The End of Things (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; and Luke 12:13-21)

In my previous parish, a group of senior citizens gathered each Wednesday night for bible study. We selected the entire book of Ecclesiastes to work our way through. You might find it a bit morose, this book of Ecclesiastes. The narrator, called “the Preacher” or “Teacher”, wanders through the world, decrying that all is vanity. No matter the achievements, no matter the fortunes, no matter the fame, all things are found lacking. The narrator says, “I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”  (Yeah, I know what you’re thinking…the narrator of Ecclesiastes must be fun at parties!)

Reading Ecclesiastes with the senior citizen group, however, was a deep experience. Together with a group of folks who have lived long years and seen much along the way, I discovered Ecclesiastes as that sort of deep wisdom that only becomes clear after you have lived a bit. Life can seem a series of disasters tinged with occasional success, or closed doors suddenly open, then shut, and then open again, and Ecclesiastes moves in the midst of such realization about life. There is nothing new, no use trying to be more than human. You will fail; you will triumph. Do not get failure or success confused with divine favor or disproval. Life will be life.

In the 2005 film Little Miss Sunshine, the story of a deeply dysfunctional family unfolds as they undertake a road trip across the country. The young daughter has an opportunity to achieve something: participating in a pageant for little girls. The family struggles to get there, as much with the van (that they wind up having to push to start up each time the engine is turned off) as they do with dealing with being in close quarters with one another. Indeed, the juxtaposition of the film’s title with its characters cannot be more apt, reinforced by one of the opening shots: a close-up of the character portrayed by comedian Steve Carrell, a man who is quite miserable, suicidal, and feels as if life has lost its meaning, staring into the nothingness in the midst of a mental ward. As he stares, the title appears: Little Miss Sunshine. The man is a leading literary scholar, yet his career, love life, and will to live have been eclipsed by a run of misfortune and his own increasing gloom and bitterness.

The narrator of Ecclesiastes seems to join in: “What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” If you read Ecclesiastes 2, you encounter the long experiment with excess that the narrator of Ecclesiastes tries out: power, wealth, possessions. All of these things are in his grasp, yet he feels like he is empty. “All is vanity and chasing after the wind.”

At the same time, in all of its wanderings through the gloom of life, the writer of Ecclesiastes points toward something greater than this unending folly of human life. For every reference to the futility of human life, there is an affirmation of life with God. The folly is seen as seductive, and the wise path is found for those who eschew the excessiveness.

The 1999 Oscar winner for Best Picture is the film American Beauty, the story of a suburban family that is deeply dysfunctional. While having the perks of life (the picket fence, SUV-driving ideal life of white, middle-class America), the family lives out Thoreau’s observation that most of us “live lives of quiet desperation”. The family finds little consolation in all of their stuff, indeed, not even in their relationships with one another. The storylines of each family member takes him or her on a journey seeking something more fulfilling, but instead, they find themselves even further away from happiness. Thoreau notes, “What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

In the midst of this abysmal story comes a beautiful yet near elusive moment of grace. A neighbor boy takes the young daughter to see his collection of home videos, including this seemingly inane footage of a plastic bag blowing in the wind. While caught up in selling and abusing drugs, the neighbor boy finds something stirring and different in the experience of filming life with his video camera. This plastic bag floating down an alley makes him see something through his camera lens. He explains as he filmed this scene,
This bag was just...dancing with me...like a kid begging me to play with it…That’s the day I realized there was this entire life behind things and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid ever…. Video is a poor excuse..but it helps me remember. I need to remember…Sometimes, there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it…and my heart, she’s going to cave in.” (Excerpt from script, quoted from Robert K. Johnston, Useless Beauty, p. 62-63).

This is where the parable from Luke also joins in. Jesus tells a story that I imagine will never lose its relevance. It is not a criticism of wealth. Rather, it is a criticism of the rich who are not content to be the “haves”, rather, they seek to be the “have more” type. The farmer is not content with good crops and barns to store them. Instead, he launches into building bigger barns and storing away even more. To Jesus’ audience, living in first century Palestine, where nearly everyone did not own property, any story about a wealthy landowner presumed that those who were got this way by being exploitative. Like the Grinch from Dr. Seuss, this man’s heart has grown several sizes too small.

