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Be Opened

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Be Opened” Mark 7:24-37

When I came to Saranac Lake in January 2005, we needed a new sign for the church. The old sign was made many years ago by Skip’s Dad. The wooden boards were lovingly hand-routed and painted. But too many Adirondack winters had taken their toll. Session debated the size, shape, and color of the replacement sign. But what inspired most discussion was the message we included, which felt a little radical at the time, “All are welcome.”

When session decided to broadcast that message, we were remembering the years of conflict that we were leaving behind. We wanted to send a hopeful, healing message to the community, a message to inspire those who felt a little like outsiders to come on in. I know that it worked on at least one occasion. One Sunday, a couple of out-of-town visitors in full motorcycle gear joined us for worship. They wore black jackets, chaps, and big motorcycle boots. The back pew had never seen so much leather.  In visiting with them after the service, they said that they had wanted to go to church somewhere in Saranac Lake but felt a little uncomfortable about their appearance. They finally decided that any church that put “All are welcome” on the sign was their best bet for warm hospitality. I hope that we lived up to their expectations.

In Jesus’ day, religious traditionalists had strong opinions about who was and was not welcome, not only in church but also in God’s Kingdom. Mark’s seventh chapter explores this question of God’s acceptance and welcome. In the verses leading up to today’s reading, Jesus was under attack by the Pharisees and scribes. Those religious traditionalists looked at Jesus’ disciples, saw their failure to observe rituals of purity, like handwashing before eating, and decided that neither the disciples nor Jesus was holy enough. In their opinion, failure to keep the traditions of the elders rendered the disciples unclean and unwelcome in the eyes of God.

In some of the boldest teaching of his ministry, Jesus denounced this narrow-minded belief. Jesus argued that it is what comes out of a person that separates them from God and neighbor. God was less concerned about handwashing or a kosher diet and more concerned about idolatry, adultery, theft, hypocrisy, slander, and malice.

The two encounters in today’s gospel reading probably stretched even Jesus’ understanding of God’s welcome. After his clash with his opponents, Jesus withdrew to the seaside city of Tyre beyond the Galilee, seeking a quiet place to pray and find refreshment. But the word soon got out. It wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door. Jesus was beseeched for healing, and he wasn’t very happy about it.

The woman who implored Jesus to heal her child had three strikes against her.  She was a Gentile, outside the covenant between God and Israel. Not only was she a Gentile, she was the worst sort of Gentile—a Syro-Phoenician. The evilest woman in the Hebrew scriptures, Jezebel, was a Syro-Phoenician princess who brought idolatry and immorality to the reign of her Israelite husband King Ahab. What’s even worse, this woman was flouting the bounds of good behavior. In a time and place when women didn’t speak to men outside their family, she was on her knees, imploring a strange man to do her a favor. Utterly scandalous!  Jesus had every reason to say, “No.” Indeed, the Pharisees and scribes, with whom Jesus had recently argued, would have congratulated him on his good judgment. When Jesus called the woman a “dog,” he sounded a lot more like them than he did like the Jesus we know and love. Didn’t he?

The gospel might have stayed good news only for Jews if the Syro-Phoenician woman hadn’t challenged Jesus. She demanded just a few crumbs of God’s welcome for Gentile dogs, like her sick child. In response, we glimpse a shift in Jesus’ understanding. He sees that, in his Father’s Kingdom, this woman didn’t belong under the table, begging for table scraps. In his Father’s Kingdom, she had a place at the table, alongside the children of Israel. The proof of Jesus’ insight came immediately. Jesus blessed her for her bold speech, in Greek—her logos, her word, her wisdom—and he sent her home. There she found her child waiting, right as rain.

Perhaps Jesus struggled with the boldness of God’s welcome because he soon encountered another healing request that would have been out-of-bounds for scribes and Pharisees. As Jesus returned to Galilee, he traveled through the Decapolis, the ten city-states to the east of the sea.  These communities, planted three hundred years earlier when Alexander the Great claimed Israel for his empire, were largely Gentile and culturally Greek. When those Greek neighbors brought to Jesus a man who was hearing- and speech-impaired, Jesus didn’t rebuke them or call them dogs. Instead, the suffering man got a private audience. There was touching and spitting, speaking and sighing. Jesus’ word, “Ephphatha”—be opened—may have been part of the man’s healing experience, but perhaps it was also part of Jesus’ own healing experience—and a calling to all who would be his followers. “Ephphatha”—be opened. Don’t build fences or set limits on God’s love.

