The Personal is Political

As you may have already inferred by our scripture and our music, the fourth Sunday of Easter is widely known as “Good Shepherd” Sunday. Each year, preachers are inclined to spend an inordinate amount of time on the wikipedia page for “sheep”, hoping to find a pithy anecdote or a zoological-theological insight to wow the congregation. 

I will do no such thing this morning, because I serve at the pleasure of the Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan, and I know that in this house, we prefer goats. 

The interpretive leap I will take us on, though, is that a literal good shepherd has provided his good sheep with such a good life that they have produced good wool which has become good thread which has been woven into good fabric, which a good woman named Tabitha has made into tunics and other clothing for the widows in her community. We have heard of this good woman this morning in the Acts of the Apostles. 

Tabitha was a disciple, one of the few named women disciples, and the only woman disciple whose story of healing is in our scripture. Not to bury the lede or anything, but she is also the only woman in our scripture to be resurrected from the dead. And resurrected by Peter, no less! 

You remember Peter from his greatest hits such as misunderstanding the Transfiguration of Jesus, denying Jesus three times after his death, and falling out of the boat into the sea more than once. He’s also Saint Peter, who is responsible for the beginnings of the institutional Church. Peter contains multitudes.

As the story goes, Peter has been summoned by two disciples to the home of a woman who has died. We do not know why those disciples believed that there was something Peter could do about this, since we have no other stories of Peter raising someone from the dead. But the apostles understand, to whatever degree, the power of God. They understand that there is life, and death, and life again. So Peter arrives at her home, prays, and says, “Tabitha, get up.” And she does!

We do not know very much about Tabitha, which is a shame, because the little we do know tells us that there is quite a story here. 

“We know that Tabitha was beloved, because two disciples search out Peter to restore her life. She was dedicated to doing good works for widows, and the community of widows that mourns her passing attests to her success….We do not know whether she was a widow herself. We do not know whether she was financially self-sufficient. We do not know whether she was a leader in her community. Some commentators make the case that Tabitha was all of these.” [1]

In the world in which Tabitha and the other disciples lived, women were not full members of society. Their attachment to men was their connection to the social order, whether that man was their father, brother, husband, or son. 

In general, women did not work for pay outside the home, women did not own property—in fact, women were property—and women did not speak for themselves. A widow, then, is in a precarious position. 

If her late husband had no brother with the means to take her into his household, or if she had no adult sons, or if she was far from her family of origin, she was adrift. There was not a social safety net in place, nor would she have accumulated any sort of stability or wealth that belonged to her. 

This same precariousness was also true for orphaned children. This is why we hear so often in our scripture—from the Hebrew prophets and Jesus alike—that it is our responsibility as the people of God to care for the stranger, and the widow, and the orphan. Those whose connections have been severed. 

Enter Tabitha. Based on what we do know of her, and what we do know of the disciples, and what we do know of their society, we can safely extrapolate that Tabitha was “a disciple who stood in solidarity with widows by using her personal resources to care for them.” [1] We do not know where that money came from, but we know where it went.

I am unsure as to whether any commentators will back me up on this, but this morning I’d like us to regard Tabitha as a feminist icon. 

As a feminist, Tabitha knew that the personal is political. As a feminist, Tabitha understood “the suffering of widows and the political implications of their suffering….By ministering to widows, [Tabitha] resists a [patriarchal] way of life that marginalizes women devoid of male economic support.” [1]

Frequently, preachers will tell you about how different the context was for the stories from our scripture compared to our present. This week, the practical application for our life embedded in these stories rings loud and clear. 

As you have heard from me from this pulpit on numerous occasions now, you know that I prepare my sermons with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. [2] I know that St. Martin’s is a congregation of at least as many opinions as people, and it is unlikely that we have engaged this week’s news in identical ways. But we are a community of people who listen for the voice of God, and who know that the good news of Jesus the Christ is liberation from the ravages of sin and death and freedom from the powers and principalities of this world. And so when we hear that our liberties and the liberties of the most vulnerable among us are in jeopardy, we act. 

