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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION

2/23/2025

Galatians 3: 26-28 (NIV)

In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

D.E.I. – ‘Diversity,’ ‘Equity’ and ‘Inclusion’ have become flash-words in our U.S. conversation these days. I don’t really want to get into the politics of all this, nor the psychology of why so many people today appear to be threatened by three words that until recently have been touted as “pluses” -- part of who we are as Americans. Any civics class has surely taught them as three of the many virtues of being an American citizen.

What I do want to discuss is what Jesus taught us about being one people of God, and most of that will come through the writings of Paul and Matthew today.

When Jesus lived among us it was largely assumed by most of his followers that he came for the benefit of the Jewish people only, although there are several instances in the gospels of him speaking with and healing non-Jews, much to the consternation of his Jewish followers. We know from stories such as his healing of the son of the Canaanite woman, or the long-distance healing of the Roman Centurian’s servant, both stories as told in Matthew, how little attention Jesus paid to a sufferer’s nationality.

It is Paul who, when his teachings were under attack from Jewish-Christians insisting that new converts must all follow the laws of Moses, including circumcision, gives us Jesus’ clearest, “don’t argue with me” statement on the unity of humanity – regardless of race or gender or ethnicity. It may be in Paul's words but it's clearly Jesus' teaching:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. (1 Corinthians 12:12-20)

It is clear that Jesus sees us all as one beloved family of God, one creation with no parts ranked higher or lower than any other. There is only one story of separation, really, and that one, again, is told in Matthews’s gospel. No one here is judged by the color of their skin, or their country of origin, or their gender or their riches.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ (Matt. 25:31-45)

Did you notice that nowhere in that long reading was there any question about where you were born? What language do you speak? Do you have all your papers? How did you come to this place? As we were reminded a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the Justice Prophets: We’ve been told what to do, and what God requires of us -- to seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God … Now it’s our thing to do and there's more… to feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty, to care for the sick and the imprisoned, to welcome strangers and clothe the naked.

Right now we seem to be failing at much of this – we’re cutting off emergency food for the hungry around the world, chopping away at medical insurance that allows us to help the sick, and gathering up anyone who looks remotely like a “stranger” and shoving them onto a plane to who knows where.

Maybe we need to simplify the language even more – one sentence that still says it all –

"Love one another as I have loved you….."

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RADICAL AMAZEMENT

2/16/2025

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Psalm 139:14-16   (The Message)

I thank you, High God—you are breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life spread out before you,

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907 – 1972)

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement.....to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; we should never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

When was the last time you can remember experiencing a feeling of awe? Do you remember what it felt like? In skimming around for ideas to jump-start this message I came upon this definition: “Awe is a profound reverence, a personal and unexpected reaction to seeing God at work. It is seeing or witnessing something inspiring and feeling the Spirit touch our hearts to confirm truth, expand knowledge, or reaffirm heavenly love.”

Now, that’s a very good definition. I especially like the one line that reads, "awe is…an unexpected reaction to seeing God at work,” and yet, this is still a very academic definition. Everything it says is true but there is no feeling of awe about it. It’s really rather cold: “Just the facts, mam.”

I myself much prefer Rabbi Heschel‘s statement that we opened with today: Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement … He then goes on to say that to be spiritual is to be amazed.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born Jewish theologian, philosopher and mystic. Descended from prominent rabbis on both sides of his family, he became a well-known and much respected rabbi himself. He was serving as a university professor when he was driven out of Poland by the Nazis and, after shuffling around Europe, ended up in the U.S. where he lived out his life (many members of his own family having been killed by the Germans). He taught in universities here and was a prolific writer – and most notably, became a prominent voice of the Civil Rights movement – often traveling and speaking with Martin Luther King, Jr., sharing Dr. King’s belief that no people are free until all people are free.

My intention in this message is not just to talk about Rabbi Heschel the whole time, though lord knows I could, but to point out that this man who suffered all that he did in his life, is the same man who wrote that one line that has grabbed my heart so, about how we should live our lives in radical amazement.

What does that phrase even mean? Amazement, Awe, Wonder – do we really allow space in our busy and conflicted lives to even consider these things?

How often do we take the time to notice what is happening around us? We have our jobs, we have to do our grocery shopping, keep our minds on our driving. We love our pets, our various animals, and we laugh at their antics, but do we ever actually properly see them for the incredible creations that they are?