The parable resounds in a recent film (indeed, the #1 film in America this past week!). In The Simpsons Movie, the entire town is experiencing a devastating power loss. As the townspeople go to Mr. Burns, the owner of the town’s nuclear power plant, for help, you cannot help but notice the irony. As most of Springfield flickers in and out of power, high up on the hill above, the Burns mansion is lit brightly, with huge neon signs blazing “Happy Holidays from Monty Burns”. The townspeople ask Mr. Burns for help, and he shows them two buttons on his desk. One button will give the town below all the power it needs. The other button, if pushed, will release the guard dogs to chase the townsmen away if he is unconvinced by their requests for help. Mr. Burns can provide for others, yet as the scene cuts away from the pleas of the townspeople, Burns is heard telling the men which way to run out of the mansion as the dogs start baying.

The parable mirrors Ecclesiasates and the more dodgy side of human nature as the story involves the farmer-turned-hoarder being told that his life was to end that very night. The beauty of life is not found in possessions or any other insular hedonisms of your choosing. As Thoreau writes, “It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” Or as Jesus warns, do not store up for yourself and be not rich toward God.

The pragmatic critique of Ecclesiastes and the social criticism embedded within the world of Jesus’ parables resound in the midst of our own day. Whether we find ourselves sitting in a darkened movie theatre or lounging around the TV with the latest film from Netflix.com on screen, we find ourselves seeing a bit of our own story in popular culture. It causes us to weep, laugh, and even yearn from a place deep down inside ourselves.
And sacred text finds us as well, in wisdom sayings and parable form. The narrator of Ecclesiastes and the parable-spinner Christ beckon to us where we sit in the pews. We hear these words, and perhaps they wound or they liberate, who knows but yourself where these words count the most in your heart.

But, whether through film or scripture, we see yet again that there is a luminous grace that surrounds us, something that makes the heart feel close to bursting. The burdens of the day or along life’s long journey, the need for control fueled by our quiet desperation, it is unmasked as vanity upon vanity. And for those willing to look closely, even beyond themselves, there is wisdom that points to a life that is indeed good, and a faith that is far richer than any possession.

And the old gospel hymn comes to mind, “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of God’s glory and grace.”

By rote or by practice (Luke 11:1-13)

By rote or practice: Living the Lord’s Prayer

While at the Baptist World Alliance meetings, the attendees were invited to pray many times. One of the prayers involved the group praying together the Lord’s Prayer. We prayed primarily in English, however, a funny thing happened. As we prayed, the familiar words took on a life of their own, each person praying at a different pace, some asking for forgiveness of trespasses while others were well onto asking for those “who trespass against us”. Somehow, in the mixing pulse and rhythm of the many voices, we still wound up intoning an “Amen”.
However you pray the Lord’s Prayer, it is a prayer that you learned or perhaps are still learning from worship, Sunday school, or perhaps your home life, one of the common elements in Christian worship that draws the various churches together, regardless of theological difference. On Sunday mornings, we pray this prayer as First Baptist, Bennington, but we are also being drawn together with other churches, becoming in that moment, “Church” (with a capital “C”).