Mark’s seventh chapter is a great comfort to us. We, who have lived enough or have the depth of faith to acknowledge our personal sinfulness and brokenness, can rejoice in the promise that God loves and welcomes us, despite our painful pasts and our present mistakes. We are welcome, and there isn’t anything that we can do that will render us unlovable or irredeemable. Jesus has done the hard work on the cross so that even though our sins abound, his righteousness prevails. There is a place for us at the table. Thank you, Lord.

Yet Mark’s seventh chapter is a challenge to us. Part of our human sinfulness is that we always want to draw lines, create in-groups and out-groups. We see it in high school cliques. We see it in partisan politics. We even see it in our penchant to form factions within churches or denominations. There lurks within each of us the scribe or Pharisee, who keeps watch, rushes to judgment, and wants to limit God’s love. Today’s reading suggests that God invites us to get over ourselves and get out of God’s way so that healing may abound. God’s great longing is for a church and a world where no one feels like they have to beg for table scraps when it comes to God’s love and mercy.

I’m not sure that when session approved the words, “All are welcome,” for the sign out front that we thought we were making a bold theological statement, right out of the seventh chapter of Mark’s gospel. We just wanted folks to worship with us. We may have even wanted to send a friendly message to those who had left us, with whom we had quarreled so bitterly in the dark, divided days of our past. But perhaps when we chose that message, God was working on us. God was summoning us to open up, to see the immensity of God’s love and welcome.

I suspect that if Jesus were sitting in the back pew today, wearing his motorcycle leathers, he would remind us that God isn’t finished with us. There are other people out there whom God calls us to welcome, folks who will test our limits and make us feel uncomfortable. I bet they will have tattoos and body piercings. They’ll probably love people whom we don’t think they should love. I imagine that some of them will be developmentally disabled or mentally ill or physically impaired. They’ll probably have big, obnoxious placards in their front yards for candidates from that other political party. They’ll drive gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalades or energy-efficient Teslas. They’ll stand in line in front of us at Stewart’s and make us wait while they buy cigarettes and a billion lottery tickets. The’ll stumble up Broadway after a long night at the Rusty Nail.

Be opened, my friends. God’s love is bigger than we can imagine.

Resources

Alyce McKenzie. “Commentary on Mark 7:24-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 6, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 7:24-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Matt Skinner. “Commentary on Mark 7:24-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 9, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 7:24-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

C. Clifton Black. “Commentary on Mark 7:24-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 5, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 7:24-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Courtney V. Buggs. “Commentary on Mark 7:24-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 8, 2024. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 7:24-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Joann White. “Everyone Gets Healed,” Sept. 9, 2012.

Mark 7:24-37

24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

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Bad Feet, Good Lord!

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Bad Feet, Good Lord!” John 13:1-5, 12-15

“Ouch!” Too late, I sidestep the bench and heel hobble to the foot of the bed. I hoist my leg up and look at my toe. A bloody, purple blush balloons around the base of the nailbed. When probed, the nail wobbles ominously, back forth, up down, like an unmoored dinghy bobbing in an eddy. Duane pushes the bench back into place. He does not want to look at my toe, but I make him.

“Check it out,” I say, wobble wobbling the nail.

Overcoming revulsion, he musters what passes for concerned interest, looking at the toe, the nail, the foot. He shakes his head.

I’ve got bad feet. Imagine that said with the mix of frustration and disappointment that a not-very-patient dog owner might use to say, “Bad dog,” to the new puppy who has, yet again, soiled the fake Persian carpet in the Pastor’s Study. Bad feet! Bad feet!

I blame it on Nana. My maternal great grandmother had feet that we christened “Nana’s Beauties.” Shaped by years of hairdressing in Brooklyn, Nana’s Beauties were a hideous amalgam of hammer toes, bunions, and thick calluses that came to an unnatural point, as if still poured into the fashionable kitten-heeled pumps, adorned with black velvet bows, that she wore in the 1920s. As a small child, I watched those feet with uncomfortable fear and fascination, as if the Beauties might, in any moment, become cognizant of my attention and demand to be touched, or even worse, rubbed. Avert thine eyes!

