IT’S A DIRTY JOB, BUT SOMEBODY HAS TO DO IT!

(Preached on Sunday, June 19, 20005)

Don’t be intimidated.  Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are.  So don’t hesitate to go public now. 

-Matthew 10:26-27, The Message

 

As a mother was tucking her five-year-old daughter into bed during a booming thunderstorm, the little girl asked, “Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight? I’m scared of the thunder and lightening.”  The mother kindly but firmly refused the little girls’ request.  “But why won’t you sleep with me?” the girl asked with tears welling up in her eyes.  “Because Daddy wants me to sleep with him,” the mother explained.  The little girl shook her head in disgust and muttered, “That big chicken!”

 

The calendar marks today as Father’s Day. 

Very likely, many of you came to worship this morning eager to hear some soothing words from the preacher about the love of our eternal Father in Heaven and examples of love we see in our own earthly fathers.

So you are probably wondering what am I going to do with this pack of difficult, upsetting, teachings from Jesus.

In fact, in these verses, Matthew seems to have gathered all of Jesus’ most difficult sayings in one group.

It is reported that Thomas Jefferson took a pair of scissors to the gospels and cut out every verse that didn’t fit with his understanding of Jesus.

What a temptation that is!

If left to our own desires, wouldn’t we like to cut out this section, so we wouldn’t have to deal with it — ever!

 

But we also know, deep in our hearts, that if our faith is going to mean anything, if it is going to be anymore than a nice sugar glaze over our lives, then we have to deal with the difficult teachings and sayings of Jesus.

And in many respects, isn’t that truly what we look to our father’s to help us do, deal with the difficult aspects of life?

So, on Father’s Day, I invite you to join me in struggling with these sayings as we listen to our stillspeaking God together this morning.

 

Scholars believe that Matthew has gathered these collected saying of Jesus together as a sort of rulebook, or employees manual, for the followers of Jesus.

While those earliest followers of Jesus were trying to share with the world what they had discovered as good news in the life and teachings of Jesus, Matthew wanted them to understand it would be heard by many as “bad news.”

 

Why was the message of Jesus so offensive?

Because he called for people to change.  Not to live according to law or privilege but according to love.

To be inclusive, to be willing to touch the filthy, unholy, mess of humanity in order to share God’s love.

Jesus called for change and when his followers lived a new kind of life, they got a lot of trouble for their efforts.

 

The message of Jesus is no more in tune with the values and practices of the world today than it was 2,000 years ago, for Jesus still calls the world to change.

To live by love, to forgive one another, to seek justice, to be agents of reconciliation.  To give up the stuff of this world and give ourselves to its people.  To seek out the unfriended and to offer them a place at your table.  To avoid the charms of life and seek the challenges.   To fight for the one whose arm is weak; to say no to self and yes to sacrifice, for the sake of bettering the lives of others.

If we shout a little of that from the rooftops, we might find ourselves on the outside of society and shunned by family and friends.  If you talk about that kind of life, the world might hate you for it.

 

Not too long ago a woman came to her pastor for counsel and advice.  Her concern was that while she was comfortable in a liberal and progressive theology, she had friends who were strongly evangelical in their beliefs and they were quite anxious about her state of salvation.  She said to the pastor: “I am following Jesus, but they don’t think I am.  I know in my heart that I am right with God, but they disagree.  I want to be their friend, but they simply want to convert me to their narrow way of understanding.”

It was small comfort to her that she was doing battle with the forces of status quo, popular and seemingly government-approved faith.  But Jesus turned religion upside down in his day and in the days of Matthew that followed.

In many ways, Jesus still turns religion upside down.

Those who follow will be ostracized and opposed.

 

Sad to say, it has always been this way.

The prophetic role is something we all share as followers of Jesus and children of God.  That prophetic role stretches back thousands of years into the history of God’s involvement with humanity.  Prophecy is not fortune telling or predicting the future.  Prophecy is standing up on your own two feet and speaking out when you see something rotten happening that’s hurting people.

Perhaps you saw the story in the Neighbors section of the Miami Herald this past Thursday about Jean Guthrie.

Jean moved to the Palmetto Bay area in 1944 with her husband Lain, a pilot for Eastern Airlines.  Lain was a prophet who stood up for people.  In fact, he lost his job with Eastern for a time because he kept his DC-8 on the ground and ordered the ground crew to drain waste fuel from the previous flight, rather than participate in the standard practice of the time of dumping fuel in the atmosphere.  His action caused the redesign of all aircraft engines.  With the help of the workers’ union he got his job back and continued to fly.  It was a difficult action to take, but he knew it was the right one.

 

Among the institutions in our society, the church is really the only one that has doing justice as one of its top priorities.  The church is the only institution required by its very nature to ask questions such as, “Is it right?”  “Is it fair?”  “Is it just?”  “Is it loving?”

Not all Christians ask those questions, though we should.

Nor does the church as an institution always ask them very well or effectively.  Even when it does, the various parts of the church don’t necessarily agree on the answers.

But the questions are there, at the top of the list.

 

As I mentioned, this tradition goes back a long way.

Thousands of years ago, a Hebrew prophet said it this way: “What does God require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” 

The world still needs people who will ask those tough questions and, following Jesus, stand up for what is right.

For example, Labor Unions, while not perfect, have achieved much in this country in terms of improved working conditions for employees.

Yet, there are still companies who abuse their workers.

This past Wednesday, I joined about 50 religious leaders from South Florida churches, synagogues and mosques, in standing up for the rights of workers to unionize by calling on the Continental Group, a large employer of condominium service workers, to treat their employees fairly and stop harassing and intimidating them in attempts to keep them from unionizing.

 

The United Farm Worker Union has been fighting for fair practices for farm workers in California for decades.

Many of us can remember the boycott of table grapes they called for back in the 1960's and 1970's.

They have now had to call for a boycott of wine grapes, specifically the products of Gallo of Sonoma Winery.

They have called for this action because, even though UFW represents the employees of Gallo since 1994, Gallo has never signed a contract that included farm labor contractor employees.  They have steadfastly refused to include such employees and have steadily increased their use of such labor from 60% of their employees to now 80%.  They have also tried to break the union through intimidation tactics such as company foremen and supervisors assembling workers and directing them to sign decertification petitions but not telling them they were to get rid of the union.

Those contract labor workers have gone for 2 years without a raise and do not receive any benefits.

All this from one of the richest wine-making giants in the region which wants to continue to refuse to provide any benefits and to pay wages that are lower than those provided by other wine grape growers in the region.

 

These are difficult stands to take, especially if they begin to affect our own pocketbooks and budgets.

Increasingly the church itself is growing polarized about what are the right questions to ask and what are the answers God provides.

In just two weeks about 1,000 United Church of Christ delegates to General Synod in Atlanta will begin discussions on several controversial topics.

One will be a call to withdraw investment funds from corporations profiting from business with Israel in the West Bank, in the construction of the security wall, and in the continuing struggle with the Palestinians.  It is not popular in this country to question Israel’s practices.

The United Presbyterian Church took such an action a year or two ago and saw their denominational headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky bombed as a result.

 

A second topic to be discussed will be a call to support equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian people.

Just as this issue has polarized this nation, with more and more states passing constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman, this discussion is threatening to polarize our denomination.

Many Conference Ministers in the UCC are fearful we will see many churches leaving the denomination over this issue.

As Jesus said, he did not come to make life cozy, but to call people to live justly, even if it means cutting relations with those closest to us who do not understand that call in the same way.

To follow Jesus is not an easy life.