Over the centuries of Christianity, worship has included this prayer, drawing us together around a common prayer drawing its roots from the Gospel witness. The irony, of course, is that the prayer that we know as “the Lord’s Prayer” is really a composite prayer, drawn from Matthew and Luke’s gospels with some additional words taken from early Church tradition and a number of traditions over the intervening centuries. Look closely at either Gospel and you will find no mention of “for thine is the kingdom, and the glory, and the power forever.” (This line comes from the Didache, an early church document used for teaching the faith.)
And there is “the great liturgical train wreck” when large groups of English speaking Christians get to the part about “trespasses” and realize that there are also some Christians who pray slightly differently: “and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Which is the correct one? It depends on how you choose to translate the Greek! (To be honest, I have prayed in churches either way, so my first Sunday here, I found myself hesitating slightly in leading the Lord’s Prayer to figure out if you were “trespassers” or “debtors.”)
I would suggest that there is a greater issue of translation around the Lord’s Prayer. Rather than asking about words, perhaps we should ponder how we translate these words into our lives. The Lord’s Prayer can be just words we pray at church once a week, or they can be words that follow us into our workplace, our households, and our community life.
It is tempting to think of the Lord’s Prayer as a stand-alone text from the Gospels, yet both occasions that this prayer is mentioned, Jesus frames this prayer in the midst of teaching. Matthew’s Gospel embeds the prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, the teaching of Jesus that is most familiar for its wealth of sayings, a rich tapestry of teachings including the Beatitudes and the parable of the Wise Man and the Foolish Man. In Luke’s gospel, however, Jesus has been off by himself in prayer, and a disciple asks him about prayer.
As Jesus unfolds his comments on prayer, perhaps the disciple who asked (as well as those of us listening in) feels the temptation to take the prayer form Jesus offers as all needed. Instead, Jesus pauses for breath and starts sketching out the implications of being able to pray such a prayer. Luke’s gospel does not place the Lord’s Prayer in the midst of great ethical teaching like Matthew. Rather, from the midst of Jesus’ own prayer life comes this earnest reflection on the character of the person called to prayer. Luke’s gospel places Jesus going off to pray frequently. Jesus prays, even in the midst of great times and low times, demonstrating a radical dependence on God.

A few years ago, I met with Fr. Edward Hays, a Catholic priest and writer from the Kansas City area who was sort of a minor celebrity among some of my mentors and friends. Author of a number of books on spirituality, his writing style is a bit difficult to describe. Some might find him a little to the left. Others might find him the first person to make prayer a deeply moving experience. I found myself simply inspired by his way of speaking of prayer. One of his comments to me: “Some treat prayer as if it is like calling 9-1-1. Only in case of emergency do we call to God.” Hays shared a variety of other observations, but what I recollect most is his measured pace of talking about prayer. He was not “dispensing advice”. Instead, I felt like he reached deep inside himself to give these answers. These remarks were part of a rich life spent in prayer, sort of like receiving a bit of honeycomb (or perhaps for you Vermonters, like a jug of fine maple syrup), something that comes at the end of a very long process.

When you pray, “God’s will be done”, when you pray for daily bread, when you ask and give forgiveness (trespassers and debtors alike take note!), it is not something that will happen magically. It takes learning the Prayer and then allowing you to be shaped by it. As you pray it, the Lord’s Prayer becomes confession as well as covenant with God as the words of the prayer start getting down into your bones and the deepest places in your heart.

The reality of Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is just that: you work at living out this way of prayer. It is one thing to learn by rote, in other words, by memorization and repetition. It is quite another to practice the Prayer in the midst of your life. Jesus’ prayer life is not given as a sign of impossible piety. Rather, it is as invitation for the reader of Luke to take note and do likewise. The Lord’s Prayer points to a way of prayer, a spirituality, if you like, that is lived as much as recited.

Rather than get into further commentary, I want us to spend a few minutes more in reflection. We will say this prayer together and then let us spend a few moments just letting our hearts and minds reflect on this prayer. After a measure of time, I will offer a brief word of prayer, and we will sing a hymn together. May our hearts and minds be called to new life and deepening discipleship in the way of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray….”Our Father….”

The Moral Theology of Bart (Bennington Banner Column)

Over the years, I have grown deeper in love with The Simpsons. The irreverent humor, the surreal situations, and the satire draw me in, even as some complain that the show has gotten a little stale in recent years. As a clergy person, I appreciate the respect that the show has for religion. While skewering religion alongside just about anything else, The Simpsons regularly offers glimpses of a small town where religious adherence is valued by many of its residents. The Rev. Lovejoy, minister of the First Church of Springfield, even has his own action figure and church play set. The pews are always full at the First Church of Springfield, featuring a diversity of the town’s residents. Not bad for a church whose signboards regularly feature the most bizarre messages. (Personal favorite: “No shirt, no shoes, no salvation.”) Further, on the rare occasions when God is featured, you will note that God has five fingers rather than the four fingers of the rest of the show’s characters.