My Beauties might rival Nana’s. Bunions, bunion-ettes, seed corns, tendonitis, occasional plantar fasciitis, and a few curiously thickened nails that my podiatrist assures me are NOT fungal but symptomatic of feet that regularly take a beating on roadways and trails. Beyond the genetics of low arches and skinny heels, I earned my Beauties, not while flashing a sassy flapper smile and shaping the crimped waves and swingy bobs that Nana crafted at the Flatbush Beauty Emporium, but rather while logging miles, miles, and more miles of walks and hikes in the Adirondacks and beyond. And, of course, with the occasional catastrophically stubbed toe. The nail would blacken, work its way loose, and cast me off one morning to escape down the shower drain.  

There’s money to be made in foot beauty. [1]  Indeed, those with lovely feet can capitalize on them. Foot models, born with a perfect size six and ideal squoval nails can earn six figures by donning shoes or smearing on pharmaceuticals while the camera clicks. A pedicure, with toenails trimmed and filed, calluses softened, and polish artfully applied, can set you back $60.  And if you want your feet to be beautifully and fashionably clad, a pair of smoky blue, patent leather Jimmy Choo mules with a crystal strap will cost $1,095.

But we with Beauties learn early that ours is not the world of nail salons and high fashion footwear. It’s never a good feeling when your nail tech calls in a consultant to determine the best way to shave the callosity on your heels. We hide our thorny feet within thick athletic socks in the girl’s locker room.  We look for pool shoes that hide our deformity. In our youth, we don’t boogie barefoot on the frat house lawn. Later in life, we won’t parade our naked dogs in the health club sauna. Our feet have their own costs: a $45 co-pay at the podiatrist; $5,560 for a bunionectomy that may or may not help; $200 for your Hoka CarbonX3 runners. There are other costs, like the shame we feel at the snicker of fellow campers on the beach at Silver Bay.

Even the biblical authors seemed to think that feet were an appropriate metaphor for that which is illicit, embarrassing, or must be hidden away. When I translated the Book of Ruth from Hebrew to English, my professor Brenda Shaver, in her edgy shicksa-turned-rabbi perkiness, told me with a wink that when Ruth slipped into the granary to spend the night with Boaz, the Hebrew text may say that she uncovered his feet, but she was actually intent on uncovering something else, due north and much more likely to get the attention of the sleeping patriarch.  If Ruth had lifted the blanket and seen that Boaz’s feet rivaled Nana’s Beauties—or mine, there might never have been an Obed, Jesse, or David. Maybe no Jesus.

I bet Jesus had Beauties. The man walked a lot. He walked along the Via Maritima from the black basalt jetty at Capernaum up to the rabbit warren of bureaucratic offices at Caesarea Philippi. He walked from the radium-infused Roman baths of Tiberias down the increasingly arid Jordan Valley to the palm-treed oasis of Jericho. He climbed the red eroded hills of the Judean Wilderness and walked the dangerous, narrow path through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He walked the Via Dolorosa. Jesus didn’t have the benefit of my Keen trail shoes or my real leather, European-made hiking boots. He did it in sandals, the first century kind, not much more than a slab of foot-shaped leather, held on with straps and ties. I bet Jesus had calluses, corns, nicks, scars, and soles made thick by walking. From time to time, he, too, may have been missing a toenail or two. I’m sure the feet of his disciples were no better, especially the fishermen, who spent half their time barefoot, wading in water or sitting in the slime left behind in the bottom of the boat by the dragnet. Jesus, my brother, of the bad, bad feet.

The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell us that on the night of his arrest, Jesus shared a final Passover meal with his friends and instituted a tradition, a shared meal of bread and wine in remembrance of him. John remembers differently. According to John, in the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples, he rose from the table, took off his outer robe, wrapped an apron around his waist, and knelt at his friends’ feet to do the work of the most menial servant in the household. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, all of them, even those of Judas, who was already counting the silver coins that would soon grease his palm. I like to think that Jesus washed the feet of their wives and children, too.

One by one, Jesus cradled the disciples’ feet.  He held their hammer toes and bunionettes, their fallen arches, plantar warts, and ingrown toenails. He poured out water to wash away the grime accrued in a long day of walking on cobbles and unpaved paths in an arid land where dust lifts and swirls with every step. After the washing, he dried their feet, shrouding them in the towel, pressing, rubbing, squeezing, letting go.

