an open and affirming community of faith
n open and affirming community where faith is questioned and formed, as relationships are made and upheld.
So the question this story raises for us is, where are we working to bring tear down the barriers put in place by the powerful (intentional or not) that serve to keep people isolated, unseen, forgotten, but not yet gone?
Who are the bent-over people whose faces we lift to finally look in their eyes?
Will we be the people God depends on to see the invisible people and remember their first names?
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The thing is, though, you can’t see them from far off. You have to get right up next to people in order to see them, I mean really see them. And by the grace of God and the mystery of Christ, we’ve been brought near enough, according to Paul, to see them no longer as enemies, or aliens, or foreigners, or strangers, but as human beings, as the children for whom God is creating a whole new world.
And it is the one whom I thought was my enemy, the one whom, to me, was a stranger, who is bound with me (walls torn down) to be now the dwelling place of God.
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But Jesus says, “God has another world in mind, one in which there’s enough for everybody, and nobody gets forgotten. Even the sparrows and the hairs on your head have value. And here’s the thing, if the ruling authorities come after you for holding out for God’s new world rather than tucking your tail between your legs and settling for the one the powerful want you to think is inevitable, don’t worry; God will stand with you in the face of their wrath. If you’re unwilling to settle for this tiny pinched world of scarcity, God will hold you up, lest you fall.”
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How do we ensure a world that refuses to allow the powerful to take advantage of the powerless?
We need to help make a culture in which people in power are no longer more afraid of being ashamed of being racist, misogynist, homophobic, ableist, or transphobic than being called racist, misogynist, homophobic, ableist, or transphobic.
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Turns out, people in power aren’t casually waiting for someone to show up and tell them that not only are they doing it wrong, they’re the source of injustice in the world. Nobody wants to hear that—especially those folks who’ve been told their whole lives what precious flowers they are, that the world is lucky to have them.
The thing is, it’s not just modern people who have a hard time with God as judge, being told the world they’ve made for themselves has failed to please God. But Lord knows, we still have court priests, false prophets whose job, whose whole reason for existing is to reassure the folks in power that God’s just fine with the selfishness and casual cruelty against the most vulnerable.
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You get a small group of people willing to live as if everyone is a neighbor, as if there’s plenty enough to go around, as if the maladies that make us ill unto despair are capable of being healed—and all of a sudden, demons bow down and Satan falls from the sky like a flash of lightning.
And the thing of it is, we’re not talking about the Avengers here. It’s just a bunch of ordinary people willing to head out into the world, carrying only their trust in Jesus and a different kind of kingdom.
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We who follow Jesus follow him to Jerusalem. We follow him not just so that we can sleep better at night but so that those who go to sleep at night terrified of what this world holds for them will finally find some peace, a chance to rest from the relentless notion in our culture that their lives have no value.
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Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grey-and-brown-brick-wall-966927/
So, here’s what I think: I think that we who would be like Jesus, we need to take the risk and cross the borders to go looking for the people Jesus himself went out in search of, and to speak the words and do the work necessary to see them free.
We need to brave the wasteland and go into the graveyards that house so many and find ways to break the chains that keep them in bondage.
We can’t afford to wait and let them come to us.
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In a world willing to pray to any god who promises to keep us safe from people who don’t look like us, in a world where the music of our worship sounds like the ticking of a time clock, or the growl of an SUV, in a world in which we tithe our time and money to gods defined by national boundaries or party affiliations or racial designations, we have good news about a new world God is busy creating that we can’t keep to ourselves—even knowing that in proclaiming it we risk looking like the very people we privately roll our eyes at.
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The power of holy disruption is present when followers of Jesus stand together to offer witness to the truth. The power of the Spirit is less to be found in the heroic individual than in the community knit together by the power of a common witness on behalf of those whom Jesus loves.
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The unlikeliest faces, out minding their own business, when the Holy Spirit shows up and things get interesting: God chases after the untouchables, women become central players in the gospel game, demons flee, prisoners are set free, and the powerful find humility.
And that’s the thing about the reign of God: it’s always in the midst of such implausible circumstances, in the presence of the unlikeliest faces that God is busy establishing a whole new world.
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Where is God moving in the community of faith today, threatening old patterns of belief?
What sorts of people is God busy inviting into our fellowship who make us uncomfortable?
The implications are troubling. But we can take comfort in the fact that it’s not our question. It’s God’s question, and like the good book says, “Who am I that I should hinder God?” I’m afraid of this text. But I’m also just as afraid of getting in the way of what God wants to do.
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And that’s the thing: The world, as chaotic and torn as it is right now, needs a little resurrection—needs people like you and me to get up and bring new life to folks who feel like everybody else has given up on them.
LGBTQ kids are dying, waiting for someone to care about them. Traumatized refugees are languishing in camps, waiting for someone to notice them. Our Black neighbors are literally dying in jail, waiting for someone to realize that we seem to live in a system designed not to deliver but to thwart justice. Single parents are trapped in low-paying jobs, waiting for a few people to stand up with them and say that you can’t live on $7.25 an hour. Muslims, who live right next to us in fear, waiting for people like you and me to wrap our arms around them and treat them like siblings.
Whether or not Jesus was a political radical in the way we think of political radicals is irrelevant; the Romans believed he was a political revolutionary.
And they executed him like one.
And that’s the danger of not keeping your mouth shut about Jesus. Start talking about protecting the poor and the powerless, and people get twitchy.
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True freedom, as we find it in Jesus, can never be about ever more elaborate ways to justify selfishness—to say that we have responsibility only for ourselves and those we love.
True freedom for those who follow Jesus is being given the opportunity, no matter how much it costs, to love those whom Jesus loves.
But the thing is, we have to leave the empty tomb to do it. We remember it; we love it, but we see it as a place from which we’re sent out into the world—because that’s where the sick, and the hungry, and the imprisoned are. That’s where the work is. And that’s where Jesus is.
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Salving our consciences by looking away betrays Jesus and the world God is busy creating.
Shuffling the houseless off to someplace where the people can’t see them may be good for tourism, but it fails our community and vocation as Jesus-followers by making some of our neighbors expendable.
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In other words, unlike the kinds of rulers people are used to, who always seem to be using their power for themselves, Jesus’ use of power is always focused on the most exposed and exploited among us.
Jesus’ use of power builds up instead of dividing and tearing down.
Heals people rather than afflict them.
Sets them free instead of subjugating them.
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Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In fact, the story’s not about us at all. We find out that if the father in this story is a stand-in for God, God’s not keeping score the way everybody else keeps score. In a culture where shame lessened everyone’s respect for you, God demonstrated God’s willingness to dive face-first into the slop to show us how much we’re loved.
But God’s also willing to risk humiliation to find the entitled older brother and listen to his whining about how—after all he’s done—he’s never got so much as a case of beer and a cheese ball for a party with his friends.
Think about it. God embraces humiliation to preserve a relationship with both the irresponsible brat and the entitled fussbudget.
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