The evangelical world of Christianity surprisingly has warmed to the irreverent program. Perhaps this is because of the presence of the Simpsons’ next-door neighbor, Ned Flanders. One of the most earnest characters on television, Ned radiates a deep joy from his faith. While sometimes dense to the ways of the much more worldly Homer, Ned keeps a generally cheery disposition, weathering his wife’s loss in an accident, the destruction of his home when no other house in town is damaged in a tornado, and other hardships over the various seasons. British evangelicals even hosted a “Ned Flanders Night” where persons dressed in Ned’s trademark green sweater, glasses, and mustache.

A few years ago, religious reporter Mark Pinsky wrote a best-selling The Gospel According to the Simpsons (Westminster/John Knox Press). In this book, Pinsky reviews a variety of episodes from the series and observes the critique of American religion offered by the show. He points out that the show depicts a variety of religious traditions, with regular characters Krusty the Klown as a rabbi’s son, Apu the convenience store clerk as a Hindu, and even Lisa Simpson being drawn to Buddhism yet still attending church with her family. The show’s affirmation of religious pluralism reflects contemporary America, while also demonstrating the difficulty of Americans trying to live into this reality. For example, when Rev. Lovejoy mentions the various faiths of Springfield, he refers to Apu’s religion as “miscellaneous”. Apu protests that there are over 700 million Hindus in the world. Lovejoy replies, “Aw, that’s super.” The condescension of the Rev.’s tone seems all too familiar in real life inter-religious interaction.

The Simpsons invites us to look at religion with eyes wide open and tongue firmly in cheek. We can often be too pompous in religious circles, and The Simpsons writers hope we will continue being like this. We provide good material! At the same time, each time we enter the world of Springfield (apparently located right here in Vermont!), we are treated to a world where good-hearted Neds and never-completely-beyond-redemption Homers live together. And Rev. Lovejoy roams the streets of Springfield, part of the landscape of a town where religion is woven into the life of its residents, even if a joke or two is made along the way. Let the people say, “D’oh!”

The Homer-shaped Jerrod H. Hugenot is minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont. To correspond or swap Simpsons quotes, email him at fbpastor@sover.net

Hope of Glory (Colossians 1:15-29)

I suppose there is always a bit of fear when someone invites you to learn about his or her recent trip somewhere. Will you have to sit through hours of slideshows, hearing about trivial little things like “And this is a place we stopped at for lunch” or “This is me standing next to the world’s largest ball of hay bailing twine”? Hours of “action-packed” excitement, I’m telling you!

Thankfully, as I reflect on my recent travels, there will be no slideshow, nor will there be any further mention of arcane stuff that only bored tourists stop for on the way across Kansas. (Yes, Virginia, there is a “world’s largest ball of twine” in Cawker City, KS. Alas, it is the most exciting thing about that town….). I have a small display about my trip set up in Colgate Hall for coffee hour, but that’s the extent of things! (No strings or twine attached!)

For eighteen days in late June/early July, I traveled to Washington, DC, for two different meetings. First, I attended the General Board, which meets each year to take care of denominational business, and the biennial meeting of our denomination. The second set of meetings involved attending the Baptist World Alliance, a global gathering of Baptist denominations and related organizations meeting annually to discuss and celebrate common mission and ministry. I could give you a lot of information, but then that promise of “no slideshows” would be broken. Instead, let me weave together some thoughts on why these eighteen days of denominational work matter.