John saw this foot washing, and not the Lord’s Supper, as the rite that Jesus used to call us into a community of people committed to his way. Jesus told the twelve, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” Faithful people have long heard in Jesus’ words the calling to a life of humble service, of falling to our knees in prayer and rising to bless others with simple acts of self-giving love. We help out at the Food Pantry or roll up our sleeves at the Community Garden. We clean apartments in public housing or fly off to Malawi to teach kids to read.

But what if Jesus wants more?

In holding those feet, in embracing that which society deems unworthy, unlovely, and unclean in us, Jesus sets another sort of example. It’s an example that we with Beauties can perhaps most fully appreciate. Jesus chooses to be lovingly present to that which we—and others—little love about ourselves. He does so patiently, insistently, relentlessly, without judgment, comment, or snark. It’s an act of inclusion and acceptance that humbles and heals.

It’s an act that also inspires, calling us to hold for one another all that we fear is ugly and unlovable: our misshapen feet and scaley psoriatic skin, our receding hairlines and jiggly bellies, our bad grades and lack of athleticism, our misspent youth and crabby age, our failed marriages and poor parenting, our fragile mental health and compulsive addictions. In truly following Jesus, we could find the humility to gently hold and simply care, to cherish and even love, that which others have learned to hate in themselves. We could choose to move past discomfort, judgment, and even revulsion to love. Are you with me?

The last Christmas that Nana came to our house, before she broke her hip and moved to the nursing home, was a snowy one. A big storm dumped two feet of snow, so heavy and wet that my grandparents couldn’t navigate our street with their big Buick. In those days before SUVs and cell phones, they parked at the top of the hill, a mile away, and everyone got out to walk, even Nana, who, true to form, had worn completely unsuitable shoes that were soaked by the time she reached our front door. When the doorbell rang, we welcomed everyone with hugs and great rejoicing, but it was my Grandmommie White, a retired nurse and Presbyterian Deaconess, who did the most fitting thing.

“Here, Betty,” she said to my Nana, taking her by the elbow and easing her into a chair.

Then she removed Nana’s soggy shoes and washed her beautiful feet. Amen.

—-

This message is part of a longer essay that I worked on this past week during my DMin residency for Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Creative Writing and Public Theology Program.

[1] The Egyptian foot, with the big toe longer than the others, is considered the most beautiful foot shape, followed by the Roman foot (big toe and next two toes of equal length). The least appealing foot shape is purported to be the Greek, with the second toe longer than the first. The only possible advantage of the Egyptian foot is that it is less likely to suffer from ingrown toenails.

John 13:1-5, 12-15

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

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Friends in Low Places

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — Luke 14:1, 7-14

A number of years ago, I invited Michael, a local homeless man, to come share Easter dinner with me and Duane.  Michael had worshipped with us some and even tried singing in the choir, sweating copiously in his blue choir robe and sometimes playing his African drum for us.  I tried on a number of occasions to persuade him to move into permanent housing, but he always resisted, choosing instead to couch surf, moving from home to home, crashing with friends until he wore out his welcome.  Michael seemed pleased with the Easter dinner invitation and promised to be there at two o’clock.

I was a little surprised on Easter Sunday when Michael wasn’t in church.  But on my way home, I ran into him coming out of Stewart’s.  He had a big bottle of Mountain Dew and an equally enormous bag of potato chips.  Looking at the chips and soda, I asked doubtfully, “Michael, you are coming to our house for dinner, aren’t you?”  He looked a little cagey but assured me that he wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

When I got home, I told Duane that the odds were fifty/fifty that the man would actually show.  But sure enough, Michael appeared at two, bearing his enormous bag of chips, unopened.  I put the chips in a big party bowl and added it to the spread: ham, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, rolls, crudité, salad, and Michael’s chips.  It was a feast.

Our lesson from Luke’s gospel describes a sabbath day feast hosted by Pharisees. In Jesus’ day, diners reclined on three low couches, called a triclinium.  Those three couches surrounded a low central table where food was placed.  Diners ate from common dishes, reaching with hands or pieces of bread to scoop up their dinner. 