Early this week, a document leaked from the Supreme Court of the United States about an upcoming landmark decision that has yet to be formally and officially decided. The document makes it clear that the court’s conservative majority will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision guaranteeing the right to abortion. The opinion also hints at where this precedent could lead, when it comes to other constitutional rights—including contraception and marriage equality for queer couples as well as for interracial couples. Though these rights are not explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution, they are rights to privacy, autonomy, equality, and dignity. The leaked opinion mentions that these rights are not guaranteed because they are, quote, “not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions”. [3] This is alarming, because the rights that are deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions are for white, land-owning men to literally own everything and everyone else. Everyone else’s full humanity is on the chopping block.

In our scripture this morning, the example of good and righteous living that we are presented with is Tabitha, the good and kind woman who did what she could to improve the lives of those cast off. This is not an exception, but rather the rule, when it comes to whose examples we should follow in our lives as Christians. We are not told the story of the Roman occupying forces, the lawmakers, the deciders, the powerful people who chose to render these widows and so many beloved children of God powerless. 

We are not told the story of those who made the rules that meant destitution and death for the vulnerable among them. We are not given that example to emulate. We are not instructed by the Torah, the Hebrew prophets, the Gospels, or any of our other sacred literature to use and abuse our neighbors, or to ignore their exploitation or peril.

We are told the story of a woman who knew that the most vulnerable in her community were to be loved and cherished, not rejected. We do not know anything about these widows that Tabitha served. We do not know if they were good, or kind, or righteous, or for how long they had been widows or if they had had any children or why it was that they did not have a family to support them. Tabitha did not see anything wrong with these widows, but rather something wrong with the society that cast them aside. 

Knowing, as we do, about women’s lack of standing in their first century society, it is incredible that Tabitha was able to make this difference in the lives of her neighbors. And it is incredible that her story carried all the way from that time, through every Act of every Apostle, through every iteration and translation of our scripture, here to us, now. Perhaps you think that Tabitha’s resurrection is the most interesting thing about her. Personally, I think the most interesting thing about this story is that we’ve managed to hear it.

As the discourse rages around abortion and freedom and gender and sex and every other controversial issue in our culture, it can be quite attractive to go full ostrich, head in the sand. Earmuffs, blindfolds, pick a metaphor, any metaphor.

But in the Gospel According to John, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”

There are so many voices we can listen to out in the world. So many individuals and institutions and cultural norms are all yelling over each other to get our attention—our families, our peers, employers, politicians, business leaders, celebrities, cable news anchors, social media influencers. It can be hard sometimes to tell the difference between this noise and the voice of God.

In a reflection on this Gospel text, Jesuit Father James Martin wrote that “It’s important to know what is and is not God’s voice.” [4] A simple sentence, but basically the thesis of the thing.

The voice that tells you you are not enough is not God’s voice. 
The voice that tells you that you are too much is not God’s voice, either.
The voice that tells you that your body is wrong, that your feelings are wrong, that your way of being in the world is wrong, that is not God’s voice. 
The voice that tells you that your gender, or race, or class, or citizenship, or ability, or education make you worth more than another person—that’s not God’s voice, either.

It’s not always easy. But God’s voice is the one that tells you that you are loved unconditionally. 
God’s voice is the one that tells you that your sin is forgiven.
God’s voice is the one that tells you that you are created good, as you are and as you are becoming.
God’s voice is the one that tells you that you are doing your best and your best is enough. 
God’s voice is the one that tells you that you are the only one who has control over your body.
God’s voice is the one that tells you to get up, to breathe deeply, and live.
Amen.

—

[1] Scott C. Williamson, “Fourth Sunday of Easter” in Preaching God’s Transforming Justice: Year C, 212-216.
[2] This adage is attributed to 20th-century German theologian Karl Barth.
[4] From a tweet by @JamesMartinSJ from 12 May 2019.

This is the Night

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Hallelujah! 

You have come to know that I love audience participation, I love a call and response, and on this holy and blessed night, we are invited to rejoice and to sing praise to our God, to shout “hallelujah” over and over again, because the power of sin and death have been overcome by the glorious resurrection of Jesus the Christ. It’s finally here, beloveds. This is the night. 

