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Monday, August 22, 2016

A Vessel of God's Grace

Proper 17/15th Sunday after Pentecost, August 28, 2016St Martin’s Episcopal, Moses Lake by Annette Fricke
Pride was not created for human beings because the beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord. Our traditions can be a source of pride as well as a stumbling block. According to Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” Yet the most powerful part of the story is when he disowns his own daughter for marrying an Orthodox Christian.  How do traditions begin? And is it all traditions that do this or only some of them?  Who decides?  Is it not the strong, the powerful, those who can defend a good argument to a logical conclusion that decides for others and are therefore agreed upon?  Or is it the wealthy who buy up corporations, hospitals and insurance companies only to feed them with their own agendas, agendas that may not be in the best interest of the people who are already there or people who may come to work there in the future.  Furthermore, those who buy such institutions may have no real interest in benefiting those who use their services.  Again, who decides what changes and how? It’s definitely not poor people, the blind, the lame, and the crippled.
Besides all of this talk of tradition and how it relates to marriage in particular, we know that some Jews insisted that marriage was only to another Jew of the opposite sex while others held that it didn’t matter if you married another Jew.  There are several examples in the Old Testament of the latter, perhaps the most known is that of Ruth. Although the modern pattern for marriage for both Jewish and Christian people has changed, our roots remain the same. In Biblical history, there were three stages to a wedding between a man and a woman. Examples of this pattern can be found in the marriage of Isaac to Rebecca, Jacob to Leah, and Jacob to Rachel. If you care to look these up, they are all in the book of Genesis. The first stage was the signing of a contract.  In this stage, the bride agrees to a husband and her father signs a contract with the husband.  When the contract has been signed, they are legally married.  In the second stage which lasts up to seven years, the groom raises money as agreed in the contract.  When that money has been secured, the groom informs his bride’s father and the date is set to actualize the wedding at the home of the bride. The companions of the groom and the groom go to the home where the maidens of the bride and the bride are waiting. The bride and groom go to a designated room while everyone else joins in celebrating.
Afterwards, everybody travels to in procession the groom’s house to celebrate further in the wedding feast.[1] Wedding feasts were elaborate celebrations for the entire community, lasting as long as a week. This culture is radically different from modern weddings where only the invited may attend.  This culture also lived as extended families, not the nuclear families of today which also more times than not are blended families or families torn apart by divorce. This is partially due to newer perspectives on marriage and greater longevity.
But back to Jesus. He is at one of those several days’ celebration kind of wedding. This celebration is on the Sabbath.  Jesus has already been chided for healing that day. Jesus had just healed on the Sabbath—again .   This is the fourth time he’s done this, according to Luke.  Some of the Jews are undoubtedly saying to themselves or aloud, as we were told in last Sunday’s gospel lesson, “Why does he insist on doing this when there are six other days when he can do this?  Why won’t he follow the rules?  He knows the rules.  We shouldn’t have to keep reminding him.  While others are thinking or saying, “There are those who absolutely adore him and others he angers to the core.  What are we supposed to do with him?  Why must he mess with long-standing tradition?”  Once again, Jesus begins talking about something unexpected.  He’s talking about who sits where at a wedding banquet.  In the Jewish society of the time, apparently that mattered because the host decided where each person sat and gave the best seats to those who were considered the most esteemed and most deserving of honor.
Jesus has decided to take this opportunity as a teaching moment. He brings up seating arrangements which have been in place since at least the writing of Genesis. In Old Testament times the Israelites sat at table;[2] and in the order of their dignity or seniority[3].  We also know that double and five-fold portions were given to distinguished guests.  Food was given to the poor, but it was less and sometimes just crumbs.[4]
In the backdrop of the Old Testament where a banquet is a frequent emblem of heavenly happiness,[5] Jesus brings us a vision of the kingdom of God that is the reverse of his day’s wedding feast.  His day’s wedding feast is also a reflection of how many people of that day and age lived their lives.  Basically he is saying to them that they are focusing on the wrong things. The tradition is called into question. If a tradition is not all inclusive where people are treated with equal dignity and respect, it needs to change. Luke, throughout his book continuously informs us from start to finish that Jesus turns societal norms upside down.  Jesus says that we should not be honoring the powerful, but those who have nothing and are considered nothing in society.  We should be honoring the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  In today’s societal terminology, the homeless, the mentally ill, the physically challenged, and those who have no sight. That could be expanded to also include the oppressed; represented by those who are undereducated, can’t hold a job, or are disproportionately in the workforce. Also of concern are those who have grown up in dysfunctional families of abuse and neglect, whose chances for normal relationships is severely compromised.
Those are the people that the rest of us need to defend.  It is not enough to simply allow them to help themselves.  They need help from the outside, from people who have the advantage of being in power.  If you are of a majority ethnicity, you have power; the power to change things.  A church can continue on with its traditions, but never have a dialogue with those ‘less thans’ of society or think they already know without getting their hands dirty in a face-to-face encounter.  None of us really knows what it is like to be inside the skin of another person, to know emotional and physical pain in the way that they do.  In a society of quick fixes, we know that pills are only a partial answer to mental and physical ailments. In order to change a system, the question must always be asked, what can we do to make it better?  We may not make it the best, but there is always room to make it better.  Making things better will make some people upset.  A case in point is from the news that many people with past felony charges are now being given the right to vote whereas previously many of them were never given the right to vote again.  Each decision made should follow the example we have in Jesus’ teaching.  The criteria of what we say and do is this: How is it that we can show mercy to the least of our brothers and sisters, mercy that will help them stand and in every possible way celebrate being equal, not just in the afterlife, but right now?  It doesn’t have to be something big like a decree from the United Nations, it can be just the small consistent things we do every day.  Start every day with the thought, ‘what can I do today to be a vessel of God’s grace?’ 



[1] http://www.bible.ca/marriage/ancient-jewish-three-stage-weddings-and-marriage-customs-ceremony-in-the-bible.htm
[2] I Samuel 16:11
[3] Genesis 43:33
[4]http://www.biblehistory.com/links.php?cat=39&sub=413&cat_name=Manners+%26+Customs&subcat_name=Banquets+and+Feasts
[5] Isaiah 25:6; Luke 14:15; Revelation 19:9








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