Your place at the triclinium said a lot about who you were in society.  The guest of honor took the place of prominence next to the host with best access to food and conversation.  Then other guests, by virtue of their social standing, took places of descending prominence on the couches. Guests of least honor were pushed out to the margins, where food might be passed to them by another diner or a servant. Your place in first century society was worked out with table fellowship.  You invited guests of high standing to your banquet, hoping they would accept.  This increased your social status in the eyes of the community, especially when your high-status guest had to reciprocate by inviting you to dine at their table.

As Jesus watched this complex dance of social maneuvering around the triclinium, he shared a teaching that contradicted traditional practices of hospitality.  First, Jesus counseled diners to choose seats of humility, without any presumption of honor or status.  Then, he advised that they should rethink the guestlist.  Invite low-status guests who could not reciprocate their hospitality because they were poor or infirm.

Now, while righteous people like the Pharisees gave charitably for vulnerable neighbors, like widows, orphans, and refugees, the people whom Jesus described would never make the guestlist for the sabbath feast.  The poor, maimed, lame, and blind would have been a disgrace at the table of a high-status Pharisee, like his host.  Jesus’ words would have been incredibly offensive to everyone seated at the triclinium.  There would have been some major acid reflux around the banquet table.

Practicing the sort of hospitality that Jesus advocated wasn’t easy in the first century, and it isn’t easy today.  That Easter dinner with the homeless Michael was part of many interactions with him that were alternately funny, puzzling, and angering.  One morning, Michael called me before six o’clock, waking me up.  A doe had been hit and killed on the LePan Highway, near where he was couch surfing.  He had butchered the doe for meat, but he wanted to know if I was interested in the hide of the unborn fawn.  He thought I might like to tan it so that I could make a drum. Then, there was the day when Michael told me that God was calling him to work with children and youth at our church.  That blew up even before it started when I asked him to collaborate with others and follow church policies.  On another occasion, I returned home from a two-week vacation to learn that Michael had moved into the church basement in my absence.  Everyone knew about it, but no one wanted to deal with it, so it was left to me to have the “come-to-Jesus” talk with my homeless buddy. 

“Michael” I told him, “I wish you would let me help you get into an apartment.  You’ve got to go. No one gets to live at the church, not even me.”  He wasn’t happy, but he moved out, and he stopped coming to our church.

Jesus, do you understand what you are asking of us when you suggest that we invite our vulnerable, crippled, impoverished, crazy neighbors to be a real part of our lives?  Honestly, Lord. Do you realize the difficulty, frustration, and risk that come when we open ourselves up to those sorts of relationships? We’re not sure we really want to go there.  Can’t we, like the Pharisees, simply do our mitzvah and practice a little charitable giving, assuaging our conscience and maintaining the status quo?

Here is the rub.  Jesus chose to specially identify with his neighbors who were vulnerable, stigmatized, and excluded.  One of the reasons that Jesus was being carefully watched by the Pharisees was his practice of eating with sinners, tax collectors, and outcasts.  On the sabbath day, when all eyes should be on God Almighty, Jesus reached out to heal the lowly, from bent-over-women to men with dropsy and withered hands.  And while Jesus could have been building his social status by helping and healing the most prestigious households in the land, Jesus tended to blind beggars, demon-possessed boys, hemorrhaging women, and scabby unclean lepers.  When Jesus got to Jerusalem, he would die as many of the people whom he helped had lived: outcast, rejected, in pain, and humiliated. 

In the very last parable that Jesus shared with his friends, he exhorted them to see him in their most vulnerable and rejected of neighbors (Matt. 25:31-46).  On the far side of death, on the far side of the miracle of resurrection, Jesus would continue to walk this earth in the guise of people who are sick and hungry, destitute and outcast, thirsty and imprisoned. He called these hurting folks his “little brothers and sisters.”  Indeed, when disciples choose to welcome and serve these lowest-status neighbors, they are truly welcoming and serving the hidden Christ, who walks among us still.

In following the ethic of hospitality that Jesus taught, we dare to truly connect with our hurting and sometimes hard-to-love neighbors; and at the same time, we are playing host to Jesus.  We never know where we might find him: in line at the Food Pantry, pushing a shopping cart home from the Grand Union, in need a ride to a doctor’s appointment, eating goulash at the Community Lunchbox, camping out in the church basement.  When we encounter the hidden Jesus, it can be messy and uncomfortable. They may test our healthy boundaries with expectation for things we cannot give.  They may not follow our good advice. They may have demons that we cannot exorcise.  And still, we owe them a debt of love and a seat at the table.  Will we extend ourselves in humility, sharing the simplest gifts of hospitality?

