A certain point of view

 

Matthew 23: 1-12
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 1, 2020

“Do as I say, not as I do” is an expression used to call out hypocrites. And it certainly looks as though Jesus is calling out the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees. But deeper than that, Jesus is calling out what makes for authentic living. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And do so with humility.



But it goes even deeper than that. In order to live authentically we must be able to experience, to engage others with empathy. According to Matthew’s gospel the scribes and the Pharisees teach what makes for authentic living but they expected that everyone must be able to fulfill all the requirements of the Torah, including lepers and beggars, poor peasants and the urban poor, without doing anything to lift them out of their oppression. These were the ones who came to Jesus for healing, release, and forgiveness, who came to him to be fed and to be loved. How can those with plenty and power expect equal participation from those who are powerless and don’t have enough? Unless those with plenty have little to no empathy for those who don’t—because those with plenty and power want to keep what they have.

This isn’t a religious problem but a human problem: to view people and events from our own point of view without acknowledging or empathizing with someone else’s experience as truth and to do so from a place of privilege and power.



Men don’t get to decide what is misogynistic.



Straight people don’t get to decide what is homophobic.



Cisgender people don’t get to decide what is transphobic.

White people don’t get to decide what is racist.



People in positions of power don’t get to decide what is considered oppression.

We will not understand why people riot if we insist on maintaining the “rightfulness” of our privilege, especially if we think we have earned it.



We will not understand “defund the police” if we insist on maintaining the “necessity” of our safety insured by power, especially if we think we deserve it.



We will not understand the anger, the desperation, the fear of those who may lose their civil rights, their livelihood, their humanity if we insist on using only our own point of view, if we can’t hold both truths together.



We cannot empathize with another’s pain if we are not willing to lean into our discomfort, acknowledge the truth of their reality, and recognize our part in the burden they carry.



Power insists that the powerless respond through power’s point of reference.



Jesus teaches us that his point of reference should be ours: the poor, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the criminalized and marginalized.

We can no longer afford to vote with solely our interests in mind. A true democracy requires us to vote as if someone else’s marriage, someone else’s healthcare, someone else’s safety, someone else’s life depends on it, because it does.



We also need to make the distinction between achieving better than it is now and turning this country around and moving forward for everyone. No matter the outcome on Tuesday, the majority of White people, we have not joined our spiritual and moral courage to abolishing poverty, racism, militarism, and materialism, and we must keep pushing our leaders on these issues if this nation is to move forward. Too many of us still benefit from cheap, unsustainable energy, from predatory capitalism and the exploitation of Black lives, Indigenous lives, and people of color. Too many of us are not prepared for the climate crisis and volatile weather. We will need all our spiritual strength, we will need each other and all our partnerships going forward, and we will need to build new ones and connect them into coalitions if we are to remain strong through potential catastrophe.

We have not told the truth, let alone lived it, for too long now and now it is all coming due. Human rights activist and United Nations representative Mohamad Safa tweeted: “If the United States saw what the United States is doing in the United States, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.” There is no center to hide in or lead from when democracy is circling the drain. How appropriate that before this election in particular we gather here at this Table of betrayal and desertion. We have Barabbas, a last-minute write-in candidate. We have a disciple whose vote ended up counting for empire and another who voted third party when he disavowed himself from ever having known Jesus. And yet none of the disciples stood by him in the end, except the women because they had nothing to lose, because they had nothing.



So as we take this bread and drink from this cup, in remembrance of Jesus, who has the most to lose in this election and how can we as Church be an ally? What commitments will we make going forward? How will we keep our hunger for justice united with the need for tenderness? How can we lean into our discomfort for the sake of someone else’s liberation and wholeness?

Our point of view is the cross, state-sponsored oppression in all its forms. But so is the hope of resurrection. And we can hold both truths at the same time.



Benediction – enfleshed.com



In days filled with uncertainty, we hold fast to the truths that ground us.

We keep our hearts set upon all that is just. All that is freeing.

All that deepens our connections and commitments to one another.

If we choose to follow, Love will lead us.

May this be our prayer and our practice,

today, this week, and all of our days.