Justice: Engaging the Powers

Justice: Engaging the Powers

October 30, 2022

   Good morning! I’m happy to be with you here at Mt. Salem in beautiful Rockford Park. I’m Rev. Sally Stewart, recently retired United Methodist Pastor and now a roving mistrial of sermons!

I have to admit that my transition from full time pastor of a very busy church to what life looks like as a retired person has been quite an adjustment.

I know that your church is going through a similar adjustment with the death of your appointed pastor and welcoming Rev. Carm Evans as your new pastor. It’s hard isn’t it?

And then there’s the events and changes that our country and our world are going through.

The political divisions, the issues with racism, classism, misogyny, and xenophobia. Then add the problems our denomination is going through with regard to human sexuality.

Everywhere we look there are topics and subjects that are unsettling to say the least. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could just settle down and get along? Of course it would.

If we could all just live our lives in peace, that would be wonderful.

 The problem with that is that there has never been a time in human history when that has been the case. Sometimes it has felt like that at specific times and to certain groups of people but  the reality is that if we look beyond our own lives and circumstances, if we widen our view to include conditions around the country and around the world I think we can all agree that upheaval, change, and disruption have been and continue to be the rule and that peace is the exception. Am I right?

Now, I am new to most if not all of you. I don’t know your individual histories so I’m going to have to make some generalizations that may not apply to you so bear with me a little. Ok?

Often times, as we in America in the 21st century look back we have a tendency wax a little nostalgic. We see things through rose colored glasses, right? We reflect on the way our country was and we get a little misty about how things “used to be.”

 The reality is, that although things may, in our memories, resemble a Norman Rockwell painting, it was, for many people probably more like an Andy Warhol or a Jackson Pollack.

For example, in the 1950’s and 60’s for me, things were pretty good. I grew up in Seaford Delaware during the height of the DuPont years. For us it WAS more like the Rockwell painting. The town was flush with money. There were sports teams and concerts, we had a golf course and several pools. Life was good. If you were white…and middle class…

In 1965 I was in the 6th grade (and to keep you from spending the next few minutes doing the math that makes me 66). That was the year that our school system desegregated. My father was a teacher in the high school and most years took me to school but this particular year the schedule didn’t line up so I had to take the bus.

Now you need to understand that my grandmother’s house was on King St. and one block away from her house started a section of town we called “East Seaford”. It was where all the black people lived. It was about 3 blocks by 5 blocks and if you were black and wanted to live within the town limits that’s where you lived. On the other side of that area was the “separate but equal” school where all the black children had gone. Until that year I didn’t even know that school existed and suddenly I was on my way there.

In 6th grade I was about 12 years old and except for the woman who cleaned my grandmother’s house and the man who mowed her lawn I had never had any contact with any black people. I remember that first morning on the way to school like it was yesterday. I boarded the bus in my lily white neighborhood and, as it made its way to the school, we drove through THAT section of town.

Remember? I said it was one block from my grandmother’s house, but I had never been there. As we rode my mouth dropped open.

What I saw were homes in terrible states of disrepair. Black women standing with small children watching a bus load of white children drive past, observing their lives in way that had never happened before. At that age I couldn’t really comprehend the significance of that day.

My naïve brain had a hard time taking it in. How was it that this had existed so close to my life without me knowing? Why did I not know that people lived so differently than I did? It was hard to comprehend!

We took this route, through East Seaford, for a week or maybe two, and then one day we started taking a different route that took us out to the main road and around that area. For the rest of the year we no longer took the more direct route through the black area but a longer route around it.

 Many years later, at my 20th high school reunion we were reminiscing and the topic of the year we desegregated came up. I mentioned that story and someone else said, “You know why they changed the route, right? No, actually I had never really thought about it. Apparently someone’s parents complained that their white children were being exposed to black people and made the school district change the route.

I’ll just wait a moment and let that sink in.

In the gospel reading today Jesus is in Jericho and makes arrangements to stay at the house of Zacchaeus. Now to my mind it was a little rude to so bluntly say to Zacchaeus, “I’m staying at your house” but Zacchaeus seems more than ok with it so off they go.