My homeless friend Michael skipped town.  He was picked up in Lake Placid for possession of a small amount of marijuana, but because it was near a school, it was a big deal.  As his court date neared, Michael vanished.  Then, one early morning, almost a year later, Michael called me.  What a surprise!  True to form, Michael was using a borrowed cellphone, undoubtedly belonging to someone whose couch he was surfing. 

“How are you?!” I wanted to know.  “Where did you go? Is everything ok?” 

Michael assured me that he was fine.  He was back in the Midwest near family.  He still loved the Lord, and he was helping a lot of people.  We talked about life at the church and drumming.  After a while, there was just silence on the line. Not comfortable, but not really uncomfortable. Eventually Michael spoke up, “I just want you to know I’m ok, and I’m not mad at you.” I assured him that I wasn’t mad at him either.  We prayed and hung up. 

I never heard from Michael again, but I suspect that one day we just might meet up again—at that heavenly feast on the far better shore over a big bag of potato chips.

Resources:

Carolyn Sharp. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 28, 2022. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

David Jacobsen. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 28, 2016. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Jeannine Brown. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 289, 2010. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Mitzi Smith. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 1, 2019. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Luke 14:1, 7-14

1On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

7When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

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On Each of Us

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “On Each of Us” Acts 2:1-13

Anyone who has lived in a foreign country for an extended period of time can affirm how hungry we become for the sound of our own language.  My classmates and I had been living in Switzerland for about three months when culture shock set in. We were exhausted by trying to decipher the nearly incomprehensible accents of Swiss-German.  We were sick of the mockery of Swiss students, who thought we were all cowboys, Madonna, or surfer dudes.  We had had more than our fill of sausages, Smurfs, mopeds, bidets, smelly cheese, and toilets with observation platforms.

Then one day, my friends and I were wandering through a labyrinth of displays at a cultural expo when we heard something that made our hearts beat a little faster: the familiar twang of country music.  With ears tuned to that beacon, we zeroed in on the source: a booth where women were speaking English, not the clipped rhythm of British English, not the thick brogue of the Scots, not the lilt of the Irish, but real American English.  It felt like home: warm, welcoming, and safe.

On that first Pentecost, there were devout Jews living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, from North Africa to Mesopotamia to Rome.  I suspect that those who had been sojourning for a long time were hungry for the sound of their mother tongue.  They were strangers in a strange land, and no one let them forget it.  They were weary of the overweening pride of the priests in the Temple and shocked by the exorbitant price of lodging.  They were missing the tastes of home and thoroughly sick of falafel. 

Then, as they were walking to morning prayer, came the rush of a violent wind, followed by a sound that was music to their ears. For each one heard in his or her own language the story of God’s great deeds of power and the truth of God’s immeasurable love for them, the love revealed in Jesus.  In that foreign city, surrounded by a sea of strange people and foreign languages, each heard the language they most needed to hear.  It must have felt like home: warm, welcoming, and safe.

When we think about Pentecost, we tend to focus on the disciples.  We remember Peter’s powerful proclamation that inspired 3,000 people to make the choice for Jesus. We imagine Philip finding the courage and vision to take the good news and go to the Samaritans and that Ethiopian eunuch.  We consider James, who stayed put in Jerusalem and thanklessly worked, year after year, to teach the Jewish people the gospel of Jesus until his enemies put him to the sword.  When the Spirit came with rushing wind and tongues of flame, it empowered those disciples to do extraordinary, heroic, and miraculous deeds in service to the Kingdom of God.

Yet a closer reading of the Pentecost story reminds us that 120 followers of Jesus were gathered together in that place when that wind from God blew and the flames danced above their heads.  There were twelve disciples.  Another seven men were present who would become the first deacons.  There were the largely unnamed women who provided for Jesus, including Mary Magdalene, Susannah, and Joanna.  There were Jesus’ brothers and mother.  Even if we are generous with the math, that leaves about ninety other people who were there in that Upper Room at Pentecost—ninety people, whom we’ve never heard of, were filled with the Spirit at Pentecost.  We don’t know their stories.

