The challenge of
preaching this story is that it really is as simple as it sounds. Often in a text, I’ll discover some meaning
that had been hidden before, or as I get older I see new ways to interpret a
lesson. But this one is fairly
flat. Now this year, we are reading this
story on Columbus Day weekend, and I am having no success at separating the two…so
maybe the merging of these two stories is just what the Great and Holy Spirit
is whispering today.
So, Jesus is on “the
way” (which we know to mean the road to Jerusalem rather than simply headed
down the street to Grandma’s house), and a young man stops him and kneels
before him. “Good teacher,” he says, “what
do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers the question without
really answering the question, because, well, we know that there is nothing you
can do to inherit something. An
inheritance can be a kind of gift (it can also be a burden, right?). To receive one, someone else has to die. So it’s not so much about what you do as it is about your relationship to the one granting the
fortune (or dining room table, or grandfather clock, or geriatric Bishon Frise…just
a few of the things I’ve inherited from relatives over the years).
Maybe this young
fellow means “how do I get saved?” Now, we know the rest of the story, Jesus
continues on the way to the cross and that’s ultimately what brings us back
into full relationship with God, but this young guy doesn’t know that. He just knows that Jesus has the answer. But the Jesus we meet in the gospel of Mark
plays his divinity really close to his chest.
He spends a large portion of this gospel account admonishing people to “tell
no one” that he is the Messiah.
Now we know from
reading the rest of the Gospel according to Mark that when a person kneels down
to ask Jesus for something it’s always a request for healing. Could this be the case here? Is Mark trying to tell us that something
needs to be healed in this man’s life?
Maybe, because Jesus, in typical Jesus fashion, doesn’t answer the
question that the young man has asked. His
answer to the young man isn’t about what you have to do to inherit eternal life
because Jesus already knows how that will happen. His answer to the young man is about how to
build relationship with his neighbors and fellow inheritors of the kingdom of God.
Maybe Jesus is saying
that to bring forth healing and the kingdom, we have to consider our
neighbors. If you look again at the
passage, you’ll see that all of the commandments Jesus cites in this
conversation are from the 2nd portion of the 10 Commandments. They are all related to human interactions
rather that to the human/divine interaction.
“Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t
cheat, honor your elders.” When the
young man says he’s done all of that already, Jesus says, “ok then, there’s one
thing left: Go sell whatever you own and
give it to the poor.”
Notice Jesus
doesn’t say “burn it” nor does he tell the young man to just walk away from it
all. Jesus says, “sell it and give it to
the poor”. To the poor.
Now you see, in
the time of Jesus, despite the words of the prophets, many people viewed the wealthy
as specially blessed by God. I wonder if we in the 21st century
United States still see it that way. If
I work hard enough, I’ll get God’s favor.
If I have all the things: money, good car, nice house, beautiful wife,
land… Those things and wealth and
ownership have come to be synonymous in this culture with “blessing”. But Jesus reminds us that that isn’t true. Over and over again, God in the person of
Jesus aligns Godself with the marginalized, the oppressed, and the poor.
Jesus asks for the young man to change his
relationship with the poor. He is asking
the young man to help his neighbors and to really identify with them. To move from a place of charity and disengagement
to one of relationship and accompaniment.
And perhaps Jesus sees that for this young man (and for us!) to be
engaged with his neighbor will bring healing to both of them.
What do you have
that puts a barrier between you and your neighbor? What do you do or say that builds a wall
between you and the poor? Where do you
travel or live that says “I’m better than you”.
What do you own that says implicitly or explicitly “I’m the inheritor, the
chosen” or “you’re not welcome”?
(Confession:
I’ve got a sign hanging in the entrance of my house. It preaches law and division. And I love it. It says, “Be Nice or Go Away.”)
In 1492, the
indigenous people of the Americas discovered Christopher Columbus. And a little over 500 years later, many or
even most indigenous peoples still wish that they hadn’t. While I was taught in school (in Georgia and
in Tennessee) that Columbus arrived peaceably and discovered “savages” and set about
“making their lives better, poor dears”, as an adult, I know this “truth” to be
a terrible lie.
Columbus arrived
in the Western Hemisphere and brought disease, and torture, and famine, and
slavery. His arrival impacts us greatly even
today, not because he “discovered” a world which had already been peacefully
occupied for thousands and thousands of years, but because today in this country,
especially in the South, we feel the repercussions every day of his arrival as
we live in broken relationship with people of color because we continue to
wrestle with that legacy of slavery, and I don’t know for sure, but I bet you’d
be hard pressed to find a Native American person with whom to share a cup of
coffee on any given Saturday morning around here. Because we forced them away.
“In 1838, four
thousand Cherokee died in the forced removal that the Cherokee call “The Trail
Where They Cried”. The removal of the
Cherokee people resulted from the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which was
violently implemented by Andrew Jackson.
In 1831, the Choctaw were the first to be uprooted, followed by the
Seminole in 1832, the Creek in 1834, the Chickasaw in 1837, and finally the
Cherokee in 1838. By 1837, forty-six thousand
Native Americans had been removed from their homes.” Removed from their ancestral land. Forced into a particularly hellish kind of
exile where families were given impossible decisions…the kind where no matter
the choice, a piece of the chooser’s soul was lost.
Imagine for a
moment that you are a Native woman. You
have married a white man and your tribe has adopted him into your culture. Your husband and your children have lived
with and among your people working for the good of the tribe, for the good of
the neighbor. Now imagine the federal
government steps in and says, “you, Native woman, can choose. You can become “white” and remain in your
ancestral lands with your children and husband, or you can leave your children,
husband, and the land of your heart (the seat of your relationship with
Creator) and march with your tribe to a new land. Choose either your people, your sisters and
mothers and fathers and brothers and your traditions which are as much a part
of you as your bones and your skin and your soul, or choose your children and
your spouse and your home where the trees know your name but you can no longer
have both.” Impossible.
Here in the
South in particular, we are inheritors
of this dastardly removal. People died and
made impossible decisions so that we might work and play and worship on land
that was stolen on our behalf.
James and I own a home here in Prattville. It’s a tiny property really with a small-for-six-humans-three-dogs-and-two-cats
brick house built upon it. My kids and
their friends and furry companions run around our lawn with barefeet (watch out
for the fireants!) playing soccer and fetch and remembering their baptisms in
the sprinkler.
But I am deeply aware that long before the feet
of my children touched the grass in the back yard, before the foundation of our
home was poured, before the farmer sold us the land to build on, before the farmer
tilled that soil, this land belonged to the Creek. Other children have run barefoot over this
grass. Other friendships have been
forged here. Other meals prepared. Other hearts have sung. Other eyes have watched the storm crest the
hills to the northwest and wondered if they should bring in the laundry.
My family and I live on and benefit from
someone else’s deep and grievous loss.
“In the church,
we celebrate martyrs and saints, not warriors and conquistadors. The church has a rich history of celebrating
particular people. While the United
States might celebrate Christopher Columbus, the church celebrates the lives of
saints…. We need to be about discovering
lost relatives and forgotten ancestors.” We need to rediscover our neighbors and what
it means to be neighbor.
On this day before Columbus Day, when our nation
celebrates a mass murderer and architect of grief, pain, and destruction…in the
name of God and of the church…I am pausing to consider what this means for me
here in Prattville, AL, especially in light of this week’s gospel account.
Does Jesus want me to take my land, my home,
and give it back to the Creek? Yes,
without a doubt. The United Nations says
that I should too. And if my home is
stolen Creek land, then this church building sits on stolen Creek land, also. We are the conquerors. We are the wealthy, we are the oppressors. This is hard to hear and, trust me, hard to
say, because it means that daily we are bound into a life of harming other
humans because we have inherited a
system which makes us the oppressor. And
there is no real way out.
So
what do we do?
What if we remember that when Jesus calls for
us to sell and redistribute our wealth he is also calling for a change in relationship? He is asking us to identify with the poor…but
I think we can and we should extend this to all who are marginalized. What if we look at our possessions and our privileges,
the things that keep us complacent and on top and offer those things up for the
safety, the empowerment, the comfort of our neighbors.
What if we can’t give our homes away? (because
to be honest, that would require the federal government to purchase our homes
and churches and Chick-fil-a’s and then give it back to the Creek…the federal
government is the agency which stole the land in the first place…but we benefit
from the theft…and I cannot imagine the federal government making such
restitution in my lifetime)
What if we are stuck, understanding how we benefit
from a system that harms other folks?
How do we function?
I think we start by telling history truthfully.
I think we honestly evaluate the church’s involvement in a history that brutalized,
dehumanized, murdered, and enslaved millions of people…both Native and
Black.
Then, I think we look around and see just how
we still benefit from that involvement.
Then, we open our eyes to see the very real
truth that many of our neighbors still suffer today from the motion set in
place by a man who sailed in the name of greed, brutality, and enslavement and
called it God.
We listen.
And we open our lives, our hearts, our homes, our sanctuaries for the very
real pain and grief and suffering that our neighbors still endure. We feed them…food in Christ’s Kitchen for sure…but
also the nourishment of friendship and accompaniment. We become voices that say “I am willing to
make myself vulnerable so that you might be an equal part of this community…so that
we may together bring forth the kingdom”.
“Good teacher, what can we do to inherit eternal
life?” Nothing. Through the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus, we’ve already inherited it. And
that’s the very Good News.
And from that foundational promise, that
wonderful inheritance, we are free to share of our time, our possessions, of
our very selves in relationship to those whom God has also called “very, very
good”. And today, especially, we pray
for and with Black and indigenous peoples. And we condemn the legacy of Christopher
Columbus in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
