Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Bye-bye, Summer of Bread! It’s time to get back to Mark. And what a doozie it is to get back to - on the surface it may seem like the Pharisees have a legitimate complaint to bring against Jesus and his followers – it IS kind of gross not to wash your hands before you eat. Especially now, after 18 months of a pandemic where, at least at the beginning, we obsessed about disinfecting EVERYTHING - hands, packages and mail, food from the store, hymnals, library books…. maybe we all went overboard, but at least it’s better safe than sorry, and in the end, no real harm done, really.
But… Palestine 2000 years ago had never heard of germ theory, disinfectant, or vaccines. What, then, is it about this behavior that has gotten the Pharisees bent out of shape? At the risk of oversimplifying, they took issue, not with the lack of cleanliness, but the disregard of long-respected traditions.
In a world full of trauma, violence, and regular upheaval, at their core Pharisees are a group within Judaism making sense of their Jewish identity in a situation that is hostile to them. They are rightly concerned with questions of identity, and they choose to live out their faith through a clear - though very lengthy - list of purity codes. And really, we can’t fault them for this. Who wouldn’t want specific answers to the question - how in the world do I live out my faith in this “bananas” world?
One way to do this IS to follow a specific code of morality. This reminds me of the ridiculous but awesome miniseries/musical that just came out called Shmigadoon on Apple TV. If you are a fan of big bombastic mid century musicals, this is right up your alley. Schmigadoon is a magical small town that regularly bursts into song, and is pretty much run by the pastor’s wife, played by none other than Kristin Chenoweth. Two newcomers from the outside world cause delightfully predictable chaos, and the pastor’s wife is not happy. In a big epic musical number, she calls out all the bad things that would happen with the coming changes brought by the new people. By the end of the song, she is running for mayor, to set things right again - back to the way they were.
To the Pharisees, this newcomer Jesus person might be trying to break down a social order that SEEMED to work well enough. Jesus was causing change, upsetting the delicate balance they had worked so hard to establish, which really was a matter of life or death. They are extremely concerned at the breaking down of the identity they had worked hard to maintain as a people, and rightly so.
But Jesus is concerned too - concerned that rules for rules sake - even good rules, might do more harm than good. What was once meant to help now harms. What was once meant to include has been used to exclude, that means missing the point of what it means to be God’s people.
Rules are good… until they are not. Rules are helpful, until they harm. This most recent Afghan refugee crisis is a very relevant example.
A few years ago, I read a book from Spark house called “Dialogues on the Refugee Crisis,” and learned a thing or two about the many RULES that exist for refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates it takes 2 years from initial screening to resettlement – 3 years or more to unite families. All refugees here are expected to repay the resettlement cost within 4 years, and the first bill comes six months after their arrival.
Recently in a webinar from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, I learned that now, the refugees who land here from Afghanistan are on “Humanitarian Parole,” and will not have access to normal safety nets that are available to others in the pre-citizen ship process. They get 90 days of help from the government… then that’s it. That’s three months…. three months to learn to navigate a language and culture, three months to get a job, three months to get through a horrendous, life changing trauma, and figure out how to achieve what we claim as the American Dream.
On the flip side, one one of the many non-profit organizations that are helping resettle Afghan refugees are reporting that over forty thousand people have signed up to help. Churches are filling up with donations before they even advertise. I heard on NPR an Afghan restaurant in DC has already filled up its basement with donations.
We also have to remember that we’ve been here before. Where I grew up and around other parts of the Midwest is the home of a large Hmong population, brought to the United States for their help in the Vietnam War. Before they settled here, they were landless people who didn’t have any physical acreage to call home. Unfortunately, unless you’re an Olympian like Suni Lee, the Hmong people are still treated with suspicion and distrust, rather than gratitude for how they helped our country, their new home.
In our own lives, we are guided by that something you may have heard of - the Ten Commandments? Believe it or not, they were not given to us to make us into super holy people. Instead, they are to strengthen relationships and community. God gave us the Ten Commandments in order to minimize the damage we could do against our neighbors.
Some of the Ten Commandments appear pretty “easy” to follow - killing, stealing… but others are sneaky. Like the 8th commandment, the one I argue might actually be the hardest. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Seems simple enough on the surface, right? Until we read Luther’s explanation, which goes: “We do not tell lies … or slander our neighbor…. Instead, we are to come to their defense… and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”
My thoughts, words, and actions don't always reflect this, especially based around behaviors that I deem to be impolite, unhealthy, or peculiar. Perhaps the Pharisees, like us, were not interpreting the actions of Jesus’ disciples in the best possible light, and THAT is what was upsetting to Jesus. They focused on the rule not being followed as the most important thing. Jesus focused on feeding hungry people as the most important thing.
The Pastor’s wife in the magical singing town of Schmigadoon condemned the newcomers in her town with damnation, but these newcomers ended up giving her a chance at salvation. When she was overcome with the changes happening around her, they didn’t drive her out with a closed first, but instead extended an opened hand. And she and all the Schmidadoonians join in singing the final number, saying: “This is how we change, reimagine, rearrange. See ourselves through others eyes… This is how we grow.”
This is how we grow - with Jesus. We reimagine what a new future might hold, even though that thought might be frightening. We may not feel prepared at the rearranging and reordering of our priorities, but we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to keep pushing the boundaries of compassion, especially for those who have been pushed to the outside. Jesus shows us the way of compassion with constant self examination and reassessment - seeing ourselves through others eyes, and seeing others stories through our own eyes.
Our journey with Jesus does not end when the final note of the closing number fades and the curtain falls. But we can take the advice of the fictitious singing nondescript midwest town, as the last line in their musical - “What the future holds, we just don’t know, but there’s hope for all, and we call it, Schmigadoon!”
What the future holds, we just don’t know, but there’s hope for all…. and we call it…. YOU, body of Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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