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 Advocating for Justice |
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10 September 2006 This is an auspicious day. Today we baptize Aidan Brant, child of God, soon to become the newest member of the church universal. In Aidan’s baptism, in the promises Damian and Stephanie make on Aidan’s behalf, visions of a world yet-to-be take form. In these promises, Stephanie and Damian pledge themselves as Jesus’ disciples to bring that world into being. This is no small matter. No one here needs reminding that Aidan’s baptism also takes place on the eve of an anniversary which is anything but auspicious. No one here needs reminding that Fear is the password of the moment, hyped at our borders in the clamor to build fences as monuments to our anxiety. Hyped on the Weather Channel so that every respectable storm carries visions of Katrina. Hyped in the run-up to elections either to stay the course or to change direction. In the face of this fear and its sad rejoinders of brutal force, clandestine surveillance, and squandered good will, we are making the audacious claim that in the covenant of baptism, God’s grace takes form as members of this beloved community commit themselves to discipleship on behalf of their son. But even as these individual parents make their public commitment as Jesus’ disciples, we personally and collectively are called to consider the form our faith will take. Consider the first story in today’s scripture reading. Jesus needs to get away from the demands of the moment, and moves outside the normal boundaries of his work. In other words, he goes on retreat. And what happens? He is confronted by an uppity, persistent woman who comes from a different ethnic background than Jesus. He is confronted by an uppity, persistent woman whose religion is different than Jesus. He is confronted by an uppity, persistent woman–and as a Jewish man, he faces censure even for something as mundane as public contact and conversation. This uppity, persistent woman, in a model worthy of Marion Wright Edelman, the woman pleads not for herself, but for the sake of her child, who suffered from ‘an unclean spirit.’ We like to think of Jesus as having it all together–certainly in the faith department. But today’s story tells us otherwise. In today’s reading of Mark’s gospel, it isn’t the disciples, but Jesus himself who is challenged to live out the call of his baptism, to bring God’s healing and restoration to all those who turn to him. Living out the call to baptism is no easy matter. It wasn’t easy for Jesus; it isn’t easy for us. Last Sunday’s gospel reminds us of the affront to religious sensibilities that occurs when Jesus’ followers fail to follow the strict purity codes of their avowedly religious contemporaries, the ultimate insiders, the Pharisees. In eating together at an open table–undoubtably the real affront to those sensibilities–Jesus’ followers fail to observe the ritual washing of hands...it’s enough to make the Pharisees question the disciples’ faithfulness. In his response to the Pharisees, Jesus speaks to the moral underpinnings of God’s justice. Jesus reminds them that our hearts are not contaminated by what we put into our mouths. Our hearts show their fidelity to God by the ways in which we treat others. As if Mark sets up the story to test Jesus’ own convictions, we then find Jesus in the region of Tyre–not to extend the gospel and the covenant of baptism to its geographical and ethnic limits, but to get away from it all. So when Jesus leaves his own ethnic and religious community and retreats to that of another culture, it isn’t someone from within his own tradition that addresses Jesus. This time, an outsider asks to be included in Jesus’ open community. Specifically, she asks that her daughter be freed from an ‘unclean spirit.’ In our own days of segregation, it would be an African-American asking that her daughter be treated in a Whites Only hospital. The woman is rudely and pointedly turned away. Now it is the Syrophoenician woman’s turn to challenge Jesus. She questions his faithfulness by reminding him that even outsiders, no matter how despised, are allowed crumbs from the children’s table. In her demand, she effectively questions whether the teachings Jesus espouses are worth the breath they take to impart. My friends, there is no shortage of Ann Coulters who claim the mantle of our faith, then post-9/11, have the temerity to call for an invasion of “their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.[1] The unclean spirit of fascism wears many faces. September 11 has become our test, that spiritual reality, that harrowing of the soul and sifting of beliefs that has shaken us to our core.[2,16] This is the fundamental reality to which we pledge ourselves. When our souls are tested – by Pearl Harbor, the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania, by Katrina or by an abundance of riches, we are called to stand within the waters of our baptism and claim the spiritual strength that sees each child claimed as beloved of God. We are called to be the beloved community, especially in our time of testing. Just as Jesus was reminded by the Syrophoenician woman, we can’t retreat from being Christian. Being Christian is the gift and the commitment of baptism as we enter into that covenant with God and with one another. At times, we then will need to create spaces where the voices of all God’s children may be heard. At other times, like the time in our scripture lesson today, we will need to listen to the often hurt and angry voices which demand our attention, voices which expect healing and restoration in response. That we will listen, that we will stand, that we will claim our spiritual strength, are the promises we make and renew at baptism. Today is an auspicious day! *** [1] SojoMail@Sojo.net advertisement, 9.9.2006 |