No Middle Class in the Kingdom of God!

A Sermon for the 15^th Sunday after Pentecost (RCL B) 9-9-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:            James 2:1-17; Psalm 125; Mark 7:24-37

Themes:        the poor and the rich, God’s family, God's vision for a new society

Title:              No Middle Class in the Kingdom of God

O Lord, make us masters of ourselves that we might become the servants of others.

Take our minds and think through them; take our lips and speak through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

My brothers and sisters: last week, we were introduced to this Letter of James, and we heard about how James is pre-eminently practical. This brief Letter is jammed full of calls and exhortations and encouragements for the Christian community to act in ways that are consistent with the ways of God.

Here today we see one of the primary concerns and themes of James:

God’s vision for a new society which is marked by generous sharing and by mutual love.  

James presents a scenario where a rich person and a poor person both walk into the gathered Christian community and are treated differently simply as a result of the appearance of wealth, or the lack thereof.

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” (James 2:1).

That’s a fair question, and one which we need to face as well.

How do our actions match up with the teaching and the example of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, who demonstrated God’s clear preference to care for the poor?

During this presidential election season, especially during these last few weeks of the party conventions, we have been hearing a lot lately about the middle class.

Everyone seems to be thinking and speaking a lot about the middle class in America.

And in the political realm, I suppose that makes good, practical sense.

But not in the church! Not here among the people of God.

Did our glorious Lord Jesus Christ say, “Blessed are you who are middle class, for you will retire in comfort”? (That's a joke, BTW). No, he said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20).

In that famous parable of the sheep and the goats, did Jesus say, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was middle class, and you helped me get a loan for college; for I was middle class, and you supported my small business; for I was middle class, and you extended my prescription drug benefit”?

Is that how it goes? I don’t think so.

Now, someone might argue and say, “Well, of course, the Bible does not speak of the middle class, because there was no middle class at that time!”

And that is true enough. At that time, there was only the rich and the poor. No middle class. But this does nothing to lessen the overwhelming preference of God clearly expressed in scripture.

My friends, there are more than 500 verses which call us, as the people of God, to imitate God by caring for the poor. There is no way to avoid this reality, if we are going to take the Bible seriously.

So let us be clear and let us understand this well: God is on the side of the poor!

Whose side are we on?

Listen: I know that it is easy to get settled in life, to become comfortable with your circle of family and friends, your pattern of life, and then not to be concerned about those who are forced to live without the bare essentials every single day, not to think about the more than 1000 children under the age of 5 who will die during this hour of worship from preventable diseases and malnutrition.

We become numb to this reality, I think, by the normal routines of our life. 

I get it. I understand it.

But this is one of the crucial reasons why we must read and study the Bible every single day: to break through the settled patterns of our life, to allow God’s vision, God’s desires, God’s will to shake us up, to disturb our lives, to interrupt them, to change them.

This is the strategy for softening and changing the human heart.

This is the way to let the things that break the heart of God break your own heart as well.

And do you know what it is that breaks the heart of God?

The people walking by on the street right now who have no hope for the future, who find their only rest in drugs or alcohol or the pursuit of money. The families that are torn apart by poverty and drugs, so that children grow up without parents to love them. The people who go through this life with no one to visit them, no friends to care for them.

If you can leave this place this morning and drive home and not care about the children of Camden just a few miles away who are being forced to live in a dangerous, violent place with no police to keep the peace – if you can ignore this, and then go home and plop down in front of your big screen HD TV – then, my friends, you have missed the boat. You are not walking with the Lord.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you will leave this place and go solve the problem of Camden. It’s a huge problem. There is no easy solution; there is no quick way to fix Camden.

But if you don’t feel it, if you don’t care, if you don’t notice because you are too absorbed in your own little problems, than your heart is not beating with the heartbeat of God.

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say that you have faith but do not have works?” (James 2:14).

My prayer for you is that you will allow God to mold and shape your inner being until you share God’s vision, God’s desires, God’s will for this world.

If you will allow that to happen, then you will act to care for those in need. You will find a way to help the children of Camden. You will reach out in concern for those in this town who are lost and without hope.  

You won’t be able to stop it, because this is the heartbeat of God which compels us to action.

