Epiphany3B. 1/22/12 St. Francis Church

Rev'd Jennifer Phillips Jonah 3:1-5;1Cor7:29-31;Mk1:14-20

Racism is a sin against the Holy Spirit, and a profound violation of our baptismal covenant promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to love our neighbor as ourself. What does it mean for us to confront racism in 2012 in our place, so long after the beginning of the struggle for civil rights, which sent marchers to Selma in the '60s whom we stil see in newsreels each January, in this congregation that has prides itself on being integrated and multi-cultural at least to sopme degree? St. Francis is a complex fabric of lives, households of mixed race, nationality and religion and includes many who have invested much thought and passion and prayer into trying to reduce prejudice in ourselves and our society and church. In some ways our nation and church have come a long way on the journey and changed profoundly; yet we still have a way to go!

Now, I'm today going to do something I seldom do from the pulpit and try to speak for all of us together. You may judge whether you want to add your amen to what I am about to say, but I am convinced this needs a strong statement:

First, we confess together that we have not done all we might to build the promised land into which God is continually leading us. Like Israelites in the desert, we cling to some of our old ways of thinking - what our grandparents would have called "hankering after the fleshpots of Egypt - and more of our old ways of feeling even as we try to look forward. We judge people, beyond that, we react to people based on color, speech, and other ethnic markers.

Second, we commit -as we did by renewing our baptismal covenant a few Sundays back - to continued effort and openness to the grace of change. In profound humility, we bring ourselves face to face with one another and recognize that we have not done all we might to stay in touch, to converse together, to enter into that process of mutual transformation which underlies all social change.

Third, we own up to being part - no matter what our race - of racist systems which confer benefits on some at the expense of others and liability on some at the profit of others simply because of race and ethnicity. The system works for some of us in ways it does not for others of us. We are affected by "choices we have not chosen", to paraphrase Bishop Rowan Williams.

For two weeks we have been hearing stories of the calling of the first followers of Jesus. Last weeek, John's gospel told us about Philip, Andrew, and Nathaniel. This week we learn from Mark of Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee and (probably) Salome who is mentioned as present at the crucifixion, James and John.

But what you might not have noticed is that the people doing the naming and describing of Jesus and following after him are an eclectic crowd: Jews and Greeks, urbanites and country hicks. Philip and James, son of Alphaeus, were likely Greeks. Nathaniel was almost certainly Jewish, along with Barnabus. Andrew and Simon (Peter) the fishermen were Jewish - we deduce from Peter's initial discomfort with allowing Gentiles into the Christian community. James and John may well have been Jewish Galileans. The rift between Jews and Greeks was socially and culturally deep, much as our distinction of black and white. They tended not to mix. Their ethnicity was obvious to one another. When Paul says, in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, he was saying something just as radical and unequivocal as in Christ there is no black or white. If he lived in America today, I have not the slightest doubt that that is exactly what he would say to make us understand how completely our participation in Jesus Christ by baptism changes our identity: Not black or white, not gay or straight, not Hispanic or Anglo, not Indian or immigrant, not able-bodied or limited in mobility, not male or female, not US citizen or alien - you are all one in Christ Jesus and in Christ made a new creation. Now act like it.

How, then, did Jesus and the disciples go about acting like it? By the simplest and most subversive means possible. They ate together, and with others, across every existing boundary of race, class, social status, cleanliness, gender, nationality. They broke bread at table together. This was simply not done. In fact, it was outrageous, offensive, even in some cases illegal. "Jesus ate with sinners" - this was said, gossiped, accused about him on every side. Eeven his closest disciples had trouble getting used to this idea - remember the Samaritan woman at the well astounded at Jesus' suggestion they share water, and the disciples ariving and making rude remarks? Even Jesus seems to have had to work at pushing these boudnaries out - remember the uppity Syrophonecian woman who said to Jesus, "even the dogs eat the crumns that fall from the children's table" when he said he was sent to feed only the children of Israel? Remember, too, for Jews, how central the whole business of eating was: knowing what foods were allowed and what prohibited; knowing the ritual meals of sabbath and Passover, the foods allowed priests, and so forth. So if you are going to change society, starting with your own Jewish people, you change the ways they eat and with whom they eat. This old wisdom is not outdated. In the US, changing culture has almost obliterated the custom of family dining, as members of each household pursue their independent schedules and eat on the run, or as the stranger with its own agenda, the TV, becomes the major source of words at meals. I strongly suspect the loss of the family table has had much to do with the difficulty church congregations have with incorporating newcomers - no Sunday dinner at home to invite them to after church; maybe no weekday ones either. So I would suggest to you, if you want to do something subversive to reclaim your Gospel life within your households, make the re-constituting of regular family meals a sacred ritual. And then invite others in. The food doesn’t have to be elaborate - coffee and cookies is a start. And for those in the community unable to entertain or to afford feeding others, members of the community, make and box up a meal and take it to share at their house. Takew the initiative. And if you want to help undermine the systems of racism - those of you not already doing this, as more than a few of you, I know, are - intentionally integrate your family dining table.

Integration is a wonderful word that is, I fear, sliding out of the political comfort zone. It doesn't just mean thoroughly mix up together. It's primary meaning is to make whole, to renew, to heal by bringing together parts in unity, producing integrity , the state of being complete, whole, entire, perfect, sound, right.

Remember Jesus saying to the downcast disciples who returned having failed to cast out demons - this kind only come out by prayer and fasting. Fasting is not just avoiding food, but eating intentionally - choosing food with religious significance so as to be mindful of God - so choosing to eat with those society or we ourselves see as different or outsiders, for God's sake, is a fast. Indeed, it is the kind of fast that God requires, as described by the prophets: to do justice, compassion, humility - to do it.

The modern Greeks have a traditional saying that "There is no justice in Athens until the uninjured are as indignant as the injured parties." Establishing justice requires of us that those who benefit from the way things are be as angered and saddened and discomforted by discriminatory systems as those who suffer most from them. This is not only a matter of race, but equally perniciously a matter of economics, since these two are linked. Establishing justice means coming to the place where the wealthy are as discomforted by their privilege as the poor who pay for it and are pained by it. Cherish your discomfort as the sign of your longing for the promised land of God, as the spur to build the reign of God starting in your own home, breaking the boundaries of oppression and evil in the simplest of ways imaginable. Make your table reemble the banquet table of heaven and your household meal the continuation of the Eucharist - the great thanksgiving - of Christ.