Out of Order!!

Out of Order!  Can you believe it?  But that’s what the sign said!  This isn’t how it was supposed to go, it’s not how my situation was supposed to resolve itself.  I was hungry.  I had money.  I needed food.  But the sign on that vending machine made it very clear to me that I wasn’t going to get food no matter how hard I tried.  It was nonsense!  It was uncalled for!  Why I’d even go so far as to say that it broke with inherent logic of the universe.  These things have a certain flow to them, you see, a particular chain of reason that goes all the way back to God Himself.  I had money, I went to a machine that was specifically designed to trade food items for money, and…it wouldn’t take my money.  The machine was out of order!  Not only was it out of order in the sense that it needed to be fixed but it was also out order in the sense that it was out of line.  I was hungry, and now I needed to spend 10 whole minutes to find some other place to get my food.  That’s 600 seconds!  4200 in dog seconds.  I swore that that when all was said and done somebody was going to pay for this travesty of injustice. 

We humans are such silly creatures, aren’t we? Dangerously ridiculous creatures, really.  Most people think that when we get this way because we hate having our expectations crossed.  That’s not quite true.  It goes deeper than that.  It’s not just about expectation and surprise, it is about clean and unclean.  Now when clean and unclean in this sense have very little to do with hygiene.  To the human psyche clean and unclean are much more about the perceived order of things, a deep and inherent belief in a universal order.  A gut feeling about what is proper and what is logical, and we can get rather unfriendly about the whole affair if we don’t get what we think ought to be coming.  Don’t believe me?  If somebody visited your homes and drew a single giant black circle on your living room wall, I don’t think any of us would like it very much.  I mean, it’s clean.  No one is going to get sick from it.  But it offends the sense of the proper, it violates how we believe things ought to be, and we react accordingly. 

We are a broken paradox.  We live in bodies that are the very incarnation of change, with a thousand cells moving and replacing themselves and doing those things that cells do, and yet we desire stability, we desire sameness, we love inertness rather than inertia, even though the only true stability is death.  Dead things don’t change.  Yes the rock might wear down, the rock might have change inflicted upon it, but ultimately the rock is incapable of change, incapable of life.  And yet it is the stone that we value, value to the point that we make even our own hearts out of it.

Now today didn’t go exactly according to script, did it?  I mean the script was still there, everything that we all normally get in a service is still here.  Nothing was missing.  We still communed, we still repented of our sins and received forgiveness, everything that we need to be filled and renewed for the week is here and yet I guarantee the only thing that you are currently happy about this morning is that you finally know who is to blame for all of it.  There is a part of us that is like, “Yes I got everything I needed, yes I got fed with the body of Christ, yes I was clothed in holy presence of God, but dagnabit Keven these things have a certain flow to them, and by mixing up the service you’ve broken the inherent logic of the universe.  As sinful broken human beings in need of God’s salvation, isn’t it our preferences that are really important? 

Now, why did I do this?  Why did mess things up so thoroughly?  I did so for two reasons.  First, everything that you’re feeling right now: the confusion, the anxiety, maybe even the irritation and the anger.  If you take all that frustration and multiply it by a thousand, if you pretend that everything you’ve felt here today is in fact what you’ve felt for every single Sunday of your life then you will begin to understand just how much the Jews hated the Samaritans. 

A Jew looked at a Samaritan and shouted “Out of Order!” You are out of line and need to be fixed!  Jews, after all, they said, are supposed to be pure-blooded Israelites.  Our lines are supposed to be untainted by Gentile Blood.  As a Jew, of course, you would have been there for every act of copulation your ancestors ever did, so clearly you could hold a Samaritan to that standard and not be a hypocrite.  The Samaritans were seen as half breeds, the descendents of the poorest Israelites who were not exiled to Babylon with the rest of their countrymen.  But the Jews also worshiped through the Torah, that was a box that had to be checked, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Samaritan Bible, was only 99.99% the same.  That wasn’t in the Script!  Clearly all the Samaritans were just going to have to die.