The first half of my trip was with “the home team”, our denominational family known as the American Baptist Churches/USA. We gathered in Washington, DC, this year for meetings to revisit our history. In 1907, the Northern Baptist Convention was incorporated in our nation’s capitol. This was a significant moment as Northern Baptists (not to be named “American Baptists” until fifty years later) began bringing together a sense of cooperation between various groups and mission societies. This year’s meetings took a number of opportunities to celebrate why we are together. There have been many occasions where we have dwelt too exclusively (or perhaps obsessively) about why not everybody thinks alike, so it was good to reflect on our unity and mission for a change.

As I read the Colossians text assigned to this Sunday in the lectionary cycle, I thought of the various parts of American Baptist history uplifted in this biennial meeting. The Colossians text is very dense, yet as you untangle the Pauline writing style (good luck diagramming these sentences like we used to in school), there is a profound message at work. The epistle ties together the sufferings of this world with the sufferings of the Cross, not to justify the violence and the pain, but to affirm that in the Christ story, with its cruciform shape, there is a peace that cannot be overcome. When the people of the Cross are on the move, their response to the world’s sufferings is to be in the midst of those who are suffering. There is a certain grace at work in Colossians that says to our world, wracked by violence and anxiety, that those who follow Christ follow Christ into the midst of our suffering world. The Gospel is simply “out of context” (not heard, not lived) until we find ourselves drawn closer to, rather than further away from, the world and its needs.

At this year’s Biennial, we recalled our history as a people engaged in the critical times of our nation’s history, advocating and caring for those whom society (and even the government) marginalized. Joanna P. Moore (1832-1916) was remembered for her advocacy among African Americans in the post-Civil War South, especially in her coordination of literacy training. Her legacy was so great that at the time of her passing, there were 7,000 mourners who showed up for her funeral in 1916.

A special exhibit entitled “120,000 Nikkei Voices of Gratitude” offered deep gratitude for the denomination’s support and care for Japanese Americans who were interred by the US Government during the Second World War. A person named Yosh Nakagawa was interred as a young boy with his family. The care and support given to these internees by American Baptists helped him grow in the Christian faith, later to become a respected denominational lay leader and Vice President of our General Board. The stories of grace and care that he relates as part of his upbringing revolve around a deep gratitude for our denomination at a critical time in his life and that of wrongly interred peoples.

As American Baptists begin new initiatives to address issues affecting children in poverty in the United States and join in global initiatives to address the issues of human trafficking, particularly women and children being sold for the purposes of sexual exploitation, it is important to remember the spiritual DNA of our tradition. We have a rich history of serving when there has been critical need, even if public sentiment is against or apathetic to these needs. Through remembering the stories of our past, we are summoned to our present and future callings as a denomination to be a people who step into the fray, unafraid of the obstacles, bearing a cross that is made known to the world in the peaceable witness of Christ.

The second half of my trip involved going to Accra, Ghana, as part of the Baptist World Alliance. Founded in Attending the Baptist World Alliance’s annual meeting, this year in Ghana, was a remarkable opportunity. For just over a century, Baptists from around the world have met annually to work together and share in the efforts to proclaim and live out the Gospel. The BWA meetings featured a variety of speakers and presentations, especially focusing on the issues of African Baptists and the humanitarian needs of the African nations. The BWA spent an entire day of its schedule visiting Cape Coast, a “slave castle” where European slave traders exported thousands of Africans into the slave trade. As part of our visit, the BWA participated in a service of remembering, lament, and reconciliation for the atrocities of the slave trade and affirmed their own organizational commitments in addressing the modern day issues of human trafficking.

As part of a new initiative to identify and empower younger leadership, the BWA has inaugurated an “Emerging Leaders Network”, a gathering of young adult leadership drawn from Baptist groups around the world. Like many religious groups, the Baptist tradition is growing more attentive to the need to cultivate and nurture younger leaders. For the next four years, I will attend BWA annual meetings representing American Baptists as well as learning how to develop a more global perspective in my own faith and ministry.