Have you ever been on a hilltop at night, far away from the distractions of ambient light, when every star in the universe is visibly shining – millions of them – just out of reach of your fingertips, and realize that you can’t begin to understand what you’re seeing?

Do you ever attempt to clear your mind of all the ‘stuff’ that clutters it so that you can sit in the silence and invite the wonders of our amazing world in?

What moments do you remember from months or years back that touched something in you so deeply that you still remember it as if it were yesterday?

Radical amazement is a state of being in awe of the world and all of reality, including the act of seeing.

Radical amazement is a way of looking at the world without any presuppositions.
It's a way of being grateful for the wonder of life.
It's a way of listening, touching, feeling God with you.

How would you describe those moments of connection, of understanding that once in a while pass between you and God? For me those moments would include holding my new-born daughter for the first time; certain sunsets that still move me to awe years later in my memories; the sound of Yo-Yo Ma playing his cello; singing in a large old church and hearing my own voice ringing in that space; that one moment in our old church when, in the middle of service, I realized the sanctuary was filled with those who came before us – the ones who built that place for us to gather and worship.

What are your moments?

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JUSTICE PROPHETS

2/9/2025

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Isaiah 1:16-17
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove your evil deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil; learn to do good;
seek justice; rescue the oppressed.

We started off a couple of weeks ago to discuss the concept of justice in the Hebrew Scriptures. We then got sidetracked for a week with the story of Cain and Abel. So now we are back where we should have been last week.

There are sixteen prophets over all in the Hebrew writings – four classified as Major, and 12 as Minor. The major and minor titles have nothing to do with their relative importance – they’re simply based on their length. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are the longest and thereby classified as major, while Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are shorter and so, classified as the minor prophets.

Almost all of the sixteen prophets are recorded as having preached against the common in-justices that were prevalent in their time, but some more than others. Dating the 16 is not easy. Joel is given as the first of the recorded prophets by some scholars, but others list Isaiah and Amos as the earliest, while Malachi is clearly viewed as the last – a time span of somewhere around 350 years, give or take.

I’ve chosen – somewhat randomly but not entirely – three of these, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah -- to use as examples for our discussion of Old Testament justice. Amos and Micah from the minor list, and Isaiah from the majors. Isaiah is probably the best known among all the prophets – major and minor – while Micah and Amos may be the most familiar to us since much of their writing was used in the civil rights struggle a generation or two ago and are often repeated today.

Isaiah was most recognized for his prophecies about the coming Messiah, that’s why we read him a lot at Advent. He either served 40 plus years as a prophet or there were three different Isaiahs over those years who have been conflated into one man. That has been argued for centuries. He prophesied before, during, and after the Babylonian exile – warning of suffering to come when the people drifted from God and then promising redemption when the people had returned their hearts where they belonged. This quote tells us Isaiah’s stand on justice and our role in making sure that it is available to all:

Is not this the fast that I choose?
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?   (ISAIAH 58:6-7}

Amos was an older contemporary of Isaiah and was from the southern Kingdom of Judah yet preached in the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria).

The main message of Amos is that it is God who demands justice and righteousness, particularly towards the poor and vulnerable, and who will judge his people harshly if they continue to neglect social justice and exploit the marginalized, even if they perform all manner of religious rituals; essentially, true worship requires action to alleviate suffering in order to claim to live ethically.

I hate, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
    I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like water
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.   (AMOS 5:21-24)

And lastly, we have Micah. Micah was active in the Kingdom of Judah (the southern kingdom) from before the fall of Israel in 722 BC and he personally experienced the devastation brought by Sennacherib's invasion of Judah in 701 BC. His prophesying overlapped both Isaiah and Amos timewise.

The primary message of the Book of Micah is a strong condemnation of the social in-justice and corruption of Israel's leaders, coupled with a promise of future restoration and redemption for a faithful remnant, as well as emphasizing that true worship involves acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, rather than mere ritualistic sacrifices; essentially, a call to live righteously to receive God's favor and restoration.

In narratives that sound entirely familiar to us today, the rich and comfortable were living quite well in these times while the poor too often lost everything. The religious and political authorities cobbled together fake “laws” that allowed the rich to retain their comfort at the poor’s loss and to offer “sacrifices” that took the place of actual repentance.