We read the text of our Scriptures, we read this very short line of words, and because it is so small we fail to be invited into the larger world that this gospel has in store for us.  We read it and pay it no heed, filing whatever wisdom we glean from it as we would an anecdote or a particularly witty fortune cookie.  But what would be evident to anybody at all familiar with that part of the world is the deep history of hate between these two peoples.  There was no love loss between Samaritan and Jew and they were well known for the antagonism they showed to the other.  It is not for no reason that James and John wanted them destroyed in the most fantastic fiery way possible.  They didn’t fit the bill, they weren’t following the Schedule, and when it came to getting all their boxes checked as Jews they didn’t even try.  The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was that the Samaritans were denying them hospitality, and all because they were on their way to Jerusalem.

Now hospitality wasn’t like it is today.  Hospitality today we think of as fresh pillows at a hotel we had to pay for and all the below standard coffee that comes with it.  Hospitality back then was very different, it was a matter of deep personal identity.  Inns and hotels were in short supply in the ancient world, and indeed most people would have been too poor to afford one anyway.  If you were traveling at all, be you a merchant or a pilgrim, you relied on other people opening their homes and their pantries to you, otherwise you had to often poach for food and sleep out in the open where you would be vulnerable to robbers and raiders.  And as a home owner you wanted to invite strangers under your roof.  For one, it was a means of social status.  Whoever could provide lavishly for travelers caught the eye of your family and townsmen, earning their respect.  For two, it was the only real way to get news from far off lands.  There was no newspapers back then, no channel nine helicopters to report when the huns were invading again, so hospitality was often the only way to get the news of an invading army or a band of thieves that had moved into your area.  Lastly, if there was going to be an invading army the best thing you could do as an ancient home-owner to get them to spare you was to show them hospitality.  To be denied hospitality today is much like my story with the vending machine, irritating at worst, but to deny hospitality in the ancient world was a grievous and foolish insult.  It would be no wonder that James and John want them destroyed in the same manner as Sodom and Gomorra.

But Jesus will hear none of it.  The text says that Jesus “epitamao’s” his disciples, he rebukes, he strongly and sternly charges them in the same manner that he rebuked and sternly charged the devil and his demons.  God said in that moment of anger, in that high point of frustration and rage, “Don’t…you..dare.”  It is you that is out of order. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I asked to mix up the service today for two reasons.  One was to get you to understand and enter the emotional world of our gospel story, to see why the disciples did what they did and why God stopped them.  The other reason is so that you realize we are not any different.  We read this story as we often do, selfishly, and think, “Oh, this is just them.  THEY are doing something wrong.  THEY are the ones being rebuked.”  Ladies and gentlemen, we ARE them.  We are the people who insist on Order, who think righteousness amounts to checking boxes on a list, we are the ones who cannot stand certain people because they offend our sense of how the world should be.  We hope the other side presents us with an excuse for violence.  We cry “Out of Order” and we will demand blood on its account.  We have always been this way.

Jews not only did this to Samaritans, but Jew did this to Christian and Roman did this to both.  Saul stood by crying “Out of Order!” as Stephen was struck with stones. Around 70 A.D. Roman guards went into the temple treasury to take its wealth and when the Jews rebelled Rome struck.  Crosses arose around Jerusalem like a forest, and Rome cried “Out of order!  Out of order!”  When Nero made Christians into torches he cried “Out of order!”  Christian Orthodox Russians shouted it as they raided Jewish weddings to murder the bride.  Charlemagne shouted it as he went on to butcher the polytheists still living in his land.  Protestants exclaimed it as they drowned the Anabaptists and set fire to Catholic Priests.  American settlers yelled it in a rage, “Out of order!” as they took native American babies by the ankles and shattered their heads on rocks.   And on June 12, 2016 a native-born American Muslim cried “Out of order!” as he gleefully reloaded his assault rifle and killed or wounded over a hundred people at a Gay Latino nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  We think it is them, it is not.  It is us.  It is all of us.

As Pastor Don said last week, the first step in exorcizing any demon is extracting its name.  This demon’s name is self-righteousness.  Any time we think of another human being as less than human for acting improper, anytime we get enraged because life and people aren’t going according to the way we want them to we are engaging in that demon and that …has…consequences.  Take Jesus’ rebuke seriously, it is meant for every single one of us because we all desperately need it. 

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, in the wake of Orlando, in the wake of all the death and the violence facing us this year, we all need to realize this problem is never going to resolve itself unless we do one and only one thing.  We stop insisting on our rights and we start talking about our Samaritans.  Amen and Amen. 

                

A Matter of Heart...

