8/3/14
Sermon
at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church
|
Proper
13
Year A |
I
have recently been reading a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that
explicitly looks at the Gospel from a storyteller and actor’s point of view. The author’s project was to get a troupe of
actors together to really bring the stories to life by staging and acting out
the stories. They read the Gospel as
actors, seeking to understand how backstory matters as the text
progresses.
The
project leader—a fellow named Richard Swanson—and the actors realized something
quite interesting. The way we sometimes
think of Jesus as a placid teacher speaking warmly of comfort and fully in
command of emotion does not make much sense when acted out and embodied by
human beings. Occasionally, we arrive at
uncomfortable parts of Matthew in which trying to read the words of Jesus calmly exposes the lie of an unemotional,
unflappable Jesus, unless one wants to deny Jesus his full humanity.
Think
of Jesus calling the Gentile mother a dog (Mt 15:26), casting Capernaum down to
hell (Matthew 11:23), and denying his mother and brothers (Mt 12:48), the
numerous people consigned to weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 8:11-12, et al).
Swanson
says that, in essence, “performance puts words into bodies, and audiences can always tell when something is amiss
on stage, an actor embodying the harsh lines that Jesus speaks in Matthew’s
story must find a way to play those lines for true in front of an
audience. At the very least, the harsh
lines must distort the face of Jesus. If
they do not, the
actor creates the kind of disjunction that audiences and police interrogators
read as lying.”[1]
And
when actors try to read those harsh lines calmly, “audiences either conclude he
is lying or that he is quite insane.
Neither is a comforting conclusion.”[2]
Does
this remind anyone of movies of Jesus?
Swanson
continues: “Embodied performance
confronts an interpreter with another reality in Matthew’s story. …Jesus emerges out of the chaos and blood of
Herod’s genocidal attempt to slaughter all of the children of Bethlehem. Ask an actor. Such a backstory is going to
shape the way the character can be played.
Ask a counselor. Such a disastrous
beginning will damage a human being.
Life leaves marks, and actors have to explore those marks in order to
embody the characters they have to play. Even
when that character is Jesus.”[3]
It
is easy to imagine almost anything when we are sitting alone reading the Bible;
it is easy to imagine a perpetually dignified Jesus when our liturgical reading
of the text calls for dignity and solemnity.
It is a different matter to see the story enacted in reality. And this knowledge influences how I read the
Bible in general and how I prepare to preach.
Now, as I’ve read the passages for this week and next, I’ve
noticed something missing. Something that colors the actions of Jesus. Indeed the
missing thing provided the motivation for Jesus to seek solitude.
If you’ll recall, last week’s Gospel lesson was a series of quick-fire
parables. Today, we have the lovely
story of the feeding of the five thousand men—besides women and children.
But
there is something missing between last week and this week. The lectionary has skipped 13 verses to bring
us here.
While
one can preach on this text without those missing verses, I believe something
precious and valuable in understanding Jesus comes to light when they are
remembered.
The missing verses are the beheading of John the Baptist by Rome’s
stooge Herod.
In this week’s lesson, and next week, we will hear about a
single day in Jesus’ life, both lessons are introduced in our worship by Jesus’ desire
to be alone and to pray.
Unfortunately, the way we read texts in worship obscures the
connections in the text from one week to the next. And what might get lost between this week and
the next is the shock of the loss of Jesus’ own kin, and the grief that
follows.
I would ask that you keep this death in mind as you hear the
rest of the gospel of Matthew in worship for the next few months, especially
when Herod’s flunkies ask Jesus about whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Imagine being asked a question about
patriotism by people who support the regime that killed your cousin.
You see, John was Jesus’ cousin, and the one who baptized
Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus
would have heard that the beheading of the righteous John came because Herod made a rash vow at a dinner party, and Herod killed
John to save himself from embarrassment in front of his guests.
Is it any wonder that, upon hearing the news that Herod
killed John, Jesus would retreat to the wilderness—
the wilderness into which Jesus had to go to meet John for
his baptism?
The wilderness to which John called the people?
The wilderness that served as the counterweight to imperial
Rome and collaborationist occupied Jerusalem?
