Isaiah 42:10-16; Matthew 22:1-14
Presented October 9, 2011, by Joel Kline
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
You and I live in a time when increasing numbers of people in our society and world dismiss the church as irrelevant. Some find themselves drawn to the life and example of Jesus, but sadly perceive the church to have precious little to do with the way of life Jesus came living and proclaiming—a way of living characterized by self-giving love and servanthood, compassion and mercy, justice and peace, forgiveness and grace beyond measure. You may remember hearing that Mahatma Gandhi, that great leader of a nonviolent movement in India, once remarked that Christians seem to be the only people who fail to recognize just how deeply was Jesus committed to the ways of nonviolence and peacemaking.
Sad—isn’t it?—that many who claim to follow Jesus little emulate his thirst for justice, peace, compassion, and right living. Rather than prodding one another to consider whether they are willing to follow Jesus, all too many Christian traditions place focus instead upon right belief, urging their members to question, What do I believe about Jesus? In his book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus Peter Gomes asserts, “It is easier to talk about Jesus than it is to talk about what Jesus talked about!” It is easier to focus on doctrinal issues than on Christian discipleship, but in the process the content of Jesus’ message is all too frequently ignored, if not fully lost.
One of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, laments, “The long, painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led.” Our own tradition, the Church of the Brethren, emerged out of a small group who found themselves deeply at odds with the institutional church of their day, a church that did indeed choose power over love, control over the cross, and being a leader over being led. The state church in early 18th century Europe, deeply enmeshed in political and military intrigue, had lost nearly all sight of the uniquely alternative perspective of Jesus, who was ever inviting us to discover an upside-down way of living.
It’s really nothing new—this tendency to overlook the very heart of faith, this failure to trust in the God who calls us to take hold of a markedly new way of living. The ancient Israelites, you will recall, seemed to believe that God would bless and protect them, no matter how they lived. When the ancient prophets began to speak of a coming judgment, their message, not surprisingly, was met with resistance, anger, and hostility. Eventually Jerusalem was indeed overrun, the temple destroyed, and many of Israel’s most influential leaders carried off into exile in the enemy land of Babylon. In response, the spirit of the people is broken, with many questioning how they will be able to carry on. The psalmist gives voice to their despair, crying out, How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? (Psalm 137).
But God is not finished with this despairing people. Even though they had neglected the call to discipleship—ignoring the needs of the poor and the broken in their midst, embracing political intrigue and military alliances rather than trusting God, mouthing empty words of praise rather than giving themselves wholeheartedly in service to God and neighbor—in spite of all this, God cannot give up on the people. Instead, God chooses to work through a new prophet, a second Isaiah who dares to sing a new song of hope. It is no mere song of resplendent and warm feelings, but rather a song that points to an alternative kind of turmoil—the turmoil that comes with courageous living, the turmoil that accompanies partnership with a God who is in the business of making all things new. “Sing to the Lord a new song,” urges the prophet, inviting not only the people, but all creation, to join in celebrating the abundant goodness of our God—this God who appeared silent, but is now ready to act decisively. Indeed, God’s acts may now appear frantic, says Isaiah, like a woman crying out in labor. Continuing on, speaking for God, the prophet announces, “I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths that are not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do [for my people], and I will not forsake them” (Isaiah 42:16).
Yet today, were we to place our trust in this God who is on the move, would it not make all the difference? Would we not choose to sing a new song even in the face of resistance, a song that dares to proclaim our willingness to partner with our God who is ever seeking to transform human life? I was reminded recently that, in the years leading up to the fall of South Africa’s system of racial apartheid, the church in South Africa was viewed with increasing suspicion by the government who wanted to maintain control. Indeed, there were instances in the mid-1980s when the singing of Christmas carols was outlawed by local police. Familiar songs proclaiming the birth of Jesus and the promise of life being transformed—these songs were banned because they highlighted the way of justice and evoked renewed energy, emotion, and commitment to partnership with the God who is able to make all things new. Even more, prayer vigils and candle lighting services were banned, with a police spokesperson asserting that the candles had become “revolutionary symbols” (“South Africa Cracks Down on Christmas,” Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1985).
Might the songs you and I sing also be viewed as revolutionary? Do they not have the power to remind us of our faith and our hope, of our long-held commitment to live life in the light of a new reality—life centered in the goodness of God, life that invites us to live as partners of God’s generosity, God’s compassion, God’s justice, God’s abundant grace? A number of us here this morning came of age in the 1960s, influenced in significant ways by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements. If you are among that group, you have not forgotten, I suspect, the power of hundred and even thousands of voice singing We Shall Overcome and All We are Asking is Give Peace a Chance. Revolutionary symbols, indeed.
Civil rights leader and United Methodist pastor Joseph Lowery, who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and was frequently jailed for his unswerving dedication to the movement, entitled a recent collection of his sermons and essays Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land. In 2006, at the memorial service for Coretta Scott King, Lowery received both ovation and criticism for his pronouncement before four former and present United States presidents, “We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there [in Iraq]. But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor!” The song Joseph Lowery sang had a dangerous side, challenging comfortable patterns that add to the growing gulf between the rich and the poor, and to a continuing reliance upon political intrigue and military might. Lowery’s counter-song urges us to place our trust instead in the God of peace and compassion.
Jesus’ parable from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter twenty-two, reminds us that God’s table is an inclusive one. We are invited to the banquet by a God who is far from finished with us, a God whose love seemingly knows no limits. And yet the parable suggests that a response is required, and our living is impoverished, should be not respond. The call—is it not?—is to partner with God, to sing a new song of justice and hope, compassion and peace.
Rosa Parks, another great saint and African-American leader of the civil rights movement, refused, you will remember, to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955, leading to a city-wide bus boycott that captured the attention of the nation and helped undermine our own system of racial divide. In a series of reflections published some forty years later, entitled Quiet Strength, Rosa Parks wrote,
There is work [yet] to do; that is why I cannot stop or sit still. As long as a child needs help, as long as people are not free, there will be work to do. As long as an elderly person is attacked or in need of support, there is work to do. As long as we have bigotry and crime, we have work to do. This is why I think it is important to tell our story. We have come so far since the days of segregation, but there is always something to do to make things better.
Always something to do to make things better. This is our calling and our mission. And we find ourselves strengthened by the example of those who have gone before us—like the first Brethren, like Rosa Parks and Joseph Lowery and Martin Luther King, Jr., and like those in our own community of faith and circle of family and friends who lived lives of quiet strength and solid commitment to the ways of Jesus. Persons who lived as partners in discipleship. Singers of a new song of God’s justice and generosity and compassion and peace—which in truth is the old, old song of Jesus and his love—a song that some will consider dangerous, a song that underscores relationship with the God who is in the business of making all things new.
O Jesus, we have promised to serve thee to the end. O give us grace to follow, our Master and our Friend. Amen.