Welcoming Hope

Scripture Texts from We Make the Road by Walking (Brian McLaren) - Week 13

Isaiah 1: 10-20, 2: 2-5

Romans 15: 1-13

Matthew 9: 10-17

For Matthew, this story, recorded in his gospel, is very personal. Because Matthew was a tax collector, one of the very kinds of people that are coming under the scrutiny and the questioning of the Pharisees, those experts in and excellent followers of the laws of Moses.

The Pharisees pull the disciples aside to say, “What is up with your teacher, anyway? Why doesn’t he reject people like you and the other ones he is always hanging around with – tax collectors, low-lifes, and sinners of all varieties? What on earth would possess him to prefer “them” over “his own people”, “his own kind”?

Here we are, morally upright, law-abiding, followers of God’s commandments and laws, earning our livings and our reputations in a most respectable way, say the Pharisees. We are the ones who deserve recognition from him. We deserve it because we have earned it!

Even John the Baptist’s disciples can’t quite get it. They don’t understand why Jesus doesn’t think it’s important for himself and his disciples to make a positive example, a model for others to follow, in how to obey laws like fasting, and so on. Aren’t these the ways to live a sacred life?

And Jesus, as always, offers replies that are confounding to them, and to us; responses that are life-altering to them, as well as to us.

·      I have come for those in need, not for those who think they have it all figured out.

·      If you are doing so well, what do you need me for?

·      I desire mercy, not sacrifice; show me your steadfast love, not ritualistic offerings. Go and learn what this means, he tells them.

o   Jesus is quoting the prophet Hosea, and he is also saying much of what we heard from the prophet Isaiah in our Old Testament passage today.

·      Isaiah’s opening words to the people of Israel is that they had better stop acting like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who had sinned against God by not aiding the poor and needy, even though they were prosperous, with excess food and easy lives.

·      Isaiah says the Lord has no interest in rituals, sacrifices and prayers, that are offered as if they earn God’s approval. Solemn assemblies with unclean hearts are not pleasing to the Lord.

Instead, God’s people are called to cease doing evil, and learn to do good. Specifically – to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan, to plead for the widow.

Just like Matthew, the apostle Paul hears himself in the words of Jesus and the words of Isaiah. For he was just like the Pharisees through and through; a devout Jew who dedicated himself to observing the laws of Moses, and who had become so threatened by Jesus’ disciples and their insistence on loving sinners and Gentiles, of proclaiming Christ as Messiah, that he had taken it upon himself to lead a resistance movement that would shut them down, would do them in. He organized the tortures and killings of early Christians.

And then he encountered Christ the King.

And now, when he writes to the Romans about following Christ the King, Paul says all sorts of unexpected things.

·      We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves, but we must please our neighbor in order to build up that neighbor.

·      That which was written in former days was written so that we might have hope, which comes to us by the encouragement of the scriptures, and by steadfastness.

·      May the God of steadfastness and encouragement allow you to live in harmony with one another.

·      Welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed you. In doing this you give glory to God.

o   You give glory to God by welcoming one another.

·      Even the Gentiles, those non-believers that we Jews have always disregarded up to now.

·      Abound in hope.

·      May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

These words are not about strict adherence to the rule of law. They are about the steadfast and abundant nature of God, as shown in Christ Jesus the King, the Lord and Savior of Heaven and Earth. As shown in the unending and unfailing power of the Holy Spirit.

As it is offered to all people in abundant joy, abundant peace, abundant hope, abundant welcome.

As we are called to generously share that abundant joy, peace, hope, and welcome with all those who do not deserve it, at least in pwm our way of judging who does and does not deserve things.

Paul had to get over it; he had to get over the judging and the false ways of dividing himself and his type from other people.

We have to do that too.

Because Christ the King calls us to do so; calls us to accept that the new way, the new commandment, the new covenant, the new wine cannot be held in old wineskins. It will burst out. We are reborn into new life, and we must carry that life out in new ways, in new structures, in new understandings of church, and of loving one another. In new ways of being Christ’s hands and feet and heart and spirit here on earth, to all who have need of it.

To give the hungry food, to give the thirsty something to drink, to welcome the stranger, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick, to visit the prisoner.

Matthew’s gospel tells us that when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and sits on his throne of glory, he will affirm the inheritance of those who do these things, who do these things for the least of these, for the most marginalized and the ones seeming least deserving, because that’s when they have done that for Christ.

There is no basis for judging who should receive our favor, our kindness, our generosity, our hope, our compassion, our love. Because when we freely give to anyone in need, it is as if we have given to Christ himself.

It’s been a rough time lately to have to face that call from Christ.

The world scares us in new ways every single day.

·      Terrorist bombings in Paris and Baghdad and Beirut.

·      Hostage taking in Mali.

·      Boko Haram massacres continuing in Nigeria.

·      Refugees fleeing for their lives from the total hopelessness of the Syrian Civil War.

There is so much temptation to close the doors, lock them tight, keep ourselves inside and safe, keep the strangers out.

How can hope even be a thing in the midst of all this?

How can we look around and see anything to be hopeful about?

To abound in hope, as Paul says – it feels like a lovely abstraction, but nothing that could become real for us or anyone else, for that matter.

How can we possibly hope to step past our fears to express love and hope to others when we don’t even know them?

Our tendency as human beings is to only proceed with an abundance of caution, if at all. To put safety first.

But Christ the King never promised safe lives. Not to his disciples, not to Paul, not to us.

The Lord God, acting throughout the Old Testament scripture, never promised safe lives to Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Joseph, or David, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah….

God promises to be with us. God promises to supply an abundance of hope. God promises to work through us, person by person, loving act by loving act.

God’s plan is all of us. God’s plan is that we all engage our whole lives in small acts of great love, and that when those combine with all the other small acts of great love, that the world will be changed.

Christ the King modeled this way for us. Christ the King called us to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, worship through mercy and not sacrifice. To love our neighbors and our enemies. To love ourselves and the other.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. Christ was and is and will be a King that is completely unlike any other – a King that confounds us when we try to make sense of his call on our lives – a King that calls us to be brave in our love, to be fearless in our hope, to return good for evil, to trust that God will work with that in ways beyond our comprehension, to create more good than we ever could on our own. But we must provide the spark, must be the hands and feet and smile and warmth and welcome. For all. And God will take it from there.