But let’s not forget that this is, after all, a community letter. James speaks of what happens when certain people enter into the “assembly”. The Greek word is synagogue, and this is another reminder that the Letter is written to Jewish followers of Jesus who gather together for worship and fellowship.

Listen to what John Chrysostom, the great Bishop of Constantinople in the fourth century, spoke about the symbolism of the Eucharist in our assemblies:

“Bread and wine represent the fruits of our labor, whereby we turn the things of nature into food and drink for our sustenance. So at the Lord’s Table, we offer our labor to God, dedicating ourselves anew to his service.”

(Now here is the key part!) “Then the bread and wine are distributed equally to every member of the congregation; the poor receive the same amount as the rich. This means that God’s material blessings belong equally to everyone, to be enjoyed according to each person’s need” (On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom, Robert Van de Weyer, p. 56).

Do you see it, my friends? What happens here at this sacred table is a symbol, an acting out of God’s hope for the world. Everyone shares, and everyone gets enough! 

This is how it’s meant to be! And as crazy as this might sound to you right now, this is why I believe that the local church is the hope of the world.

I believe this with every fiber of my being! The local church is the hope of the world – WHEN we act in accordance with the teachings of Christ!

Consider it: what happens when someone who is obviously off of the street walks into our assembly? How do we respond? Do you honor and respect that person as if they are the very presence of Jesus in our midst? Do we treat that person with the same honor and care which we give to the blessed sacrament?

Well, that is what Jesus said, isn’t it? In Matthew 25, he said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).

I’m not making this up! This is the standard for judgment in the Bible.

We can gather here every Sunday and say the Nicene Creed until we’re blue in the face. 

But if we cannot welcome the stranger who walks into our assembly, if we cannot care for the needs of the poor, then is our faith really alive? 

So let the politicians worry about the middle class.

But let the church worry about the poor. And let us welcome the stranger and be about the works of God. And let us live and worship and learn together as a living sign, as a sacrament of the kingdom of God where all share equally in the mercy of God. Amen.

GO AND DO LIKEWISE!

Sermon for Proper 10 C RCL 7-11-2010, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37


Christen White Cranford was a young woman in her early ‘20’s who died from a heart ailment in 2002. At the time, her father, Dr. Stephen White, was serving as the chaplain of the Episcopal Church at Princeton University. In the eulogy for his daughter, he shared a remarkable story of an experience that he and Christen had together in NYC. She was 15, and they had gone into Manhattan for a day trip just after Christmas. It was a bitterly cold and windy day and Christen was wearing her favorite coat. It was a long woolen coat with black and white checkered pattern on it. At one point, they stopped in an Eddie Bauer store where Dr. White bought a new parka for Christen. She put it on and placed her favorite coat in the shopping bag.

As they walked on outside they came across a young woman with a cup asking for money. She was very thin and wearing only jeans and a light cotton sweater. The sweater was pulled down over her shoulder and they could see that her bare skin was nearly gray from the cold. Dr. White pulled out some loose change in his pocket – a few dollars and coins – and dropped them into her cup. But when they crossed the street, Christen stopped and said, “Dad, we have to do something for her.”

“What would you like to do?” he asked. “I want to give her my coat.” “What! Your favorite coat?”

“Dad! She needs it more than I do, and anyway, I’ve got two coats!” She said this with that teenage “I can’t believe you’re so stupid” tone of voice.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said. They crossed back to the young woman and Christen helped her to put the long coat on. Once that was done, Dr. White was ready to keep moving in that cold wind, so he turned to leave. But Christen stayed and called to him, “Dad, she’s hungry too!”

“Right! Okay, I’ll go into that deli and get something. You stay here and keep an eye on her in case she moves off and I’ll be right back.”

Dr. White purchased some hot soup and bread in the deli and returned to the corner in less than five minutes. But when he returned, the young woman was gone!

“Christen, where is she?” “She’s gone – she disappeared!”

“What do you mean she disappeared? Didn’t you watch her?”

“Yes! I only looked over my shoulder for a split second to see if you were coming and when I turned back, she was gone. I went to the corner and looked up and down the street and across the street, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. She just disappeared!”

