Sunday 14 October 2018

Not the Hero (Deut 10:17-19; Rom 12:13; Heb 13:1-2)


(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 14, 2018, Proper 23)



Where Am I in the Good News?

Four weeks ago, I observed that God’s good news in the Bible is primarily for the poor.  The first words of Jesus when he begins his ministry, according to Luke, are these: “[God] has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18).  And that itself is a line taken straight from the prophets, who commonly cried out on behalf of the needful and neglected in ancient Israel.  A quick glance through the Bible’s pages will confirm its “preference for the poor,” as our Catholic brothers and sisters have come to call it.  The people who wrote the Bible and the people for whom it was originally written, were the losers of history.  They were slaves in Egypt.  They were exiles in Babylon, dispossessed and displaced from their homeland.  They were disenfranchised Judeans trying to scrape out a living under the heel of the Roman empire.  The Bible as a historical document is an enduring witness to the fact that God’s good news is for the poor.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.

A modern day equivalent to the Bible might be an American history written by Native Americans or undocumented migrants or African slaves.  Because the Bible is history told by the poor, the dispossessed, and the oppressed.  It is a testimony to the good news that God is with them and loves them.

But this has left me with the question, “Where am I in the good news?”  In other words, God’s good news is for the poor, and I’m not (poor).  I’m nowhere near poor nor oppressed, with my college diploma and my bank account and my clean record with the law and my passport that will take me anywhere in the world.  How can I, who live on the top, read this story written primarily for people on the bottom?

What If the Story Is Not Always About Me?

Whenever I read a story, it is only natural for me to read myself as the hero.  When I read The Lord of the Rings, I identify with the hobbits.  When I watch Star Wars, I feel the drama according to the experience of Luke Skywalker and the rebels.  I am always the hero.  I wonder if this tendency to identify with the hero isn’t reinforced by living as a citizen of the world’s ruling nation.  Just as Rome presented itself as the savior of the world, so too our nation tells a similar story.  Think about how we present our history.  The first chapter is about how the shackles of injustice are thrown off and independence is achieved.  We are the heroes, the good guys.  The next chapter is about the frontier, or as it commonly is called, “how the west was won.”  Again, it is a tale of victory and we are the stars, riding off into the sunset.  Then the story becomes about how international villains are vanquished and freedom is fought for across the globe.  My friends and I grew up with GI Joe figures that only reinforced this story.

Whether I am reading a story, or telling my own story, I am the hero. 

But I’ve noticed something very peculiar about the stories that I’ve read since that Sunday four weeks ago.  It was perhaps most peculiar in the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman.  If you’ll remember with me, that’s when Jesus ignores a Canaanite woman, then refuses her request for help, and then insults her, calling her a dog.  But she persists.  And her words touch the heart of Jesus and change him.   

How bizarre!  This is a story where the hero—because isn’t Jesus always the hero?—this is a story where the hero is not the hero.  I’m not sure I would have picked up on this, except the same thing happened last week, when Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan.  In that story too, the Israelite is not the noble hero.  The Samaritan is.[1]

These stories prompt me to ask, “What if I’m not always the hero?”  In other words, what if there are moments in my life when the hero is the person on the other side of me?  What if the story at that moment is not about me, but about them? 

From Philadelphia to Philoxenia

That, I believe, is the lesson that I am learning as I read the Bible from above, from a place of power and privilege.  The story is not always about me. 

I love how the Greek of our scripture in Hebrews puts it: “Let philadelphia continue.  And do not forget philoxenia” (13:2).  That first word, philadelphia, which means brotherly love, is not just a city in Pennsylvania.  It is the way of our world.  Philadelphia is the picture of our present national and political divide, where people self-segregate into clumps of folks who are like them.  Philadelphia is when you connect with someone who remembers watching the same TV shows as you.  Philadelphia is when you connect with someone who shares the same fears about the future.  Philadelphia is when you connect with someone who votes like you do.  Philadelphia is loving people who are already like us. Philadelphia is safe and secure.  Philadelphia is saying, “We’re on the same side.  We’re the good guys, the heroes.”

I think the real twist of the kingdom of God comes in the second Greek word, philoxenia.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you’re probably familiar with the word xenia from a different word in English: xenophobia.  The fear of the stranger.  Xenophobia is often built into philadelphia.  We love people who are like us, but we stay away from people who are different. 

But philoxenia is the opposite of xenophobia: philoxenia means the love of the stranger.  And it’s not a new concept in the Bible.  In fact, it appears that philoxenia has long been part of God’s plan for the redemption of our world.  Only once does the Hebrew Bible issue its well-known command: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).  But thirty-seven times it tells us to love the stranger.[2]  Our scripture today from Deuteronomy provides a reason: “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” 

In other words, Deuteronomy begs us to identify with the experience of strangers.  Deuteronomy asks us, “Do you remember the most difficult and trying time of your life?  Do you remember when you had to rely on God?  Do you remember when only by faith in God you could make it through the day?  Well, that’s when you were truly the hero.  And that’s someone else now.  Now they’re the hero in the story.  Now God is on their side.  So welcome them.  Listen to their story.  Find out where God is today.”

Are We the Supporting Cast in the Kingdom?

For me, this sermon series began when I observed that God’s good news in the Bible is primarily for the poor and asked, “So where am I in the good news?”  Perhaps you wondered to yourself, as I confess I did: “Well isn’t the good news for everyone?  Isn’t it just as much for us on the top as for those below?”  Of course it is.  My suspicion, however, after reading these stories, is that the good news is even bigger than we’ve allowed ourselves to imagine.  It’s not simply a personal salvation project, or heaven when we die.  It’s the kingdom of God on earth here and now, as it is already in heaven.  It’s beloved communion now with all the world.  It’s realizing that we’re not the heroes all the time, but in fact the supporting cast for others who are hanging by a thread of faith.  We are the supporting cast for the stranger: the dispossessed and displaced, the homeless and the refugee, those in memory care and those in intensive care.  They are the heroes.  God is with them.  And we can be too.

When we live by philoxenia, when others are the heroes and we are the supporting cast—well, that, I imagine, is just what the kingdom of God will look like.

Prayer

Big-hearted God,
Whose love encompasses
Not only our stories
But the stories of strangers—
How grateful we are
For your steadfast care
Which has sustained us
In difficult times.
Give us eyes to see
Your steadfast love
Sustaining others,
And hearts willing
To become your supporting cast.
In Christ, our help.  Amen.




[1] In the scripture we looked at three weeks ago, we saw Jesus tell the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  In that story as well, the hero was not the person with might and means but the homeless man Lazarus.
[2] Jonathan Sacks, Faith in the Future (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1997), 78.


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