Making life livable

Isaiah 58: 9b-12; Luke 13: 10-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
August 25, 2019

(This sermon contains pieces of a message I gave in Pleasant Hill, TN on March 24 entitled "To Everything, Turn".)

The Bible is replete with nameless women. From Noah’s wife to Lot’s wife and daughters, from the rape and murder of a nameless sex slave in Judges to the widow of Zarephath, the proverbial capable wife, the woman with a chronic hemorrhage, the woman about to be stoned, the woman who had a spirit of weakness and was bent over for 18 years—one biblical interpretation is that often these nameless women were synonymous or symbolic of Israel. Israel could be virtuous or victim, sinful or wrongly accused depending on the story.

It’s a pretty misogynistic view of both women and Israel. In a story, women who are nameless have no agency, no voice, no will of their own. Earlier in the gospel of Luke in another synagogue Jesus declared that he had come to bring release to the captive. Often, when Jesus encounters a woman whose name we do not know, he seeks to liberate her from her usually limiting circumstances. So this woman who had a spirit of weakness and was bent over for 18 years is also Israel under the boot of the Roman Empire, occupied by a foreign power, the people in need of healing, burdened by the rules that said “Come back tomorrow”.

And yet we can all relate to this story. Earlier this week I saw a cartoon in which someone is bent over. A friend asks, “What happened?” “I hurt my back.” “Oh dear. Don’t be too glum. Try to lift up your heart.” *Silence.* “How did you do it?” “I was trying to lift my heart but it was too heavy.” Every week many of us come into this space with our own burdens, our hearts heavy with the daily news, an illness or injury or chronic pain, cancer, a family member or friend who is hurting, a broken relationship, the loss of a loved one, too many bills to pay, the feeling of being disconnected. We come for Sabbath, for healing and comfort, relief and release. We come to know we’re not alone.



Another word for the Jewish concept of the Satān is adversary. We all have our adversaries that can bind us and keep our heads down, limiting our world view, our hearts downcast. And yet most of us are not burdened, are not limited because of our identity, who we are, because of how the world sees us and relates to us. For the most part, the rules were written for the privileged and entitled and against everyone else.

The rules, written and unwritten, were designed to favor those who own property over those who don’t.

• To favor the wealthy over the poor.

• To favor men over women.

• To favor white people over people of color and indigenous people.

• To favor straight people over queer people.

• To favor cisgender people over transgender and non-binary people.

• To favor the able-bodied over the disabled.

• To favor neurotypical people over neurodivergent people.

• To favor citizens over refugees and immigrants.

• To favor the employed over the unemployed and underemployed.

• To favor salaried people over hourly people.

• To favor college-educated over tradesfolk.

• To favor strength and might over the weak and vulnerable.

• To favor power and control over trust and partnership.

• To favor loopholes over honesty and responsibility.

• To favor entitlement over human rights.

• To favor short-term gain over natural resources.

• To favor punishment over restoration.

And when folks try to change the rules, to bend the other way, to bend the arc toward justice right down into people’s lives, those who have been waiting all their lives to simply live are told to come back tomorrow, wait a little longer.

• You can’t seek asylum here. You’ll take our jobs.

• I can’t get used to your pronouns. I can’t adjust my language.

• What’s a microaggression? There’s no way I’m a racist.

• It was just a joke.

• Not in my backyard.

• What can one person do?

Pastor Stan Mitchell, from Henderson, TN, said, “If you claim to be an ally of a group of people, if you’re not getting hit by the stones that are thrown at them, you’re not standing close enough.” To be an ally also means that sometimes those stones may come from the very people we’re trying to help, because sometimes we’re part of the problem.

We who are white have been made aware of our white privilege and white fragility but when was the last time we attended a Black Lives Matter protest and listened? We’ve been made aware of the pervasiveness of rape culture and domestic violence and sexual assault but when was the last time we called out someone’s misogyny or sexist joke? We’ve had the Americans with Disabilities Act since 1990 but how do we still assume an ableist attitude in public spaces? We know now that there are more than two genders but how ready are we to break the binary and use someone’s affirming pronouns, regardless of our inner grammar nazi? We may understand the connection between systemic racism, poverty, and the effects of climate change, but do we understand how entrenched our culture is, the commitment of those in power to the enforcement of these systems, and how we benefit from them? 

When we who are privileged feel hopeless and powerless, when we give hope and power to others, ours is restored. It takes a village to save a village; a nation to save a nation; the whole world to save the world.

It’s all connected. We’re all connected. We lift up girls; we must also lift up gay and trans kids. We lift up trans kids, we lift up non-binary and gender queer kids. We lift up all those kids, all the kids; we also lift up those who live in poverty, especially the poverty of trans adults, the violence against trans adults, especially people of color. We lift up all these; we lift up all people of color, especially the immigrant, the refugee. We lift up the immigrant, the refugee; we must lift a living wage. We lift up a living wage, we lift up the incarcerated, the working poor. We lift up the incarcerated, the working poor, we lift up voting rights, affordable housing, mental health, food security. We lift up basic human needs, we lift up education. We lift up education; we lift up the earth and climate change and technology and finding non-violent solutions to our problems. We lift up science; we must also lift up art and music and beauty and poetry and athleticism and mysticism—all those qualities that feed our spirits and make us come alive. 

We lift justice, respect, courage, peace. We restore ruins. We repair the breach. We make life livable for everyone. 

 Amen.