This is the night when we get to ask my favorite questions, brought to us by the prophet Hosea and the Apostle Paul, “Where, O grave, is thy victory? Where, O death, is thy sting?” Not here. Vanquished. 

This is the night. This is the night where we do not fear the darkness, for it, too, has been vanquished. 

This is the night. This is the night when we hear stories told from throughout the history of God’s people. In the full and exhaustive Great Vigil of Easter, we would have heard a dozen stories, which would have carried us from the darkness of the tomb into the resurrection dawn. As we are a modern and practical community of faith, we have heard merely six stories this evening, and they have been good ones. 

Voices from throughout our congregation have told us of the creation of the universe; of the exodus and Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea; prophecies about what it is to live and to breathe as a community. The Apostle Paul insisted that we are moving from death to life. And the women gathered at the tomb of Jesus, looking for the living among the dead. 

We heard poetry, we heard prose. We heard history, we heard allegory, we heard prophecy. We heard hopes and dreams and visions. We heard assurances and admonitions. 

The Great Vigil of Easter invites us to listen for the whole story. 

Somewhere along the line in our institutional church history, we leaned not into the voices of the women at the tomb, but of those who failed to believe them. We determined that some voices were not welcome in the church, that some people were not worthy to proclaim the Gospel. It is clear, simply from this evening’s readings, that we got this very wrong. The first proclaimers of the good news—Jesus is not dead, but alive—were women. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women who had come with Jesus from Galilee are the Gospel’s first preachers. In order to be Biblically accurate, it could be argued that only women should preach on Easter. I digress. 

These women had been with Jesus on the way. They had traveled around the Judean countryside, providing invaluable service to the community. We know that they were exceptional women, given that they traveled with this band of radicals rather than staying put and keeping a home in the village of their husbands. They famously sat at the feet of Jesus, learning from him and sharing the good news that he proclaimed. But we also know that their roles as disciples were likely related to the care and keeping of the men; feeding, clothing, mending, cleaning, tending. We know that they had not abandoned this responsibility, as they approached the tomb of Jesus in the early dawn hours. They came to tend to the body of their friend, the last act of service they would ever do for him.

When we don’t listen to the whole story, because we do not hear from everyone involved, we are very likely to miss out on something important. In some instances, it might be interesting details or context. In some instances, it might be the whole point.

We know from the historical record that it is almost always the winners who write the story of the war. It is always those with power whose voices are loudest, whose expertise is acknowledged, whose contributions are applauded. But if we stuck to that version of the story, in the case of Jesus’ death, all we’d know is that some rabble-rouser was executed and nobody ever thought twice about it again. Thanks be to God, we have the testimony of these women.

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and “the other women who were with them” spent their sabbath day afraid and unsure about what the future would hold. They relied on their tradition to point them toward action, to move through the rituals of grieving together. These women probably fed their families, and gathered to pray in the candlelight. Then, before anyone else was awake, I imagine them meeting, quietly, at one of their homes, and gathering the spices they’d prepared. I imagine them looking one another in their scared faces, taking a few steadying breaths, nodding resolutely, and walking out into the dawn. 

These women are some of the most courageous people in our whole scripture. While they were doing their sacred duty to their friend, they were making their way to the grave of a convicted political criminal. They took a significant risk to themselves and to their terrified community, showing their faces at this place, where Roman guards likely still stood. But in the chaos and turmoil, they had courage.

When they arrived to do their work—the practical, mundane, sacred work of tending to the dead—they were met, instead, with an empty tomb and two dazzling strangers. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” One of the strangers asks. “He is not here, but has risen.” 

Not only did these women have the courage to show up at the tomb of their friend when all hell had broken loose, but they had the courage to believe it was true that he was alive again. And then, the courage to run home and tell their friends this unbelievable truth. It is, at face value, an absurd proclamation. He is risen? Could it be?

But as the people of God, who have heard the stories of God’s work in the world over millennia, we are perhaps familiar with such odd things. 

“Let there be light,” God says, and it is so. 
“Go into the ark,” God says, and Noah goes. 
“The Lord will provide,” Abraham says, and Isaac nods. 
“Do not be afraid,” Moses says, and the Israelites cross the Red Sea.
“Prophesy to these bones,” God says, and Ezekiel breathes. 
“He is not here, but is risen,” the stranger says, and the women believe. 