This past week, I was invited, along with the other ABC young adult participant, to write some reflections on the BWA experience. These reflections will appear on the denomination’s website as part of the report about our connections with the BWA. Here are parts of these reflections:
Through the formation of the Emerging Leaders Network, the BWA models an excellent organizational value for its member conventions and bodies to emulate. By providing opportunities not only “to see”, but hear and grow from the presence of young leaders, the BWA recognizes that its future is not just in hoping “for youth” in a vague sort of way. This four-year commitment seeks to provide training, mentorship, and deepening relationships between “ELN” participants and experienced Baptist leaders.

I learned quite a bit listening to the stories of ministry and mission being carried out by these Emerging Leaders, who are providing able and relevant leadership and vision to local churches, conventions, and missional endeavors. For instance, Asha Sanchu is a 24-year old woman from Nagaland, presently involved in ministry to prostitutes in Thailand. Listen to the story of Teodore Oprenov, a Bulgarian minister involved in his local church to empower the congregation in the care and advocacy for Gypsy peoples who are otherwise unwanted and ignored in Bulgaria, especially young children for whom life would be otherwise grim.

It chastens me as an American Baptist to see young leaders emerging from other Baptist conventions and mission organizations who are providing direct leadership and support for young adult leaders when so many North American Baptist groups are still entrenched in a “climb the ladder” type of developing church leadership. This has resulted in young leaders rarely being intentionally cultivated in our churches and denomination. It is evident that the ELN program participants outside of North America are doing critical ministry, while we in North America, myself included, are still too busy trying to save our own bits of institutional turf.

On this last count, let me note that this is where I think these past 18 days of travel impact me the most. As minister of a congregation that is in transition, I heard very clearly that what we are trying to do here with one local church in Bennington, Vermont, New England, USA, North America matters tremendously not only to this community and nation but also on a global level. If we are here just to keep the doors open, or ministry happening just inside these four walls, we are missing something vital to our faith. Jesus calls us not only to be a group of Baptists gathered in one church but disciples who care about the world, the same world for whom Jesus endured crucifixion and death, so that in the hope of glory, we who follow might have a witness that draws the world closer to God and the cross of peace.

We should not discount that this transition process matters beyond just a new lease on life for one group of believers. First Baptist, Bennington, can have a prophetic and compassionate witness as part of its renewed vision. With American Baptists, we speak up and act out for those who are in need or forgotten. With our larger Baptist family, we realize our calling as North American Christians, providing care and serving a vital role in a hurting world. We are not called just to save our own bit of institutional turf, whether as a local church or a denomination.

During biennial, American Baptists joined together with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., for an evening of worship and celebration of cooperative work. Daniel Vestal, the national coordinator for the CBF group commented, “The 19th-century was the century of the Baptist missionary society. The 20th-century was the century of the Baptist denomination. But the 21st-century will be the century of the local church. The future of the church in North America will be determined by those churches that discern God’s mission in the world and discover their participation in that mission.”

Can we look at our task in this transitional time not as “how do we save ourselves?” but “how do we illumine for this hurting world ‘the hope of glory’ found in Jesus Christ?” I am hopeful that this one local church will be part of a world full of vibrant, verdant diversity and deep, often hidden woundedness. May we be faithful to our Baptist forbearers and faithful in creating a legacy of ministry and mission that encourage our future generations to be inspired. AMEN.

A Meal Before Grace (Luke 7:36-8:3)

One of the tasks of our household was the setting of the table. From an early age, I learned how to set the table as part of being “Momma’s Little Helper”, a polite phrase that makes a child feel helpful while getting said child out of the kitchen when things get busy. For those bigger dinners like Thanksgiving, I learned how to set the plates, how to fold a napkin, and how to figure out which one was the salad fork. We were not a family that got that fancy for the daily ordinary meals (Mom calls her paper plates “the fine china”), but for those meals where you cooked big because the crowd was going to be, we got out some of the nicer tableware. Setting the table was just as important for those meals as the food that was prepared. You wanted things to be “just right.”