In the English language, and particularly in an American
context, we tend to think of wilderness as something untamed and unspoiled. But the Greek word (eremia)
has different connotations that resonate with the story of the Jews. The word ‘wilderness’ implies desolation,
devastation, and depopulation.
The word ‘wilderness ‘echoes in the silence of Jerusalem
standing empty at the Babylonian exile. The
sense of exile resonated with the community who formed the Gospel of Matthew
and witnessed the desolation of Jerusalem in 70AD at the hands of the
Romans. In so many instances, wilderness
means coming to grips with loss and desolation.
Perhaps you have used the word wilderness to speak of a
sense of desolation you have known?
And
yet, the wilderness is also a place of God’s action, surprising when it
happens.
Jesus
and the crowds meet in the wilderness to mourn a prophet. And Jesus in his compassion continues the
work of the kingdom, the very act of healing being a sign that the ways of this
world shall not have the final say, and that God is present even in the midst
of desolation.
As
the day turns to evening, though the disciples watch all of these signs, scarcity
is still all they see. They ask Jesus to send the crowds away to find
food.
Jesus
says no, and challenges the disciples to feed the people. And of what is provided, there is
enough. The feeding of the five thousand men—besides
women and children—had
the power to call forth depth in memory.
As the bread and fish were passed, there would have been joy and
surprise. Surely nearly all would recall
God’s providing manna in
a long-ago wilderness. Some might recall
God’s words through the prophet Isaiah, saying:
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost (Is 55:1).”
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost (Is 55:1).”
In
feeding the five thousand men—besides women and children—Jesus demonstrates
God’s faithfulness, and how that faithfulness culminates in a vision that shows
forth abundance as God’s will for all.
While the disciples were willing to send the people to villages to find
food—something sensible to our ears—I can’t help but think about the people the
disciples might have sent away to starve because they might not have had money.
God
and Christ hold a different vision—and by commanding the disciples, Christ
commends that vision to us as an alternative to the ways of this world and the
ways empires operate.
The way of empire is the way of violence. Herod the Great responded to a threat to his
reign by slaughtering the innocents of Bethlehem, setting the Gospel of Matthew
into motion as a little refugee boy and his family fled to a distant land. Herod Antipas killed the righteous John to
avoid appearing weak in front of his dinner guests. Christ himself would be crucified as a threat
to the empire.
The way of empire is the way of rationing. We see this in how scarcity is treated as
natural law, and not social arrangement.
We see it as individuals maneuver to greater influence. We see it as power is hoarded and used to
create more power. We see that power
used against others.
God calls us to a different way
—A vision of the wilderness that acknowledges pain and
desolation
—and yet a faithful God accompanying us
—making that acknowledgment of pain—and its
healing—possible.
—a vision of abundance that sees all fed beyond sufficiency.
—a vision that displays power in the call to serve others
before self, as Christ serves the crowd.
—A vision that exposes the moral bankruptcy of ways of being
that deny the humanity of others for the benefit of the powerful.
What can be done against the ways of empire, against the
ways of this world? Well, there is much
to be done.
But first things first.
The difficulty with looking past the ways of this world is
that we see the pervasive nature of scarcity.
At the root of all of our systems that are lesser than that which God
intends is the notion that there is simply not enough.
We all know the tendency to scarcity, don’t we?
I know I do.
I hear it often.
I feel it often.
Sometimes it is all we see.
But I was reminded of something this week. This week, young adult ministers and campus
chaplains from across the country gathered to talk about our work. In this conference, we made intentional
efforts to find the good in our work and share that abundance with others. We committed to the idea that the knowledge
in the room was enough to spur greater things than what we could do
individually or through simply listening to a handful of experts.
In many ways, the conference was a success. I went with five loaves and two fish. I came back with baskets full.
I want to commend that same practice to you—a spiritual
practice of seeking the abundance that lies within those who are around you. I wonder if you might be willing to give a
bit of intentional time to seeking abundance this week.
All I am asking you to do is this:
In the midst of a conversation you are having, ask the
person what fills them with joy. Ask them where they are feeling the most alive in their
world. My guess is that in so doing, you
will find a place in which God is showing forth abundance worthy of rejoicing.
Here’s the catch: Be
willing to have someone ask you the same question.
Amen.
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