They believe, but their friends and coworkers in ministry fail to believe them! They are dismissed, their proclamation of the gospel truth disregarded as an idle tale. How many women—and how many marginalized and minoritized people, across time and space—have told the truth and not been believed? How many times have people insisted on their lived experiences, only to be ignored or invalidated or even punished? This cannot be the example we follow in a post-Easter world. 

We, hearers of these stories in the Year of our Lord 2022 know the truth, and the truth has set us free, because, for centuries, people have had the courage to tell that truth. And the person they told it to trusted them, believed them, and continued to tell the story. Our ancestors in faith have told the stories of the people of God, and told them again, and again. Year after year, night after night, telling the stories. The simple stories, and the weird stories, and the confusing stories, and the complicated stories, and the gruesome stories, and the uplifting stories, and the liberating stories.

And in the same way, each of your stories is part of God’s story. Your lived experiences, many and varied, are reflected in the pages of our sacred texts. Your victories and your defeats, your hopes and your fears, your joys and your sorrows, all of you belongs here, in the story of God.

The truth, as hard as it is to believe, is that Jesus, who was once dead is alive again. You, who were once dead, are alive again in Christ. Hallelujah! Amen.

Holy Foolishness

If you have been a practicing Christian for more than a few years, you have noticed that the church calendar moves around with regard to the Gregorian calendar, such that holidays like Easter are not on the same date every year. This year, we will—spoiler alert—celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord on April 17th. Last year, it was April 4th, in 2020 it was April 12th, in 2019 it was April 21st, and in 2018, it was the somewhat dreaded April 1st.

April 1st is one of my personal least favorite days on the calendar, as I am a curmudgeon and I disdain the practice of April Fool’s Day. I do not care for pranks of any kind, because I do not find it funny that we punish each other for practicing trust. 

You may be inclined to disagree—obviously this is a minority opinion, as we all experienced who knows how many dumb jokes just a few days ago—and that’s fine. But as someone whose literal job it is to listen for the truth and tell the truth, I struggle with a day dedicated to being mocked for doing just that. 

Today is not April 1st nor is it Easter, but it is a day for fools. Let me explain. 

One of our most well-known and beloved saints, Francis of Assisi, was a holy fool. He is featured in one of my favorite books, Illuminating the Way, by Christine Valters Paintner. In it, his foolishness is described as “subvert[ing] the dominant paradigm of acceptable ways of thinking and living.” [1]

We know him as a lover of the earth and all its creatures, as he famously noted that “the world [was his] monastery.” At the time of his life and ministry, the church was a place of riches and grandeur, and St. Francis chose to relinquish all of that in favor of a simple life of presence. 

St. Francis was an anticapitalist before there was a capitalist to be anti, rejecting the mainstream social values of hurriedness and productivity and consumption. He chose to slow down, live a contemplative life on the margins of society. He was by no means the first of our church ancestors to behave in this way, but his 12th-century peers thought him quite foolish. But Francis knew that this was the best way for him to see where God was at work. 

The prophet Isaiah relays the words of God, who says, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” We are being invited to look at the world in new ways, perceiving from a different perspective. This is what holy foolishness, like that practiced by St. Francis, calls us to. As “fools for Christ”, which he called his community, we step outside what is considered “normal” in our culture, and break loose from the bonds of others’ expectations and rules for our lives. We follow Jesus’ radical example, not the conformist example of conventional wisdom. 

In some ways, Jesus himself is a holy fool, “the one who subverts the way things are done and confounds our expectations. Jesus sat at the table with tax collectors and [sinners]. He healed on the Sabbath. He broke boundaries, turned things upside down, and invites us to do the same.” [2]

In our Gospel story this morning, Mary does something foolish. She upends a valuable bottle of perfume—an entire pound of pure nard, it says, for emphasis—onto the feet of Jesus, mopping up the significant excess with her own hair. This is not normal behavior. This is not typical or expected or even responsible. But Mary did not do it because she thought that it was. She knew it was foolish, and that is precisely why she did it.

