B Proper 17 22 Ord BFC 2018
Song of Songs 2:8-13; James
1:17-27
September 2, 2018
Jesus
was an illegal alien. According to the
edict of King Herod, he, like Moses before him, was to be one of the children
under 2 executed because his very existence threatened the rule of Herod. But when God is illegal . . . when in
compassion and justice God cares nothing for edicts and laws, your family gets
warned in a dream that you should leave Bethlehem--you go, you flee. You become one of the unwashed hordes seeking
life and sanctuary, a political/religious term meaning haven, rest from the
alarms of the world, a term that has been made dirty and foul by our president
and the Republican National Committee, for, they approved these ads.
King
Herod, a Jew himself, had latitude to execute poor Jews like Jesus because all
of the Jewish people were part of the unwashed hordes, the ungrateful
cockroaches who sucked off the system, barbarians who pressed inside and
outside the borders with their illegal God for who knows what, right? Rome gave them peace from the wars that had
raged and roads and sewers and infrastructure and it all it got back was
discontent and rebellion. Ungrateful lot! Galileean Jews were there to harvest the
wheat the fed and fish the waters to feed the empire because no self-respecting
Roman citizen would do such dirty, smelly work.
The tradespeople, like
carpenters, people who were formerly farmers growing crops for their people,
their community, their families, but lost the land; the tradespeople were there
to build the coliseums, the palaces, the cities that were the mark of a true
grand and glorious civilization.
You may remember that after President Obama was elected,
there was great consternation in the Republican Party about the need to reach
out to the growing Hispanic demographic.
It was one of the reasons Marco Rubio was thought to be a prime
candidate for the Republican nomination.
With his Latin@ heritage and ancestry, he might bring some of that vote
his way. Instead, permission was given
to double down on a teeming underbelly of hate and fear that now has become the
dominant ethos and set of lies packaged for our consumption. In Montana, the national Republican
candidates for House and Senate have chosen to make “secure borders”, over
1,000 miles from the border of Mexico (I am sure they are not referencing those
nasty Canadiens, eh?), part of their regular dose of hate and fear channeled out
to people with real Montana values.
That’s right. They believe our
hate and fear runs so thick in Montana that we would run for the hills in fear
of the Mexicans and Central Americans, sneaking across the border from
thousands of miles away who seek to suck off the system, destroy our country,
and make us all speak Spanish.
The Song of Songs, or the Most Excellent of Songs, sounds
the furthest thing from a political tract with its overt sexual and romantic
language, but there it is right there, in chapter 1, verse 5, of this beautiful
poetry, “I am black and beautiful” or “I am black but beautiful.” She confronts the daughters of Jerusalem, the
ones who might judge her from being a different ethnicity, or a different
social class because she spends her days working under the sun, “Do not stare
at me with disdain, daughters of Jerusalem, because I am dark, because the sun
has gazed on me.” It is a challenge to
all who might confront her. “So it is you who
might forbid true love?”
It is a reminder of those days when Protestants married
Catholics to the trepidation of their family and community, and lo and behold,
family members had to admit that their love seemed right and true. Oh, and their kids, their kids seemed to be
good and well-adjusted and healthy. It
is a reminder of those days when a couple realized they could not have children
of their own so they adopted them from China, or Russia, or Guatemala, or . . .
a white couple who adopted African-American children, and they become treasured
children in our families, our schools, , our churches, our communities. It is a reminder, right here in Billings, of
Amy, one of my closest colleagues, marrying an undocumented immigrant,
Francisco, and the five incredible children they have who regularly demonstrate
their kindness, responsibility, and love for one another. It is a reminder of the gay or lesbian
relative or marriage partner that feels oddly placed in the family until the
ice breaks, you realize what a gift they are to your family, and now you can’t
imagine life without them. Daughters of
Jerusalem, sons, siblings, and cousins of Jerusalem, do not forbid their
love! Your narrative runs deeper. Your story is more profound. Your ancient values do not quake with such
hate and fear that people who are not like you can be so menacing and
evil.
We have a whole party hijacked by that hate and fear, so
afraid of losing privilege and power in our country, that they, without shame,
embrace imperial lie after imperial lie.
It was not always so. We have
another party so tepid and cowed that they fear making statements that honor
the basic understanding that Christians shall be known by the fruits of their
love, as the teaching in James states, their love for the most vulnerable and
powerless—that we don’t traffic in hate to deny people the material bases of
life. And we have failed. We have failed, I believe I have failed, to
know that deep and ancient story well enough to communicate an alternative
vision.
There were many memories shared of Senator John McCain over
the last week and especially yesterday, but my favorite happened at one of his
rallies as he ran for president in 2008.
He was given a distinct choice—to chase after that underbelly of racism
and hate or to pursue something different.
A
woman came up to McCain at a rally and said, “I can’t trust Obama. I have read
about him, and he’s not, he’s not — he’s an Arab.” Her comment prompted McCain
to immediately shake his head and take the microphone from her.
“No
ma’am,” McCain said. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to
have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is
all about.”[1]
Having tracked the immigration issue for
most of my adult life, I know Senator McCain, as a legislator from Arizona, did
not always make choices against hate and fear, but I do think that was an
iconic choice in our country’s history—a man, rather than make power and
ambition to be all, end all, chose different values.
So
must we. We must choose different values
and communicate an alternative vision that tells the personal stories of love
that could not be forbidden, those stories that remind us of when we were
surprised by how our passion for a lover, a child, a family, a relative, tore
down walls, broke laws, transcended cultural acceptance to know that God’s love
is more wild and free than the opportunistic hate and fear peddled by the
profiteers and power hungry. Black and
beautiful. Yes. Right.
True. Do not forbid love. Amen.
[1]
Lisa Maria Segarra, “Watch John McCain Strongly Defend Barack Obama During the
2008 Campaign,” Time, August 25,
2018. http://time.com/4866404/john-mccain-barack-obama-arab-cancer/.
No comments:
Post a Comment