statement can hardly be overstated.  Neighbors were considered to be the people of Israel.  In Leviticus 19, there are verses which what it means to love one’s neighbor.  “You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.  You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind;” I love that we need that last part.  Don’t trip blind people.  Don’t make fun of deaf people.  It’s rather funny that we would need God-given laws telling us such seemingly obvious things, and yet, if we’re honest and if we look at human history and the actions of people around us and even at our own actions, we know that we do need such seemingly obvious laws.

But I digress.  Leviticus goes on to say, “you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.   You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.  You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.  You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.  You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:13-18)

That last sentence seems to be equating “your people” with “your neighbor.”  “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  So, love your neighbor as yourself could be understood as “love all Israelites as yourself.”  Remember, if you were no longer a Jew, you were considered dead.  So, to love your neighbor as yourself was probably not understood as love any old person who lives near you, but “love your Israelite brother or sister as yourself.”

            So, when Jesus told the story of the Samaritan who helped out this beaten and robbed man, contrasting the Samaritan with two upstanding Israelites who did not help the beaten and robbed man, Jesus declared the Samaritan to be a neighbor to the man, and the two Israelites not to be neighbors to the man.  Was Jesus declaring the Samaritan to be more of a Jew even than the Jewish priest and the Levite?  Was Jesus declaring the Jewish priest and Levite to be dead, no longer truly Jews because of their actions, while declaring the non-Jew Samaritan to be truly alive because of his actions?

            I don’t know, but it’s certainly worth pondering.  I believe James, the brother of Jesus, author of the letter from James might agree with the assessment that the Samaritan, by his actions was, at least in the moment, more alive and more Jewish than either the priest or Levite.  “Faith without works, is dead,” James wrote.  “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” (James 2:18)  Notice, in the story Jesus told, the Samaritan’s faith hadn’t changed.  The Samaritan still believed Israel was wrong, and yet when he saw a man in need, he helped him.  The two upstanding Jews who had all the right beliefs did not help him.

            Perhaps by calling the Samarian a neighbor rather than the priest and Levite, Jesus was saying that despite his beliefs, the Samaritan was more of a Jew than the priest or the Levite.  In either case, Jesus’ command after the story and lesson was quite clear.  “Go and do likewise.” 

            When we gather here on Sundays, or anytime we gather together, I feel such love, the love that we have one for another.  We are neighbors because we share life together in Jesus and we share love for one another through that life and joy we share in Jesus.  We could generally call each other up and ask for help with something, and the response would likely be, well that’s a Saint Markan, I’m going to go help.

            We also have relationships formed and a common identity which gives us some trust of each other.  Even if we haven’t met someone from St. Mark’s, they don’t feel like a total stranger because we share a common life and identity.  We’re neighbors.  Jesus then commends us to go and treat others as though they are neighbors too.  Go and live out your faith, treating others as though they were your neighbors, even if they are one of your enemies.  Go and treat others as though they were St. Markans, even if you’re not particularly fond of them. 

            Go, Jesus said, and live our your faith, truly loving your neighbor as yourself.  Go, and treat people as you would treat any St. Markan, regardless of what they believe.  Hold no contempt for those you believe are deeply wrong and misguided, but love them as a neighbor, as one of your own.  Regardless of who they are or from where they come:    

You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.  You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.   You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.  You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.  You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.  You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:13-18)  Amen.

Help Each Other Out. Do It All Yourself.

Brad Sullivan
Proper 9, Year C
Sunday, July 7, 2013
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Did you notice that in our Galatians reading today, Paul wrote, “bear one another’s burdens” and “all must carry their own loads”?  I love the seeming contradiction in his words.  We’re all in this together.  You’re ultimately on your own.  We see the truth of these two statements in the cross of Jesus.  Jesus had help and support throughout his ministry.  He gathered disciples.  He sent the 12 out to proclaim the gospel, to heal people, and to prepare the way for his coming.  After that, as we heard today, Jesus sent 70 out to proclaim the Gospel, to heal, and to prepare the way for his coming.

“[Jesus] appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.”  Jesus sent the seventy on before him to prepare them for his coming.  Jesus was working with his disciples, not having his disciples do his work for him.  Jesus had help and support throughout his ministry, like those we heard about a couple of weeks ago who helped provide for Jesus and his disciples out of their resources. 

Ultimately, however, when it came time for Jesus’ death, the thing which only he could do, Jesus was alone.  No one jumped in to take Jesus’ place on the cross.  He’d been given help and support from his disciples and friends for years, but his death on the cross was his burden to carry alone.