The town’s people, however, are appalled and they start complaining, in fact the passage says “7 Everyone who saw this grumbled, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. The people of Jericho didn’t associate with the tax collectors. They despised them and did everything they could not to associate with them. That’s why they were aghast that Zacchaeus was the one that Jesus chose to stay with.

 The folks who chose, and still choose, to drive around the black area of Seaford, they ostracize and stigmatize the black people in that town. In Jesus’ time tax collectors, women, the poor, the unclean and others were ostracized and stigmatized.

Jesus, however, was having none of that. He made it clear in many situations that he would take every opportunity to associate with those who were not accepted by the general population.

In the Methodist church we have a tradition called Social Holiness. Social holiness is the practice of obeying Jesus’ commandments to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, loving your neighbor as yourself. That should sound familiar. During baptism in the UMC we hear these words.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves?

If you’re baptized these words were either acknowledged by you or spoken over you as a child. It’s a lot to live into but it’s what we promise to do as children of God.

 In case you’re not familiar, our Book of Discipline has a section called Our Social Principles and a document called the Book of Resolutions. If you’re in the mood for some light reading you might check them out one day.

Seriously, they’re important reading for any United Methodist. They lay out the denomination’s standpoints on lots of current issues like care of the earth and God’s creation, the rights of children, young people and the aging. The rights of racial minorities, the rights of women, men, immigrants and people with disabilities. There’s a section on our political responsibilities, one on education and civil disobedience, one on the death penalty, one on gun control and abortion and of course the contested one on human sexuality. There are many more you may be interested in!

All of the topics that make up our Social Principles and our Book of Resolutions are things that we as Methodist and as Christians are called to address. They’re part of our identity as Methodists to challenge the “powers that be” who interfere with the rights of those who are oppressed.

As a preacher I frequently hear that politics have no place in the church and I would agree to that PARTLY. Partisan politics have no place in the church… advocating for particular politicians should not be part of what the church does.

However, the story of Jesus cannot be read without understanding how he spoke truth to the political powers of his day and how he fought for justice. All through his story we see him advocating for the marginalized, the poor, the outcast. He continually championed the rights of those who were oppressed and seen as less than.

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas says that, “The gospel is political. Christians are engaged in politics, a politics of the kingdom.”

We are all called, as Methodists and as Christians, to work for justice whenever we can. To use our voices and our bodies to lift up those who are being silenced and stepped on by people with more power, more money, more authority.

 I would go so far as to say that ambivalence is sin. If it is within our power to act and we choose not to, I believe that God sees that as sin.

On that day in Jericho Jesus spoke truth to power. He chose Zacchaeus to associate with. He crossed the line between the haves and the have nots. He drove the bus straight through the middle of the black section of town.

I am convinced that in the end God will have all kinds of grace for us if we got the theology wrong. If our understanding of baptism or communion is wrong. But I’m not entirely sure how God will take it if we got the loving other people part wrong. If we mess up the seeking justice and choosing mercy part.

I hope as you go forward this day, you will think long and hard about what you are being called to do. What issue or people group do you feel drawn to? How can you, personally and as a church, address a need or an injustice in your life or community? Take a long look around and find out who is being treated unfairly and ask yourself, what can I do to advocate for justice, bringing Jesus’ love, grace and mercy to this situation?

I’d like to close by reading Our Social Creed found in our BoD.

Our Social Creed

The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2016   

We believe in God, Creator of the world; and in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of creation. We believe in the Holy Spirit, through whom we acknowledge God’s gifts, and we repent of our sin in misusing these gifts to idolatrous ends.

We affirm the natural world as God’s handiwork and dedicate ourselves to its preservation, enhancement, and faithful use by humankind.

We joyfully receive for ourselves and others the blessings of community, sexuality, marriage, and the family.

We commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; to improvement of the quality of life; and to the rights and dignity of all persons.

 We believe in the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; in the rights to property as a trust from God, collective bargaining, and responsible consumption; and in the elimination of economic and social distress.

We dedicate ourselves to peace throughout the world, to the rule of justice and law among nations, and to individual freedom for all people of the world.

We believe in the present and final triumph of God’s Word in human affairs and gladly accept our commission to manifest the life of the gospel in the world.

To God be the Glory! Amen!