Good News for Today

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of the Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Micah 6:6–8; Psalm 43; Luke 4:14–21

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the Living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Good news to the poor. Release to the captives. Sight to the blind. The oppressed go free. A year of the Lord’s favor. The Good News of our Gospel lesson this morning is good news indeed. I find myself particularly grateful for it, on multiple levels. 

The news headlines have been pretty overwhelming lately. From the destruction of Hurricane Dorian to yet another mass shooting. And news headlines are not always distant and global. No doubt many of us know people in the predicted or in the actual path of Dorian’s destruction. Our family learned yesterday that a dear friend and her husband were among the victims in that boat fire in California. And no doubt we have headlines in our local news about violence and tragedy in our own communities. The nature of news today means that it rarely matters whether or not it is a global headline or a personal one. We hear intimate, personal stories of violence either way, and they are tragic and painful. The speed and agility of communication in the 21st century means that we hear about the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed in our own neighborhoods and in neighborhoods on the other side of the world. The sheer magnitude of human suffering is overwhelming. 

This is why we need the Good News this morning. We need to be reminded that God is at work in the world. That this prophecy of Isaiah that is retold by Jesus, does not just apply to Ancient Israel nor to the Palestine of Jesus’ day. It applies to us too. We need to be reminded of the stories that so rarely make the headlines. Stories of the hundreds and thousands of men and women around the world who dedicate their lives to feeding the hungry and caring for the disabled. Of lawyers and activists who give their time to help the oppressed and captives go free.  

I also think this is a prophecy that matters on a deeper, more personal level. It is Good News that can have a real impact in our own hearts and in our own lives. If we take Jesus’ words on a more metaphorical level, how might they apply to us as individuals? Are there places in our lives where we feel depleted or run dry? Are we suffering from a poverty of spirit? Are we allowing ourselves to be held captive by fear? Do we feel oppressed in some way? Do we need to find a way to break free or at least to change how we are taking care of ourselves? 

What in our lives might be a stumbling block for us? What might be preventing us from more deeply engaging in relationship with God or with each other? How might we see today’s Gospel as an invitation to move into a different future? What burdens might it be time for us to lay down? Are there amends we need to make? Or do we need to do a better job of surrounding ourselves with people who recognize our gifts and who help us to thrive? 

No doubt each of us could use a little Good News, a little transformation, a little restoration and reconciliation somewhere in some part of our lives. I hope that today, we can hear the Good News of our Scripture. We can take comfort in Micah's reminder that God does not require us to make sacrifices of cattle or oil. What God desires from us is to live lives of humility that seek to promote justice in the world. I hope we can hear in that a call to be a part of creating a more just future for all people. 

And I hope that we can hear the generous invitations in Jesus’ prophecy. An invitation to live into a new and different future. An invitation to look for and to give thanks for the ways that this prophecy is being fulfilled on a local and a global level. And finally, I hope we can live into Jesus’ invitation to trust in God’s love. An invitation to trust in the hope and possibility of a new future. An invitation to let go of whatever burdens, whatever fears, whatever it is that might blind us to the depth of God’s love or hold us back from living into the fullness of who God has called us to be. 

I pray that each of us will have the courage, today, and every day, to step out in faith, into a new future, trusting that the Good News of God in Christ is real and meant for each one of us.
AMEN.

On lemons, power, and love

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT
7C Epiphany, February 24, 2019
Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42; 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50; Luke 6:27-38

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

My parents’ have a magnet on their fridge that says, “When life throws you a lemon, throw it back, harder.” And I am inclined to think that Jesus would agree. Contrary to popular belief today’s Gospel reading is not about passive submission in the face of oppression. To think that being a Christian means being weak or accepting whatever comes our way without question is to forget the radical element of Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus tells his followers to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.” In Matthew’s version of this teaching, Jesus actually specifies which cheek, and that is an important fact to fully understand this passage. He tells his followers that if they are struck on the right cheek they are to “turn the other cheek” - while to us this sounds like submission, as though he was telling them to just let themselves be hit again, it is in fact an act of defiance. In a right handed world to hit someone on the right cheek, you have to hit them with the back of your hand. In the culture of Jesus’ time one would only hit servants or slaves (someone lower than you on the social hierarchy) with the back of your hand. And remember Jesus is preaching to the poor and the outcast. He is preaching to those who would be hit in this way. So “turning the other cheek” and making someone hit your left cheek means that they would have to hit you with their palm or their fist - the way they would hit an equal in society. “Turning the other cheek” is not an act of submission at all - to do so is to stand up for one’s own dignity and proclaim one’s equality.

Then Jesus goes on to say that if someone takes your coat you should give them your shirt as well. Why would someone take your coat? It is worth noting that in Jesus’ day someone who was very poor would use their clothing as collateral for a loan - because they didn’t have anything else. So that is why someone could be forced to give up their coat. Jesus then tells his followers that if they find themselves in this situation they should give up their shirt as well. This pretty much means one’s clothing or possibly even one’s underwear, which would, of course leave the poor person standing in court absolutely naked. Now, you might be thinking, how embarrassing! - why in the world would Jesus encourage that? But again if we think about his message in the context of his time, the embarrassment would have been mostly for the creditor. Causing someone to be naked or to take their clothing was a far greater sin than the embarrassment of being naked. By the simple act of removing his clothes the debtor would have shamed the creditor. All of a sudden the powerless becomes powerful.

