(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 16, 2018, Proper 19)
The Extent of My Poverty: Adventures in Flying
If you’ve ever traveled by air
before, you know that flying can be a real adventure. Over the course of my studies in England, I flew back and
forth across the Atlantic several times.
I can’t tell you how happy I am that I haven’t had to make one of those
flights in the last few years.
Airlines and airports have been the sites of some of the most
distressing experiences of my life.
I remember, for example, how I
was detained for a few minutes in London Heathrow after walking through
security. I had prepared
diligently, taking off my shoes, belt, and jacket, removing everything from my
pockets. Even so, as I walked
through a security officer whisked me away behind a screen and asked me to
loosen my remaining clothes. I
won’t share any more details, except to say that I left that pat down red in
the face.
More typically, and less
upsetting, my transatlantic flight would include moments of hunger. On one occasion, the two on-flight
meals on offer did not appeal. But
of course the coffee did. And for
me, coffee on an empty stomach is always a bad idea. By the time we touched down at JFK, my hands were shaking
and my eyes couldn’t hold still. I
must have cut a nervous figure.
Looking back, it’s a small miracle Customs didn’t detain me for further
questioning.
Lastly, I remember arriving home
one Christmas only to discover that my checked baggage hadn’t made the
flight. No problem, the airline
representative told me. They’d
have the checked baggage delivered to my home address as soon as it
arrived. For the next two days,
then, I wore a random assortment of clothes that had remained in my childhood
drawer: soccer shorts, flannel pajama bottoms, and threadbare t-shirts. And I bummed toothpaste and shampoo off
my family.
I share these memories now not
only because I’m finally far enough away from them that I can laugh. I share them also because in today’s
scripture Jesus proclaims good news to the poor, the lowly, the oppressed, and
these experiences are probably the closest I have come to inhabiting those
positions.
I don’t mean to say this with
either pride or shame. I’m simply
stating the fact. The extent of my
oppression is a pair of momentarily invasive hands at airport security. The extent of my hunger is a day
without food (but not without coffee).
The extent of my poverty is living a couple of days without my first
choice of clothing.
Good News for the Poor…
According to Luke, when Jesus
begins his ministry, the first thing that he does is to proclaim “good news to
the poor” (4:18). For the next
three years, the poor will remain at the center of his good news. To whom does the kingdom of God
belong? The poor. How do I live a good and full life, the
rich young ruler asks? Sell
everything, Jesus says, and share your life with the poor. How difficult it is, he exclaims, for a
person with wealth to enter the kingdom of God (cf. 18:18-30). When Jesus gets on a storytelling kick
about how to eat around the table, he repeatedly urges his listeners to share
their meals with the poor (cf. 14:13, 21). And when he tells a simple parable about a poor man and a
rich man, it’s no surprise to find that the poor man is lifted up in God’s
embrace and the rich man is left in the agony of his isolation (cf. 16:19-31).[1] Jesus is constantly turning the order
of the world upside down, lifting up the poor and leaving the rich in a
freefall. The last will be first,
he says, and the first last (cf. 13:30).
The greatest in the kingdom, he says, are the least (cf. 22:26). In today’s scripture, when Jesus
proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor, he’s referring to the Jewish idea of
Jubilee, a year when debts are dropped and slaves are freed and lands return to
their original owner—a year, in other words, in which life is leveled, the rich
giving back to the poor.
And all of this is nothing new,
really. All throughout the Old
Testament, God is on the side of the poor. That’s how the story of Israel begins, of course, when God
hears the cries of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt. But even after Israel gains its own land, God especially
listens to and looks out for the poor.
“Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan, I will now arise,”
we hear God proclaim in the Psalms (12:5). And also, “Who is like you, Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor
and needy from those who rob them” (35:10). And then prophets were always reminding the people where
God’s real concern was, not in ceremony but in care for the poor: “Such fasting
as you do today will not make your voice heard on high,” Isaiah proclaims. “Is not this [the fast that matters to
God]: to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into
your house, when you see the naked, to cover them?” (58:4, 6-7).