So they walked on. In a few minutes, they came upon another homeless person sitting on the ground, and Christen gave him the soup and bread with a smile. And as they walked, she and her father talked about the time, in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus said, “whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it for me.”

I share this story with you because, here in this young girl, in Christen’s attitude – in her ability to see – we have a glimpse of what Jesus is going after in this famous and fantastic parable of the good Samaritan.

What Jesus hopes to see is a change in vision, a change in the lens through which we view other people.

It is exemplary that Christen was able to see this young homeless woman and to be moved by pity into action. Unfortunately, do you know what usually happens when I see homeless people asking for money? I think to myself, “Forget it, pal. All my extra money is paid in taxes. Go ask the government for money! There are plenty of agencies around that can help you!”

I’m being honest with you. I’m not holding myself up as any kind of example. Because what goes on in my head, I think, is probably the same process of justifications that occurred in the minds of the priest and the Levite who passed on by that bloody man in need on the side of the road.

Those justifications in their heads told them that they have no direct obligation toward this suffering person, that their own personal business was much more important than the clear and obvious need right in front of them. But they were wrong, and most often, when I justify myself, I am wrong as well.

What is remarkable about how Jesus responds to this inquiry from the lawyer is that, of course, he does not even answer the question! “And who is my neighbor?” Instead, he responds with a story and with his own question which serves to re-direct the entire discussion.

Jesus throws away that entire law-based question about the boundaries of neighborliness: who is, and who is not my neighbor. Meaning, who am I obligated to treat with love as a neighbor, and who am I allowed to ignore, to pass by without show of mercy.

As long as we continue to think along these lines – of obligation, of duty, of law – then we will continue to miss the mark of God’s will and purpose for our lives! Jesus said that when the Samaritan saw the half-dead traveler lying on the side of the road, “he was moved with pity.” But in the Greek, it literally means that his bowels were moved. This has nothing to do with bodily functions, of course. What it means in the Greek is that his entire insides were wrenched and torn! That he was physically not able to coldly walk by! Because his heart was tender, and he could feel his neighbor’s pain, and he was not able to NOT respond with mercy!

And he didn’t stop and calculate whether or not he was obligated to help this man! Love forced him to act! It flowed out, and he couldn’t help himself!

That’s the kind of people that Jesus wants us to be!

The questions that the Lord puts before us today are these: who is it that I keep passing by? Whose pain and struggle do I feel more comfortable ignoring than taking seriously? Whose suffering do I see every day and yet am unwilling to lift a finger to assuage?

Each one of us will have different personal answers to those questions, depending upon the life situation in which God has placed us, but the big answer that is common to this entire community is very clear to me: it is the city of Camden.

As long as we try to pass on by and go about our business, and try to ignore the mass of human suffering and hardship which exists every day just a few miles up this road, we are insulting the very name of Christian which we bear.

But even more than that: as long as we sit back and allow Camden to fester and decay, we are allowing that catastrophe to drag all of our communities down as well, and we are doing nothing but passing along these problems to our children!

If practical reasoning cannot move us to respond to the need right in front of us, then perhaps the love of God can compel us into action! Because this truth seems clear to me: we must find a way to fix the city of Camden. We must do it.

This much I know for certain: Jesus will not allow us to simply and coldly pass by on the other side of the road, going about our business as if nothing is happening. As if thousands of children right here in Camden are not hungry and scared and sick and in danger every single day!

I confess that I do not have a solution for the plethora of problems that plague Camden, but – my friends – pity and mercy and love do not wait for solutions!

Which one was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The one who showed him mercy.

What is our calling as the people of God in this time and place? Go and do likewise. Amen.

Touch NJ volunteer trip

On Tuesday, May 4, I took our a group to the ministry of Touch New Jersey in Camden to assist with their Tuesday night feeding program. Joining me were Jim Spooner, Tonya Sanderson and Damion Sanderson (below). They are preparing for Confirmation and Re-affirmation on May 23 with the Bishop of New Jersey.

Before dinner, we had some time to help by cleaning part of their building. Then we attended the worship time before the dinner. Below is Sammy Phillips helping to re-write the Touch NJ cards before dinner.