          What is this?  Is this Church?  Why isn’t everybody in pews?  Where’s the organ, the chancil, and the altar?  What about the sanctuary and all those other hard to remember terms they don’t teach in seminary?  And what about those funny guys in the long dresses?  How can this be worship?  How can this be Church?

                Well, sometimes things are not always what they seem, and just because it isn’t what we are used to, doesn’t mean it isn’t just as true.  But mistaking something for its trappings, getting fooled by the outside and not looking within is something we as humans will always struggle with.  We don’t like change, we don’t like it when differences crop up into our lives.  Between bills, work, family, and all the drama that gets put into that mix we like things to stay the same, we like things the way we are used to, the way we can handle them.  Humanity’s been like that since Adam and the fall, and it was no different for people living in Jesus’ time as it is today.

                Most people don’t really appreciate how different Jesus’ ministry was, how so very radical  compared to what was going on at the time.  I want you to imagine yourselves as Israelites living in Palestine, as 1^st century Jews living within walking distance of the Holy City. The temple and the synagogue are the biggest contact points of your faith, the places where you fully embraced your identity as Jews.  The synagogue was where you learned about your ancestral religion: Your learned what to eat, what to wear, and what to do.  The temple, however, was where you most publicly proclaimed your identity and where you performed the most important rites as an Israelite.  Here the Day of Atonement was performed, here the sacrifices and the various offerings were made to absolve all Israel of her sins.  Here was where you were supposed to meet God.

                But not all of your fellow Jews are happy with things the way they are, indeed the strife with your countrymen is almost equal to the strife you feel with your Roman conquerors.  In the first century there are four major divisions of the Jewish faith that you must contend with, all quite different from one another.  There were the Sadducees, the ruling class of Israel.  Surprisingly secular believers, they do not believe in angels or spirits nor do they really believe in an afterlife.  They pick and choose from their Bible, taking the verses they like and conveniently excluding what they don’t.  Only the first five books of Moses were Scripture to them, you see.  Cutting out ¾ of your book means cutting ¾ of your responsibility and where life would be at odds with the Prophets, the Prophets could simply be discarded.  Still, while deeply flawed by power and compromised by convenience, it must be noted that these are the only Jews among your people who are not racist, that do not believe Gentiles are bad simply because they are gentiles and by extension they do not believe Jews are good only because they are Jewish.

In addition to the Sadducees, however, there are the Pharisees and they are not so far from our evangelical movement.  They are a Scripture driven movement, a missionary movement, and a grass roots association interested in keeping the Scriptures central in the daily lives of their fellow Israelites.  No one person leads it, no organization heads it, rather it is rallied by its charismatic preachers who often decried their government and were quick to advocate war against foreign powers.  Their adherence to the whole of Scripture often makes them legalistic, obeying the bare words on the page but caring little for the spirit in which those words were given, but at the same time you will be hard pressed to find a Jew more openly living their faith or more interested in relieving the suffering of their people than this group.  

After the Pharisees are the Essenes, Puritans and End Time Believers.  They believe most of the country has fallen into horrible sin, so they do not mix with the common Israelite, seeing them as too tainted, too unclean for Holy Living.  They have removed themselves from society and live in the desert far away from the false government and the false religion that have taken on God’s name.  When God comes to judge their nation, it is their intention to be “Left Behind”, looking forward to the destruction of the temple and the coming of a great teacher.

There are also the Zealots, a group of Jews who feel that the only response to an unclean and gentile ridden government is its violent overthrow.  They were inspired by the Maccabees, the Jewish generals who threw off gentile oppression and foreign entanglements by the sword.  These are your constitution party members, the liberty lovers and the militiamen seeking to return their society to its perceived origins.  They are believers in their weapons and are fervent in their opposition to their government, but they are also the Jews most willing to give their lives in defense of their friends.

But finally, there are the people like you and me.  People who are somewhere in the middle, perhaps seeing one side or another but in all honesty just trying to eek out an existence that both gives credence to your people and shows faithfulness to your God.  You know the Temple isn’t perfect, you know the flaws of your leaders, and you know the dangers of losing your way of life, but it’s also all you’ve got to work with.  And so you work, you live, and you wait.  You endure the times and raise a family, doing your best with what you have…that is until someone comes along and shows you a better way.

