A wedding in Cana
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John 2:1-11
Lessons from the marginalized
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. … Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. …Everyone is scared.”
Actually, those words were written in 1943, by a young girl in Germany, named Anne Frank.
This week, in Minnesota, we could add to the list that an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a US citizen and thousands of people are marching and holding prayer vigils here and across the nation.
Anne Frank’s diary went on to add that hundreds of planes were passing overhead every night, hundreds and thousands of people were being killed every hour across many countries. Anne described a world war. We are not there.
But…to have innocent people in our community targeted and killed by the government…to hear a vision proclaimed, day after day, by the heads of our government – a vision that dehumanizes masses of people, and as we see military invasions of other countries and threats of more in multiple countries…all this…is on many of our minds today. I am especially thinking of many marginalized people today.
Lessons from the marginalized
Personally, I haven’t spent much time as a marginalized minority. As a white, cis-gen male, and a US citizen – I’ve felt empowered most of my life. Certainly, I’ve lived in places where I was a minority, in Egypt and Madagascar we had authoritarian regimes, and I’ve visited many others. But, I always had a passport and a ticket home. Perhaps some of you understand being marginalized better than I do.
But what I do know is that Jesus came among us, as a marginalized person. He was Jewish within an empire that said foreigners were less human and Jewish people fewer rights than white European Romans. Jesus was doubly marginalized, because he was also poor among Jewish people. He was one of the “least of these”, doubly marginalized by his ethnicity and his poverty. What can we learn from Jesus for today?
In fact, it is marginalized followers of Jesus who may help us learn the most. I’m going to lift up only two today. One was a man of African American descent. He was born into poverty and raised by his grandmother, who herself - had been enslaved. His life spanned most of the 1900’s. As a young man he became a pastor, and a professor of religion. Later he was notable as a philosopher, and author of greatly influential books on faith, and what he called, “the religion of Jesus.” His writings profoundly shaped civil rights leaders. In fact, it is said that Martin Luther King carried one of this man’s books with him almost everywhere he ever traveled. I’m speaking of Howard Thuman.
What Thurman saw in Jesus was divine guidance for oppressed people. His insights from Jesus were the foundation for a nonviolent civil rights movement. You see, Thurman believed the "religion of Jesus," emphasized love and neighborliness – across barriers, as a powerful response to hate and fear.
Love and Neighborliness
We see Jesus sharing love across barriers all throughout the gospels as Jesus reaches out to marginalized neighbors who are Samaritans, blind beggars, lepers, a woman caught in adultery, a woman with uncontrolled bleeding, and thousands of people who are hungry and poor. Jesus’ acts of love and compassion across barriers even included love for a Roman military leader. Love and neighborliness is the way of Jesus…even in the face of outrageous injustice and violence.
Now this doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t resist hate and oppression. Do you remember Jesus throwing over the tables in the temple as an act of resistance to oppressing the poor? He did that. Or perhaps you remember Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem. We celebrate it as Palm Sunday, when he was surrounded by throngs of people who waved palm branches, singing and shouting support. This was a march by the common people, a public march in opposition to the ruling empire and in support of Jesus and His way of living! Jesus was definitely interested in resistance, but it was non-violent…and it was focused on loving the oppressed.
The other key to the Religion of Jesus, as Thurman noted, was that Jesus while Jesus resisted evil, and loved the oppressed, he remained free from three things: hate, fear, and deception.
Thurman had a colorful description for these three dangers. He called these dangers, “the three Hounds of Hell.” The hounds are: Hate, Fear, and Deception. Today, I’m only going to talk about Hate.
Hate
When you hate somebody for shooting an innocent person…the hate almost feels good, because you are right. It is powerful, alluring, and seems to serve a creative purpose. You’ve got energy from that hate and it drives you to act.
But there is something false about hatred…it is a false promise. Hate helps a person rationalize doing things to other human beings that s/he could not ordinarily do without losing self-respect. The ICE agent who shot Renee Good last week turned in his phone video, and we hear him right after shooting her three times call her a hateful name. This moment of hate is an example of how hate changes how we behave.
Thurman argued, that “hatred destroys the core of the life of the hater.
Whether you are an oppressor in power or a person crushed by injustice, or part of the masses angry about fundamental change in your country…when you hate - the greatest victim is you. Hate poisons core relationships…with our self…with our community… and with God. Thurman’s insight about Jesus, was that a major goal of Jesus' life was to set people free internally (from hate), to empower them to survive oppression.
So, what is the alternative to hate? The alternative to hate is love.
Pair Resistance and Love
Jesus teachs us that love is the way to freedom even in the face of oppression.
Our focus on building a loving community that values all people is precisely what we are called to do in this moment.
Thurman recounted stories from his grandmother’s experience in slavery….
Just yesterday I got an email from the pastor of our partner congregation San Pablos/St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis (a largely Hispanic community). He began and ended his note on this theme of love.
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
“In these challenging times, I have seen the love of God alive in our community.
Love has surged through our neighbors taking to the streets to protest ICE. Love moves through our members who organize boxes of pantry staples for over 70 families within a few blocks of San Pablo–St. Paul’s. Love pings in my phone, with message after message from people asking, “What can I do?”
In response, I offer a few ways that you can support our community in staying strong. These are not mere tasks to be completed; these are acts of love that call for intentionality and flexibility. Our sacred scriptures challenge us to love as God loves, becoming vulnerable like Jesus. Consider how you might embody costly love:
1. Provide transportation to school, work, and medical appointments. Our needs range from 5:30 AM commutes to work 20-30 minutes outside of Minneapolis, to 7:30 AM school drop-offs, to taking people home at 11 PM.
2. Shop for groceries, from the basics to items that you will only find at Spanish-speaking stores.
3. Pick up life-saving medication from pharmacies.
4. Offer childcare after school or on weekends. Our needs range from 3:20PM pick-up with care until around 9PM on weekdays. At times this would also include providing a warm meal. On weekends, our needs range from 2PM to 10PM.
5. Be a vigilant presence at community gatherings.
6. Donate to our community aid fund. In the past 14 months, San Pablo–St. Paul’s has invested over $100,000 in the well-being of our neighbors. Your financial contribution, whether a one-time or ongoing gift, enables us to continue to provide direct support to our neighbors. To contribute click here.
If you are motivated to live out love in any of these ways, please contact info@sanpablostpaul.org with your contact information, days available, and any particular areas where you’d like to support.
I’d like to close with a prayer by Howard Thurman,
Lord, We seek the strength to overcome the tendency to evil in our own hearts.
We recognize the tendency to do the unkind things when the mood of retaliation or revenge ranks high in our spirit.
We seek the strength to overcome and not be overcome by evil, And we seek to be purified to receive the purification of our own Hearts, the purging of our own motives.
We seek the strength to withstand the logic of bitterness, the terrible divisiveness of hate, the demonic triumph of the conquest of others, What we seek for ourselves and what we desire with our heart is for our friend and foe to be family alike.
Amen.
Pastor Doug Cox