“You gave me no water for my feet…you gave me no kiss…. you did not anoint my head with oil.” These words of Jesus to Simon the Pharisee are not polite words. The table was set well. The guests gathered for this meal, reclining around a low table on cushions. (There were no tables and chairs in the sense that we are accustomed to in our time.) The meal was great. You could not have asked for a better meal, though there were some bad table manners at play, even before the first dish was laid out before the guests. Jesus was invited, yet no standard courtesies were given to him. The food was wonderful, yet there was a bitter taste to the whole evening.

Jesus was often the guest of big meals, and Simon the Pharisee knew it. As a teacher, Jesus could be counted on as someone who could engage the guests. Luke’s Gospel is full of stories about Jesus working the dinner circuit, spinning parables and making the crowd a bit dizzy with his vision of what the Kingdom of God is all about. Simon invited Jesus to this meal with the knowledge of Jesus’ abilities as a teacher, yet he slighted Jesus even before he stepped one foot into the house. The entire evening became the little slights that were more than oversights, a not so subtle mocking of the rules of hospitality and in turn, Simon’s overt snub of Jesus. “No water for my feet…no kiss of welcome…no anointing….”

At the same time, Jesus spent a lot of time sitting at table with people who were not likely to be invited to Simon the Pharisee’s house. If there was any common criticism of Jesus, it was that he mingled too freely and readily with “them”. While many cringe at the phrase “those people”, there are many others who use the phrase willingly while passing by on the street, looking across the grocery store aisle, while talking with friends about issues of the day. “Them” can be described quite succinctly as “not us” and thus not a person of worth or consequence. “Them” receive glances over the shoulder, the cold shoulder, indifference to their difference, and most importantly, the lack of recognition as human beings in their difference and identity.

Jesus had every chance to be “us”, but he was born as, lived as, and yes, even died as “them”. So he sits at Simon’s house, one of “them”, brought in for entertainment, but the respect accorded a teacher is not there. Indeed, Simon the Pharisee has said as much by inviting Jesus and then hiding the welcome mats. “Them” is here for amusement, and more to the point, an evening’s worth of reminders that “us” keep “them” in their place.

In the film Rabbit Proof Fence, talented actor Kenneth Branaugh portrays a man named Mr. Neville who is a man of culture, power, and influence. His task is to help educate the “less fortunate” Aboriginal children, born of peoples native to Australia before the colonization of the country. Mr. Neville is a fierce man when it comes to ensuring the children are caught and taken to special places for their “education”. In one scene, however, he speaks to a women’s group (sort of a “mission society”), showing a slide show of the children during a formal meeting where probably the quintessential “tea and crumpets” will follow. He speaks with a soft voice, extolling the plight of these “ignorant” children and how the work is hard yet rewarding to ensure that these children are civilized. Meanwhile back at these camps, the children refer conspiratorially among themselves to this man as “Mr. Devil.” Indeed, you can see the malignancy of this man’s beliefs in this one little scene of Neville’s speech before the women’s tea. So much belief that “this is the way things are” that the little meal that follows will undoubtedly turn to talk of the weather and idle chatter once Mr. Neville has been complimented for his “humanitarian” work among the “poor little children”.

When I had the opportunity to teach theology class, I engaged students in questions of how Christianity speaks of humanity as part of its systems or ways of belief. Some Christians speak of women as second-class citizens, not to arise above men under any circumstance, and certainly not in church settings. Next week, my wife steps into the pulpit, and this congregation does not think anything’s out of the ordinary, other than the preaching will improve. Our board of deacons is predominately female, yet in some parts of this country (even in Vermont), there are Baptist churches that would think the roof would cave in if such things happened. Ironically, when reading Luke 8’s wonderful little aside about the women who also follow Jesus as disciples, it makes me wonder a bit at whether this story gets skipped in churches that hold “strongly biblical teachings” against women in the leadership and life of the church.