Mary, you may remember, is the sister of Martha—with whom she disagreed about how to show hospitality to Jesus and his friends—and the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus resurrected from the dead. Quite a family! Mary is someone who spent a lot of time with Jesus and his disciples, and had listened to him preach and teach before. She knew who he was and what his presence meant in her home.

Other than Jesus, of course, the other major player in our story this morning is Judas. I am personally uninterested in any Judas slander, as I imagine his role in the life and death of Jesus to be more nuanced than our Gospel authors give him credit for, and these narratives were penned decades after the events they describe, when there had been plenty of time to cement him in the villain role. So his objection to her foolishness, and particularly the author’s parenthetical assignments of motivation are not what’s interesting about this story. 

But what Jesus says to him has been interpreted in some problematic ways over the centuries, and so we do have to address his presence, briefly. Judas says that the perfume should not have been “wasted” in this way, and instead should have been sold, and the money given to the poor. 

Jesus replies, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” 

Jesus’ words here, “you always have the poor with you,” have been spun to excuse us from alleviating poverty for centuries. Many preachers will tell you that this story is a repudiation of social justice, and that our focus should be exclusively on the worship of God, not the liberation of our siblings. 

If we are scholars of scripture, though, we know that here Jesus is quoting the Torah, Deuteronomy 15:11, to be precise. There, it is written, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.” This verse comes in the section of the law regarding debt cancellation. 

Deuteronomy 15:1 says, “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts” and then lays out how, precisely, to go about structuring that. This debt-canceling year is known as the “year of jubilee”. 

Our present debt crisis could use some jubilee. Yesterday, the student loan debt in the United States reached one trillion, eight-hundred-ninety-four billion, four-hundred-seventy-eight million, three-hundred-fifty-six-thousand, nine-hundred-twelve dollars ($1,894,478,356,912).[3] 35 million Americans have student loan debt, and 90% of them are not ready to make payments toward that debt when the pandemic payment freeze ends on May 1. 

It is arguable that it is foolish to cancel student debt. 

People have been paying off student loan debt for decades, and the US government is counting on those payments being made, eventually, so they can pay back their own debt, presumably. People take out loans all the time; it’s a significant part of how the US economy functions. It’s how we own homes and cars; it’s how we start businesses. There are many people who have already paid off their student loans who feel that cancellation now is unfair to the hard work they put into their payments. There are economic arguments all over the place for all the reasons why it is foolish to do it.

But student loan debt cancellation could lift up to 5.2 million American households out of poverty. Black and African American college graduates owe an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt than white college graduates. 58% of student loan debt belongs to women. Student borrowers who identify as LGBTQ have an average of $16,000 more in student loan debt than those who are not LGBTQ. [4]

Advocating for student debt cancellation may cause others to look at us askance. But we sit at the feet of Jesus. 

And Jesus is not saying that there is no need to give money to the poor, but rather the opposite. Debts should be canceled so that all are able to live freely and to give freely. We should all be at liberty to lavish one another with our riches—financial, emotional, and spiritual. Mary has chosen to show her adoration of Jesus by anointing him with this richly perfumed oil.

Jesus suggests, perhaps, that Mary’s unusual behavior foreshadows his death. Mary knows that Jesus is in danger, and is wanted by various authorities for various crimes against the empire—for advocating for things like debt cancellation. 

She knows that times like these, gathered around the table with friends, may be limited. Tensions are rising. She wants to be sure that her friend Jesus knows what he means to her, to them, to their community. And so she does what is perhaps not the most fiscally responsible choice, according to conventional wisdom and “the way it has always been done”.

Reconfiguring our financial system to more closely resemble the Torah would perhaps be an unpopular option among those who are wealthiest in our present system. But for the poor—who were there in the time of Jesus, who have been there since, and who are here now—it would be gracious, and merciful, and holy, and foolish. How will we, who sit at the feet of Jesus, lavish our riches on those we love?

—

[1] Christine Valters Paintner, Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics, 4.
[2] John Valters Paintner, “Jesus and the Fool Archetype: The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard” in Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics, 7.