I think there are a number of profound lessons for us in our Gospel reading today. There are important lessons about how we are in relationship with each other. It is good for us to have a reminder that we are not to answer violence with violence or evil with evil. We need this reminder at a time when our headlines are filled with violence - I am thinking particularly of the all too frequent reality of literal violence - gun violence, war, bombings, etc. as well as the violence of our collective discourse. Far too often we hear language of hate and anger - language that injures our souls, language that tears at the fabric of relationships. As Christians are called not to perpetuate oppression or cycles of violence, but to stand in opposition, to offer an alternative path. We are called to walk in the way of Love, the way of Jesus.

This Gospel can also speak to all of us who have ever known the pain of being ostracized, who have known what feels like to be an outsider, to be pushed to the margins or to have the truth of our experience go unheard and unrecognized by those in positions of power and authority. No doubt many of us have had moments in which we have felt powerless. Moments when the “lemons” of life - the big lemons of oppression, discrimination, illness, tragedy or loss have seemed to overwhelmed us. And no doubt all of us have had moments when the smaller lemons of disagreement or even everyday stress have caused us to feel overburdened. We know what it is to be hit by the lemons of life. So how do we throw it back? How do we follow Jesus’ advice and stand up for ourselves? How do we turn the tables, so that we might no longer feel powerless?

We turn the tables by not giving in. We do not let the lemons run our lives. We do not let the pain of our experiences define us. We remember that our identity is made up of much more than our pain. We are children and parents, friends and spouses, professionals and volunteers, leaders and students, and the list goes on. We turn the tables by choosing to be the “bigger person.” We choose to reach out in love even when we are angry or hurt. We do not let anger fester. We step up and seek reconciliation. We follow the Gospel and love our enemies. We reach out in love toward those who persecute us. If we are in a position of power and privilege, we repent for the ways in which we have abused our power or failed to recognize our own privilege. When we are suffering discrimination, following Jesus means standing firm and refusing to believe the vision of “smallness” that others would have us live out.

At the times when we are dealing with the comparatively “little lemons” of everyday stress, we can still turn the tables. We can change our course, change our habits. We can speak up, ask for help. We can take a break - go for a walk, visit with a friend, exercise - do whatever we need to do to fill our tanks back up and give us the strength to face the challenges ahead of us.

We have been issued an invitation by today’s reading - first it is an invitation to strengthen our spiritual muscles, so that when we we feel persecuted, when life throws us a lemon, we can throw it right back! And then it is an invitation to share this message - so that others who are facing the challenges of persecution and oppression might know that our faith does not call us to timid submission, but to action. Our faith calls us to be voices for justice and peace, and to speak the truths of our own experiences with conviction and purpose. It calls us to be a part of God’s work of restoration and reconciliation. Our faith calls us to be change agents in the world. And for those of us in positions of power and privilege, we are called to use our power to create change. We are all called to be a part of building a different future. A future where the dignity of every human being is honored and respected, where everyone has a seat at the table. A future where we are recognized as Christians because the defining characteristic, the defining virtue of our lives, is Love.

AMEN.

On Suffering

“So, what do you study?” or “What did you write your dissertation on?” These are pretty common questions when you have the initials PhD after your name. Since I wrote a doctoral dissertation on suffering, I have had to come up with a succinct and (hopefully) interesting way of summarizing my work. The subject matter pretty much guarantees that I will only have about thirty seconds before my questioner will desperately seek out greener pastures or begin to joke about how the ordeal of doctoral work is in and of itself a dissertation on suffering. While some of you may have heard the “elevator speech”version of my dissertation, I think it bears sharing here as well.

Our collective hearts break at the reality of yet another mass shooting, and again like with Sandy Hook, innocently people were gunned down in a place of sanctuary, a place that should always be safe. I find myself returning to my own research for comfort and for a theological framework with which to move forward when what I really want to do is curl up and weep. So, here it is, in the hopes that it might help you think theologically about the reality of suffering whether in Sutherland Springs or your own lives and communities. I also hope that it will motivate us to action to work for a different future.

“My dissertation develops a contemporary theology of suffering in conversation with five theologians who almost span the history of the Church: Gregory the Great, Julian of Norwich, Jeremy Taylor, C.S. Lewis and Ivone Gebara. I chose them because they all write theologically out of personal experiences of suffering. If you take Ivone as a starting place, then she asks the very important question: is this suffering endemic to the human experience (like disease or natural disasters-things we can reasonably expect to encounter in our lives) OR is this suffering the result of injustice? If it is the latter than we, as Christians, are called to fight against it, to speak out and to prevent it. Suffering that is the result of injustice is not some cross we have to bear; it must be stopped. If it is suffering that is endemic, then we can return to Gregory, Julian and Jeremy for wonderful resources and spiritual practices to help us cope. We can also read Lewis, so that we can have permission to be angry in the midst of our suffering.”

I hope you find comfort when your suffering is endemic, and I hope you remember that Jesus calls us to action whenever we encounter injustice in the world.  

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If you are interested in the full length version, my dissertation became the book pictured above, available from Wipf & Stock and on Amazon.