These prophets would have none of it and spoke out long and loudly against the hypocrisy of their day, demanding honest change of greedy hearts, often to their own detriment. Some of their stories sound eerily similar to that recent experience of the female Episcopalian Bishop who dared to remind our current leaders of Jesus' constant calls for mercy for the poor and powerless and ended up being excoriated and threatened for doing so.

We can close this message with perhaps one of the most well-known quotes, from Micah. It tells us all we need to know:

With what shall I come before the Lord?
          . . . . .
He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?

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BIBLICAL JUSTICE: CAIN and ABEL

2/2/2025

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Genesis 4:1-7
Now Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

We started out last week talking about the biblical concept of justice – specifically in the Old Testament. I was expecting to come back today and look at some of the prophets who are especially known for their passionate calls for justice – but somewhere along the line this past week I discovered something that led me to bump those prophets up to next week’s discussion while we take a brief side trip.

Last week I casually mentioned my almost life-long frustration with trying to understand the story of Cain and Abel, when even as a child it seemed to me that it was God who was unjust in this story. I only mentioned this as an aside at the time and never intended to go any further in that direction.

But then, on Tuesday last week, for some reason – call it blind luck or divine intervention, whichever you prefer, I noticed a book sitting right at the front of one of my many bookcases. Once I noticed it I realized it had probably sat there in that spot for much of the 30 years we’ve lived here.

The book is titled “Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis.” It was written by Robert Graves, British poet, army officer, highly respected historian, and recognized expert on translating Greek and Hebrew poetry while maintaining its historical integrity. A man of many, many talents.

So – while I was puzzling about Cain and Abel and God’s odd preferences, possible answers to my many questions had been sitting right beside me as I drank my morning tea every day. How weird is that?

According to Graves, all pre-Biblical sacred documents in Hebrew have been either lost or purposely suppressed. Epic accounts of the Israelites’ desert wanderings and their invasion of Canaan apparently once existed but have been lost. We still have snippets of these which pop-up in the Bible now and then. Perhaps that is what this short story of Cain and Abel and murder is – a brief remnant of a much longer, now-lost story.

It would be, at a minimum, a year-long study to see all that this newly-found book has to offer and I really don’t intend to go there (though it is tempting) but I want to run quickly through two or three pages that focus on the stories (and there are many) of Cain and Abel.

The discoveries of Graves, along with his co-author, Raphael Patai, offer multiple differing versions for Cain’s rage and Abel’s death – versions they apparently scrapped together from fragments of other writings of later scholars and priests, seeking themselves to explain this original story.

Among these are one which states that God accepted Abel’s gift and rejected Cain’s because Abel had chosen the best lamb from his flock for his offering, while Cain had only set a few paltry flax seeds from his plants on the altar. When Cain asked Abel why God accepted his offering, he answered simply that “My offering was accepted because I love God; yours was rejected because you hate God.” Not an answer Cain wanted to hear.

One story tells that when the brothers were of an age for marriage Adam told Eve that Cain should marry Abel’s twin sister and Abel should marry Cain’s twin (there are other long stories as to where these two sisters came into the story) In this version Cain murdered Abel because he wanted his own twin sister for himself, even though that would be incest.

These alternative tellings of the Cain and Abel story are sometimes brutal and sometime just silly, and there are a whole lot more than the few I’ve listed here. Storytellers and scholars have tried to make sense of this tale for centuries, each creating some sort of version that made sense to them. If we follow the when and the who, the story is always shaped to match the story-tellers. To temple worshiping folks in later days this story would have made sense as told because in the temple system, meat was always seen as a much more valuable offering. It is unlikely they would ever even have questioned God’s choice.

The story I was given years ago is that this was an allegorical tale to describe the conflict between hunters/herdsmen and the growers. It has always been the herdsmen who have invaded and driven out the growers. Think of the tales of our Old West – following the ending of the Civil War and even still today. The cattlemen still think they deserve more land and aren’t always shy about taking it – remember the Bundys and their armed stand-off against the BLM a few years ago? Just the way it’s always been.

We may not always have all the details that connect a story to a particular people, but if we dig deep enough there’s always a connection. The oldest stories in our Bible read much more like mythology than history, and whoever put a particular story together always gets to be the hero.

This is an important point to remember whenever we are reading any biblical text. Who wrote it? Why did they write it? What is their point in writing it? Who benefits by telling it this way? There will be truth – but whose truth? Such things matter.

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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION

RADICAL AMAZEMENT

JUSTICE PROPHETS

BIBLICAL JUSTICE: CAIN and ABEL

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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