Underneath the differing histories of churches and even that of the individual believer, there are theological beliefs at work. My task as instructor for theology courses and also as minister of a congregation is to ask Christians to ponder their beliefs and the way that they live in this world, especially when dealing with those who are different. Race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, age, nationality, immigration status, sexuality, religious preference, political affiliation, abilities and disabilities, education, marital status, and the list can go on and on. The question for theology students and congregants looms: are there any parts of that list that make us cringe, and think or say or live out the logic of “Oh no! Not Them!”? And, that being said, how does our way of believing as such affect our ability to exclude or embrace “them”?

Churches can be places of great exclusion. I have been a member of some who had lamentable pasts filled with stories of exclusions and snubs as well as present-day challenges where history subtly was repeated. One church particularly stays with me (indeed, it was the one where I was baptized as a ten-year old child). The little pencil in each pew had the church name printed on it alongside the text “A little church with a big hello.” And even as a child, I knew that was not the case. It was only when my family left that congregation and joined another that I realized that churches could be different and live up to what that little quote claimed. The flipside of this, of course, was that I was one of the only children that attended church regularly at this church with the little slogan about “big hello”. Other kids, drawn in by the well meaning minister, were soon discouraged to attend, as church members muttered rather intentionally in earshot that “those kids” came from “those” households that were ones known to have their share of problems and often tainted with varying types of ill repute.

The story of Jesus at Simon the Pharisee’s house begins with a petty snub, but clearly, Simon is showing his theological cards a bit: Jesus is seen with “them”, socializes with “them”, and even sits at table with “them”. And to make it worse, now a well wisher of Jesus shows up and makes quite the scene, showing respect to Jesus in the most unconventional and borderline risqué of ways. The woman is simply identified as “a sinner”, rather than “harlot” or “prostitute” or “Mary Magdalene” that we tend to gloss over this story with, remembering bits from similar stories in other Gospels. Here, Luke is plain spoken. This woman is a sinner, nameless and her identity is mostly without consequence. And indeed, the folks like Simon the Pharisee would rather keep it that way. As the sinner washes Jesus’ feet (with her own hair!), kisses his feet (reverently!) and anoints him with alabaster ointment (what fragrance!), the dinner chatter dies down to an embarrassed and stony silence. Jesus does not reject such treatment, and he defends this nameless sinner before Simon the Pharisee as a person of great worth, indeed, one worthy of the very grace of God.

As we gather as a community, we often break bread. Sometimes, it is around the altar as we partake in the Lord’s Supper. Other times, it is in the simple delights of a church potluck. We joke a lot about our eating habits, especially that this is potluck is sacred to Baptists. We put on dinners and sell food at our downtown events for mission support. You cannot help but wonder if the kitchen and fellowship hall rank just behind the sanctuary and communion altar for Baptists.

Yet we also have the ongoing task of leaving an extra plate, keeping a high chair handy for wee ones, helping an elder get their food and drink while juggling a cane or walker, learning how to welcome those with dietary restrictions and convictions by providing dishes that delight a wider and more limited palate.

At the same time, we also have to choose wisely how we choose our table manners. Do we chat with just a few or engage the whole table of friends and strangers alike? How do we make people feel welcome so that they get the sense that they are greeted as if Christ himself were at the table? How do we keep our impulse to keep the “us” and “them” way of looking at the world in check and in a way consistent with the Gospel?

When reading stories of Jesus like this one about Simon the Pharisee and the unnamed woman, I find myself pondering the texts and letting Jesus’ teachings simmer within. One helpful element of my reflections this week has been the poetic words of contemporary hymnist John Bell, a Scottish Christian whose music keeps working its way down into my soul long after the last stanza has completed. As we sing his 1987 hymn “The Summons”, one might think of the title as something related to legal matters. Really, in John Bell’s contrary fashion, the “summons” Bell speaks of in this hymn is the beckoning, or summoning, of the Christian to dare to contemplate and step forward into a whole new type of faith experience. In this hymn, we find Jesus, the Jesus of Luke 7 and 8, talking to us, summoning us to this strange life of grace and forgiveness and a judgment that is not one that condemns but liberates. Let us sing the hymn, attuned to the grace of Jesus.