I think of these two statements then, “bear one another’s burdens” and “all must carry their own loads” like a concert.  We help each other prepare.  We can help and support each other even during the performance, but ultimately it’s on each of us if we’re going to play our parts correctly.  It’s on each of us if we’re going to prepare for the performance.

Preparation is essential before performance.  I was on a mission trip back in college, and the leaders of the trip wanted us to do some evangelism while we were there…or at least they wanted us to do what they called evangelism.  We were in an exceedingly poor area of Mexico, and we were put into groups of four or five and sent out to go door to door to talk to folks about Jesus. God help us.  God help the people we talked to.

I think I was the only Episcopalian in the group, so this was not entirely up my ally in the first place, and in the second place, the night before we went out, the leaders prepared us for this work by quoting Mark 13:11, “When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”  So we worshipped the night before and they got us all pumped up and full of the Holy Spirit and sent us out on these poor unsuspecting people.

So our preparation to talk to people about Jesus was, don’t be prepared, just wing it.  Things did not go well.  The self appointed leader of our group offered threats of hell to people living in dire poverty, trying to force them into following Jesus.  The others in our group told her what a great job she was doing.  Mine was a lone dissenting voice, and that night, as the leaders were preparing us for our second day of evangelism, I’m guessing they agreed with me because they decided to give us some dos and don’ts and some talking points which did not involve threats of hell. 

To the credit of those I was with on that first day, they had the courage to perform.  They were told to go out and talk to people about their faith, and they did.  They had the courage to go out there and do the work they had been given to do.  They had the courage to perform.  They needed more preparation, and I would argue different and better preparation, but they did have the courage to perform.

On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got folks who prepare really well.  People help bear each others’ burdens, they help each other prepare, but then they never really go out and do the performance part of it.  They don’t really carry their own loads and do whatever part is only theirs to do.  As disciples of Jesus, we prepare in order to perform.  We help bear each others’ burdens so that when the time comes we can carry our own loads.

So what is your load?  What is that thing which is only yours to do?  Are you preparing for that ministry with the help and support of others, and when the time comes, are you taking the courage to perform?

At the beginning of our stewardships campaign last fall, we had a theme for this year, “Lord, make us servants of your peace.”  At St. Mark’s, this year alone, we’ve done a lot.  We’ve made and given out prayer blankets for those who are sick.  We’ve cooked and serve breakfast for people on Fridays and given out food during the week.  We recently had a book drive for first graders at Tenie Holmes Elementary.  We’ve made meals for people who are sick or mourning the loss of loved ones.  Our youth are about to go on a mission trip to help rebuild Bastrop.  In August we’ll be hosting a back to school event with MEHOP.  We give of our building so KIDS can counsel children suffering from abuse. 

We also have been doing a lot individually, and that’s what I’d like to address, the performances, the ministries we have in our personal lives beyond the walls of St. Mark’s.  There is a lot going on that a lot of us don’t know about, and I want us to start sharing those stories.  When the 70 came back after Jesus had sent them out, they immediately started sharing their stories with joy and excitement.

Jesus then gives his warning not to rejoice at what they were able to accomplish.  I hear Jesus telling them not to become proud and boastful of what they were able to accomplish with God’s help.  Share your stories in order to help build each other up and encourage each other, but be careful not start bragging or trying to one up each other.

So, in order to help build each other up, I’d like us to start sharing our stories of ways in which we’re serving others beyond the walls of St. Mark’s.  I’m thinking we’ll call it “stories of the seventy.”  Now I know what some people are doing, so I’m going to start asking them to write a few paragraphs about what they are doing, and these will be printed in the Lion, the weekly newsletter, and maybe even a sentence or two in the Sunday bulletin.  I’m also asking people to submit their stories to me or to the church office.  Write ‘em down, send them in an email, and we’ll add them to “The Stories of the Seventy.”  These stories will also be anonymous.  That way we avoid the risk of bragging or one-upmanship.  We can simply share our stories in order to build each other up, to help inspire each other, and to help bear one another’s burdens. 

I’m looking forward to reading these and to hearing about all the different ways we are servants of God’s peace in each other’s lives and in the lives of others’ in Bay City.  Lord, make us servants of your peace.  Prepare us for the work you have given us to do.  Help us to bear each other’s burdens, and give us courage and support to carry our loads and perform when the time comes.  Amen.