And that someone comes…a man, a lowly carpenter’s son, rumored to be of illegitimate birth.  He is a rabbi, but he is not like the other rabbis.  He has no education, no formal training.  He didn’t apprentice himself to another teacher like the others did, he simply took up the mantle one day and, shockingly, people listened.  But people did more than listen, they followed.  They followed by the thousands.  And when this rabbi took disciples, he didn’t take the cream of the religious crop.  He didn’t go to the Scriptoriums, the religious schools for their best students, he took everybody.  He took fishermen, tax collectors, Zealots!  He even taught women!  And what did this man teach?  He taught that the root of all evil was neither Sadducee nor gentile, but the love of money and power and any Jew was quite susceptible.  He taught that gentiles were not an enemy of the religion or the state and they were indeed capable of great faith.  He taught the Temple was about to be judged and replaced with nothing, that the new holy community could be comprised with just two people without any buildings or sacrifices for sins.  He taught that there are no unclean foods and that working on the Sabbath is not necessarily against the law if those works are for good.  He taught that the Scriptures are Holy and Good, but they need filling to be complete.  But more than any of that, in a land of schisms and disagreements, in a land more and more given to violence this rabbi taught that Peace was the answer, that love for neighbor was the solution, that simple faith in God even unto death was the way.

                Now, all of you may be wondering, what in the name of the Holy of Holies does this have to with our gospel text?  Well, I’ll tell you.  As a Jew or even a Gentile in the first century the question arises, indeed begs to be asked how then is this Jesus still a Jew?  How can this sect of Christians still consider themselves part of Judaism when they will eat any food, have no use for temple or sacrifice, are willing to include gentiles into the people of God, and understand their Hebrew Scriptures as now secondary to the message of the gospel?  Yes, this Jesus might be important, indeed he might be the most important man who ever lived, but how can Christianity be thought of as having Jewish roots?

                And the answer is that appearances can be deceiving.  What looks one way can in fact be another and THAT is a theme that Luke deeply addresses in his gospel.  Luke begins his tale as a Gentile would.  Important people, people of divine importance, are often heralded before-hand.  So important is this Jesus, however, that even Jesus’ herald John is heralded beforehand.  Yes, this all occurred as a gentile would think fit, but these heralds are not gentile, they are Jewish.  Jesus and John are born to Jewish parents.  John’s father is a Jewish priest and Jesus’ parents have him circumcised and presented at the Temple according to Jewish law.  The inherent Jewishness of the Jesus story is hammered home time and time again and the relevance of the Jewish scriptures and their filled-full-ment in Jesus is not some outlying afterthought or a tangential footnote, but is central to the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people.  Indeed, where the story seems least Jewish, it in fact shows quite the opposite.  Joseph and Mary are recorded in Luke as obeying the Roman census.  Most jews rebelled at every census, but Joseph and Mary did not.  Their scriptures told them to obey the gentile king, to pray for them and indeed intercede for them while under their rule.  The Prophets proclaimed this, and Mordecai in Ruth lived this, even to the point of seeking royal permission to defend themselves against Haman and their enemies.  Joseph and Mary were not less Jewish for obeying Caesar; they were in fact more Jewish than all the rest of their countrymen.  And so it is for this part of the story, Jesus having just proclaimed the faith of a centurion now goes into Nain and raises a widow’s son, just like Elijah the Jewish Prophet did so many centuries before.  But unlike Elijah, who raised a gentile widow’s son, Jesus goes to the Jews and returns a Jewish widow’s only son back to her.  God has indeed returned to bless his people.  They were not left out.

                So yes, things changed.  The trappings of the past, the trap-things, the outside appearances that ensnared, yes they were discarded but the heart was no less true to its heritage.  God is not an exclusive God.  Claiming the Gentiles did not mean dismissing the Jews, and the blessings of the future in fact did not include the cursing of the past.  Both were upheld and one did not happen at the expense of the other.  So it is with us.  So often we look at the future and we see great cataclysmic change.  We look at our society and our children. We say “look how different it’s all going to be”…except it’s not.  2000 years from now we will still be silly, ridiculous humans in need of Jesus, but I will not lie to you, my friends, things will look different.  We will have a different president, we will live in a different world.  Our children will grow, they will not be exactly like us and our church will look very different in the years to come.  It’s only looks.  God is the God of the old and the new, and he gives the same heart to them both if we ask Him.  So yes, things will change, just not really.  And we can take heart in that.