Back at that cultural expo in the Basel, Switzerland of my college days, we discovered that those speakers of our mother tongue were American ex-patriot women.  Their lives had landed them abroad for decades. They taught at the university or were chemists with CIBA-GEIGY.  Their husbands were titans of industry or wizards of global finance.  Some had raised families in that foreign land, children who spoke the strange sounds of Swiss-German with just as much fluency as they did English.  Each week, those women gathered in one another’s homes to drink coffee, speak English, and navigate together the difficulty of being strangers in a strange land.

They could have been our mothers or grandmothers as they turned to us with the listening ears and compassionate care that we all need when we fear that we are alone in the dark, a long way from home. They didn’t have to be so nice, but they were. Each of them, in her own way, was extraordinary in her ordinary kindness.  There were smiles and hugs and cups of coffee.  In days to come, there were bowls of chili and slices of apple pie that tasted just like home.  And in some way when we were with them, we were home, even if it was only for an hour or so at a time in the midst of that sea of indifferent faces and other languages.

I trust that on that first Pentecost the nameless ninety went out into the streets of Jerusalem to be extraordinary in their ordinary ways.  They were kind and welcoming.  They listened and cared.  They were a lot like those American ex-patriot women I met in Basel.  In their willingness to love, they revealed that other love, the Great Love that spins the whirling planets, puffs into our lungs the breath of life, and waits to welcome us at the last.  They showed forth the holy love that walked this world in Jesus.  Filled with the Spirit, the unknown ninety went forth in their quiet, quaint, and ordinary ways to speak other languages that made the world feel like home to people who feared they were alone in the dark.

As we celebrate that first Pentecost and the falling of the Spirit upon all those named and nameless followers of Jesus, may we remember that the Holy Spirit rests upon each of us.  Empowered by the Spirit, some of us may go forth to serve the Kingdom in ways that are truly remarkable and well-worthy of the disciples.  Yet most of us will be like the ninety.  We’ll go forth to speak the languages that others long to hear in a world that feels lonely, unsafe, and far from home.  It may surprise us to learn that we are already fluent in the loving language that Jesus spoke so eloquently, the language that our neighbors long to hear.

We can speak the language of prayer.  We’ll lay a hand on the shoulder of a hurting friend and seek some holy help.  We’ll pray with the headlines, lifting up the victims of school shootings, natural disasters, and the tragedy of war.  We’ll pray for those whom we love, gently naming the worries and fears that plague every family and trusting the Lord to be at work.  We are fluent in prayer.

We can speak the language of caring.  We’ll feed hungry people with monthly food offerings. We’ll share the gospel of fresh, church-grown vegetables.  We’ll testify with toilet paper and paper towels for Grace Pantry. We’ll wrap hurting neighbors in prayer shawls made with love.  We’ll cheer friends with the gift of a prayer bear.  We’ll bless folks through times of crisis with help from the deacons’ fund. We are fluent in care.

We can speak the language of welcome.  We’ll take the time to truly see our vulnerable neighbors, to notice, greet, and listen.  We’ll reach out with concern for those who feel invisible, due to advancing age or growing disability.  We’ll greet and honor children, whose voices are often dismissed.  We’ll embrace diversity as God’s wondrous and stunning plan for humanity.  We’ll welcome students who feel like strangers in a strange land as they contend with sub-zero temperatures, long dark winters, and cafeteria food. We are fluent in the language of welcome.

By the power of the Spirit, each of us can be extraordinary in our ordinary, everyday ways.  Through our prayer, caring, and welcome, this world may even begin to feel like home for those who fear they are alone in the dark.  Let us go forth to speak the languages that others need to hear.  Amen.

Resources:

Karl Kuhn. “Commentary on Acts 2:1-21” in Preaching This Week, June 5, 2022. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Debra J. Mumford. Amy Oden. “Commentary on Acts 2:1-21” in Preaching This Week, May 31, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Amy Oden. “Commentary on Acts 2:1-21” in Preaching This Week, June 9, 2019. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Greg Carey. Amy Oden. “Commentary on Acts 2:1-21” in Preaching This Week, May 20, 2018. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Mikeal C. Parsons. “Commentary on Acts 2:1-21” in Preaching This Week, June 8, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Acts 2:1-13

2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

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