From Egypt to Nazareth, from
Moses to Jesus, God has been always proclaiming good news to the poor.
And that’s basically what the
Bible is. If we take a step back
and look historically at who wrote the Bible and whom it was written for, we’ll
see a bunch of losers. A bunch of
sojourners in a land that is not theirs.
A bunch of slaves. A bunch
of exiles, dispossessed and displaced.
The Bible itself is an enduring witness to the fact that God’s good news
is for the poor. History is
usually written by the winners, who write to glorify their
accomplishments. The Bible is
written by losers, who write to insist on God’s love and care for them.
…And I’m Not
Can you imagine a book on the
history of the United States written by Native Americans? Or undocumented migrants? Or African slaves? Because that’s who wrote the Bible. The slaves from Egypt. The exiles in Babylon. The Judeans under the heel of the Roman
empire. The Bible that they wrote
points us to a God who cared especially for them. The poor, the dispossessed, the oppressed.
And that’s my dilemma. God’s good news is for the poor, and
I’m not. My comic flying
misadventures don’t even come close to touching poverty.
My brother was telling me about a
funny scene from the recent box office hit Crazy
Rich Asians. There’s a moment
when the girlfriend realizes that her boyfriend’s family is stinking rich. They’ve just boarded a plane to
Singapore to meet his family, and they’re escorted to a bedroom suite in the plane. When the girlfriend exclaims that his family must be rich,
he responds: “We’re comfortable.”
To which she observes, “[That’s] exactly what a super-rich person would
say.”
Now I’ve never flown in a bedroom
suite—as you know, my flying experience has looked very different than that—but
when I consider the fact that I have an American passport, a bank account, and
a car, and that I can afford occasionally to buy things that I would like to
have, I realize that in the eyes of most of the world I am super-rich. I would never call myself that. Who among us would? We prefer euphemisms. Like “comfortable.” Or perhaps you’ve heard folks complain
laughingly about their “first world problems.”
But I hear that the truth sets us
free. So today I’m going to go out
on a limb and state the truth. I’m
rich.
And that troubles me, because
Christ proclaims the good news to the poor.
It appears that I’m not alone in
my discomfort. In today’s scripture, after Jesus announces the good news to the
poor, and after the congregation digests what he’s saying, that the good news
is more than a personal promise to them, that it is a wild promise especially
for the poor and that it might upset the balance of everything, they try to
throw him off a cliff. It’s a
surreal but suggestive image for me.
If I don’t want to throw Jesus off a cliff after I’ve read the Bible,
after I read its good news about a social upheaval favoring the folks beneath
me…then have I been reading the Bible honestly? (And if you don’t want throw me off a cliff after I’ve
preached…then I have preached the Bible honestly?)
Something Scandalous in the Good News
Today marks the beginning of a
five-week series in which I’ll explore the bias of the Bible. If that sounds scandalous, then good. I think there was something scandalous
in the good news that Jesus proclaimed that first day of his ministry in
Nazareth.
As I’ve already suggested, the
proclamation of good news to the poor scandalizes me because I know that I’m not poor. That leaves me with the question: “Where am I in the good
news?” What does this good news
mean for me? Like you, I believe
that God loves everyone. But I’m
also beginning to wonder if God’s love doesn’t look bigger and wilder and
riskier than I’d like for it to be.
Maybe sometimes I’ve been guilty of turning the kingdom of God into a
personal salvation project, when really it’s about a new creation, a
rearrangement of the world where the lowly are lifted up—and the rich…well,
that’s what I want to figure out. Where
am I in the good news?
Prayer
Dear Jesus,
I can’t quite make out
Whether your good news
Is a comfort
Or a challenge.
Or both.
Where are we
In your good news?
Give us pause.
Give us patience,
That we not dismiss
Your scandalous suggestions
As quickly as the congregation in
Nazareth.
Make us ready
For your salvation,
Which is good news to the
poor. Amen.
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