Douglass Church - Douglass Blvd Christian Church

We’re saints, you and I. We’re blessed because God loves us—and not because we’re rich or smart or beautiful or important. And the wonderful thing about the reign of God is that because we know where we’ve come from, because we know our limitations, because we know we’re not all that and a glass of iced tea, we’re able to welcome the poor and the hungry, we’re able to offer hospitality to the grieving and the despised because we know what it feels like to have those kinds of external things define our lives in negative ways, and we know God’s love overcomes all of that and makes us saints anyway. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Why the great reversal? Why do those folks who have it all together have to stand last in line for a change, while the people who always seem to find themselves on the wrong side of the bouncers behind the velvet ropes receive the peace and forgiveness of God? I’ll tell you why: Those are the people closest to God’s heart; because too often in the world we live in, they’ve not had much experience with being close to anyone else’s heart. The people who can’t assume justice will be kind to them, who carry the weight of being from the wrong place on the socio-economic food chain, or from the wrong country, or with the wrong race or sexual orientation or gender expression, who know the pain of living life on the outside, always looking in. They’ve been kept out for so long, who can blame God for finally ushering them in and walking them to the center of the party? Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Setting aside for a moment Luke’s focus on prayer, in this parable Jesus takes aim at a state of affairs in which the powerless find themselves repeatedly at the mercy of those who have power over them. Jesus is, in other words, indicting a system in which widows can’t assume they’ll receive justice. In order to find it, they have to make spectacles of themselves, embarrassing and shaming the powerful who are supposed not only to know better, but to be better. In other words, Jesus attacks a system in which justice is only for those who can afford it. And unfortunately, this kind of system flourishes because it flies under the radar. When nobody speaks out against it, the big shots in power get to keep fleecing those who have no power to defend themselves. Silence is a boon to injustice, which requires for its survival that nobody make it public. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Who are we making angry because we love the wrong people? This is a question we need to have an answer to right now as transgender people are being harassed because they want to use a bathroom one of the morality hall monitors doesn’t approve of, and LGBTQ kids are being bullied—to death, in many cases—because they happen to be attracted to people the religious big wheels don’t endorse. How exactly do we love the people some of our fellow citizens are comfortable putting in cages? Which people do we care about so much that we’re willing to risk the wrath of the folks in charge just to welcome them, to have a meal with them, to call them our family—event though they were born someplace else? Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

And once again, Jesus is just baffling. Notice here that we find Jesus once again throwing up roadblocks to following him. In one breath he says, “If you’re invited to the party, don’t make excuses not to come.” In the next breath he says, “If you’re invited to the party, don’t come if you don’t think you can handle the conga line.”* So which is it? Follow or stay home? It’s kind of difficult to figure out what you’re driving at here, Jesus. Kind of passive/aggressive, don’t you think? Come, don’t come? But part of the reason Jesus puts out this disclaimer is that too often what people think they want is ease-of-use, friction-free, pre-packaged, no muss—no fuss, no ironing necessary. But Jesus knows that there are some hardy souls who aren’t in the market for easy; they want interesting. The kind of people Jesus is appealing to are looking for meaning, purpose, adventure. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

The world we live in tells us that the way we order our lives, who gets to sit in first class and who has to clean up after the party, isn’t a matter for religion. But Jesus says that our faith is precisely about seating charts and who makes them and who gets to sit where. The world we live in tells us that we should only invite to the party those who deserve to be there, those who can invite us back. But Jesus says, nobody deserves to be there (not you … not me), so you’d better invite everybody. And when they get there, you’re going to have to redraw the seating chart. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Think about it: this woman hasn’t been able to look anyone in straight in the face for 18 years. She couldn’t stand up straight. She’s hobbled her way through life in a permanent bow. Her view of the world has consisted largely of staring at everyone else’s footwear. Then Jesus comes along and offers her liberation from a life of pain and humiliation, freedom from the suffering and the sidelong glances, welcoming her back into full participation in a community she has been excluded from for 18 years—because of her affliction. That’s right, not only did she suffer from a debilitating physical condition, she would have been denied access to the life everyone else in the community took for granted—because she would have been viewed as broken in a religious context that required health and wholeness. In healing her, Jesus gave her back her life.* Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

And as painful as it is, Jesus says that in order for the fire of transformation to be kindled—that is, the fire of God’s change in the world—we have to speak the truth about the new world God desires. We live in a world where division feels inevitable; but Jesus announces a world where divisions are healed—not by passively ignoring injustice, but by shining a light on it. We live in a world that feels like it needs the fire of God’s transformation, a new way of living together. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

If you notice in our Gospel this morning, Jesus doesn’t try to impress on his disciples how much better off the poor will be if they receive alms. He’s not trying to persuade his followers that those who are without need charity. Jesus wants to call his followers into the new world he’s announcing, where there is enough for everyone, where people share as a matter of course, into a world that needs them to give their lives and their resources away before they calculate people’s needs—because what’s at the heart of this world is becoming the kind of people whose primary need is to participate in the solidarity that comes from giving. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc