Don't Push Me 'Cause I'm Close to the Edge
Luke 4:21-30
I can’t tell you how many times my sermon writing starts with a song. Last week it was, Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore. It may have been unfamiliar to some of us, but it is a lovely song that is in our hymnal. I learned it in seminary when I took a class called Singing Through the Hymnal, which was all about congregational singing.
This week the song going through my head is not as lovely, but it is every bit as poignant. While it is not one that would be printed in a hymnal, it is one that made and changed history.
Content Warning:
Only the first 1:30 was played in worship as there are phrases used that some might find offensive.
This week the song going through my head is not as lovely, but it is every bit as poignant. While it is not one that would be printed in a hymnal, it is one that made and changed history.
Content Warning:
Only the first 1:30 was played in worship as there are phrases used that some might find offensive.
Perhaps some of you recognize it. It is by Grandmaster Flash and is called “The Message.” This is significant because these words never appear in the song. It was a huge hit in the hood I grew up in because it named a reality that so many of my peers lived everyday. And, perhaps if you lived in such a place in the 80’s it was a hit in your hood, too. While he was singing this reality to his community, it is not his community that the message was for.
‘Why do people want to hear this?’” Grandmaster Flash wondered of “The Message” in 1988. “But it’s the only lyric-pictorial record that could be called ‘How Urban America Lived.’” –See more at: https://rockhall.com/inductees/grandmaster-flash-and-the-furious-five/bio/#sthash.FYWQitS9.dpuf
This song was a warning. It is the story of a young man living in inescapable poverty who dies in police custody. It is the story of a community living without hope, with nothing to loose. This song has been written into history with the protest songs of the 1960’s, the folk music of my parent’s generation. It is the folk music of my adolescence. This song made history not because it was an excellent piece of music- let’s be honest, but because it brought to the mainstream the folk creations of the urban poor. It gave voice to the voiceless and this is the first step in empowering the disempowered.
In the time between its release and today we have witnessed urban America pushed over the edge. Think Crown Heights 1991, LA in 1992, following the Rodney King verdict, which was the first time I personally took to the streets in protest, the Occupy movement in 2011, Ferguson in 2014, Baltimore and Minneapolis in 2015.
We are in a time when communities who have previously been voiceless have access to media to tell their own stories. Those of us who have been insulated from these stories are horrified by the realities that have been hidden from us. No longer is Grandmaster Flash’s description of his life surprising to us, with
“Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat”
but it is still surprising to us that there are groups of people in our country who, because of their skin color, their religion, their abilities, their country of origin, are violently discriminated against by the systems through which we seek justice.
Rodney King may have been my wake-up call, the answer to the warning in Grandmaster Flash’s message, but it is a story that has played out over and over in our country. And now we are hearing the voices of those previously silenced, those who have lived closer and closer to the edge for generations.
In today’s story we have Jesus, quite literally, on the edge. The church he grew up in, his aunts and uncles in faith, “drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built.” (Luke 4:29 NRSV) What does Jesus do when he is on the precipice, on the edge?
The very next thing he does in to heal a man on the Sabbath. He breaks the law. Somehow his experience in the synagogue in Nazareth pushes him far enough over the edge that he stops blindly adhering to Jewish law. Luke has told us, in chapter 3, that Jesus is descended from a long line of observant Jews, descended from the greatest Hebrew King of all time, David. And yet, he breaks the law. This is an act of civil disobedience.
Jesus gives precedence to ridding this man of the demons possessing him over and above the laws laid out in the Jewish scriptures. Luke describes him as “with authority and power,” that is more authority than the scriptures. In chapter six Luke puts these words in Jesus’ mouth, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Sabbath laws were set in the Jewish tradition as a way of giving people a regular time to seek connection to God. The Sabbath is not set aside as just a time for a break from work, but a break from work in order that one can focus on our connection to God. Jesus sees how the law interrupts this connection. The man possessed by unclean spirits can not be in relationship with God, the unclean spirits are in the way; the same way in chapter six that his disciples can not be in relationship with God on the Sabbath because they are hungry and so they pick grain.
Luke continues the stories of Jesus’ disobedience, his restoring of people to relationship with the divine. He forgives sin, heals a leaper, calls fishermen and tax collectors to follow him, actually sharing a meal with tax collectors and other sinners, as defined by Jewish law. He is criticized for the amount of eating and drinking he and his disciples do, he is criticized for continually healing on the Sabbath, for looking to the spiritual intent of the Jewish laws, instead of the letter of the law.
He travels around preaching and attracting disciples from people who are on the edge- his ministry speaks to the marginalized. And he speaks in good news, in healing, in restoring people to community and relationship with God. This is what happens when Jesus is pushed to the edge. People are healed, welcomed, included, and commanded to do the same for others.
Grandmaster Flash’s warning, “Don’t push me ‘cause I’m close to the edge” was not headed with enough gusto to keep urban poor and racially oppressed groups from going over the edge. The day of the Rodney King verdict I literally could not stay in class. I had to be in the streets, but when darkness fell, I got on the subway and went home because I was scared about what it would be like to be on the streets that night. I was right to be scared. The community was over the edge. There was rioting. Windows were broken. Cars set on fire, conflicts between protestors and police.
The next morning I went to my class, BLS 555 Pigmentation and the Experience of Color. Our topic was an article about the Black Panthers written by Angela Davis. I will never forget that conversation. Several of my classmates came directly from their release from jail, wearing the same clothes they had worn all night in the cell.
And here is where my professor, Dr. Phillip McGee, took a lesson from Jesus. Jesus’ civil disobedience is not about creating chaos or breaking all laws because some are unjust. His lessons are targeted with the result of bringing hope, embracing the marginalized, healing the rifts in community caused by excluding those who are different, or sick, caused by systems that feed power and wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
Dr. McGee did not allow our conversation that morning to become about “us” and “them,” but about the systems that allowed injustice to be done, and the ways we can utilize the power that we have to target those systems with the result of bringing hope, embracing the marginalized, healing rifts, and changing the systems that feed power and wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. I had been too afraid to be on the streets at night, but I was not afraid to be the only white person in a class of people pushed over the edge because Dr. McGee made the conversation about all people living as if black lives matter.
As a church, we can not be afraid to be in the midst of those to whom Jesus ministered. We can not get stuck in the “us” and “them” debate, to view the marginalized as the recipients of our benevolence but not a part of our church. We must really mean “no matter where you are on life’s journey.” One of our members re-posted a picture on Facebook this week of a man with hundreds of face piercings. The original post asked for one word describing the man. He has made such obviously different choices with his appearance than I have. The word I chose was “human,” because I wanted to see he and I as “we” not “us” and “them,” I wanted to connect with all of the stories of Jesus embracing people others have left out, including them in his community. So often injustice is possible because we look at someone else, communities of people, and see them as other, not as us.
When pushed to the edge, Jesus did not jump over. He walked through the crowd, his supposed home town, and immediately embraced someone others were scared of. I wonder what would have happened if, in the 80’s when Grandmaster Flash’s message was so popular in my hood where it was a familiar story, everyone in the country would have seen us as them, would have heard “Broken glass everywhere, people pissing on the stairs,” and thought, “they’re just like me,” would have sought ways to be in deeper relationship with marginalized communities and shared meals together, and lived as if black lives, urban lives, native lives, women’s lives matter. This is what Jesus would do. May it be so for us.
Amen.
-Rev. Michelle Webber
‘Why do people want to hear this?’” Grandmaster Flash wondered of “The Message” in 1988. “But it’s the only lyric-pictorial record that could be called ‘How Urban America Lived.’” –See more at: https://rockhall.com/inductees/grandmaster-flash-and-the-furious-five/bio/#sthash.FYWQitS9.dpuf
This song was a warning. It is the story of a young man living in inescapable poverty who dies in police custody. It is the story of a community living without hope, with nothing to loose. This song has been written into history with the protest songs of the 1960’s, the folk music of my parent’s generation. It is the folk music of my adolescence. This song made history not because it was an excellent piece of music- let’s be honest, but because it brought to the mainstream the folk creations of the urban poor. It gave voice to the voiceless and this is the first step in empowering the disempowered.
In the time between its release and today we have witnessed urban America pushed over the edge. Think Crown Heights 1991, LA in 1992, following the Rodney King verdict, which was the first time I personally took to the streets in protest, the Occupy movement in 2011, Ferguson in 2014, Baltimore and Minneapolis in 2015.
We are in a time when communities who have previously been voiceless have access to media to tell their own stories. Those of us who have been insulated from these stories are horrified by the realities that have been hidden from us. No longer is Grandmaster Flash’s description of his life surprising to us, with
“Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat”
but it is still surprising to us that there are groups of people in our country who, because of their skin color, their religion, their abilities, their country of origin, are violently discriminated against by the systems through which we seek justice.
Rodney King may have been my wake-up call, the answer to the warning in Grandmaster Flash’s message, but it is a story that has played out over and over in our country. And now we are hearing the voices of those previously silenced, those who have lived closer and closer to the edge for generations.
In today’s story we have Jesus, quite literally, on the edge. The church he grew up in, his aunts and uncles in faith, “drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built.” (Luke 4:29 NRSV) What does Jesus do when he is on the precipice, on the edge?
The very next thing he does in to heal a man on the Sabbath. He breaks the law. Somehow his experience in the synagogue in Nazareth pushes him far enough over the edge that he stops blindly adhering to Jewish law. Luke has told us, in chapter 3, that Jesus is descended from a long line of observant Jews, descended from the greatest Hebrew King of all time, David. And yet, he breaks the law. This is an act of civil disobedience.
Jesus gives precedence to ridding this man of the demons possessing him over and above the laws laid out in the Jewish scriptures. Luke describes him as “with authority and power,” that is more authority than the scriptures. In chapter six Luke puts these words in Jesus’ mouth, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Sabbath laws were set in the Jewish tradition as a way of giving people a regular time to seek connection to God. The Sabbath is not set aside as just a time for a break from work, but a break from work in order that one can focus on our connection to God. Jesus sees how the law interrupts this connection. The man possessed by unclean spirits can not be in relationship with God, the unclean spirits are in the way; the same way in chapter six that his disciples can not be in relationship with God on the Sabbath because they are hungry and so they pick grain.
Luke continues the stories of Jesus’ disobedience, his restoring of people to relationship with the divine. He forgives sin, heals a leaper, calls fishermen and tax collectors to follow him, actually sharing a meal with tax collectors and other sinners, as defined by Jewish law. He is criticized for the amount of eating and drinking he and his disciples do, he is criticized for continually healing on the Sabbath, for looking to the spiritual intent of the Jewish laws, instead of the letter of the law.
He travels around preaching and attracting disciples from people who are on the edge- his ministry speaks to the marginalized. And he speaks in good news, in healing, in restoring people to community and relationship with God. This is what happens when Jesus is pushed to the edge. People are healed, welcomed, included, and commanded to do the same for others.
Grandmaster Flash’s warning, “Don’t push me ‘cause I’m close to the edge” was not headed with enough gusto to keep urban poor and racially oppressed groups from going over the edge. The day of the Rodney King verdict I literally could not stay in class. I had to be in the streets, but when darkness fell, I got on the subway and went home because I was scared about what it would be like to be on the streets that night. I was right to be scared. The community was over the edge. There was rioting. Windows were broken. Cars set on fire, conflicts between protestors and police.
The next morning I went to my class, BLS 555 Pigmentation and the Experience of Color. Our topic was an article about the Black Panthers written by Angela Davis. I will never forget that conversation. Several of my classmates came directly from their release from jail, wearing the same clothes they had worn all night in the cell.
And here is where my professor, Dr. Phillip McGee, took a lesson from Jesus. Jesus’ civil disobedience is not about creating chaos or breaking all laws because some are unjust. His lessons are targeted with the result of bringing hope, embracing the marginalized, healing the rifts in community caused by excluding those who are different, or sick, caused by systems that feed power and wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
Dr. McGee did not allow our conversation that morning to become about “us” and “them,” but about the systems that allowed injustice to be done, and the ways we can utilize the power that we have to target those systems with the result of bringing hope, embracing the marginalized, healing rifts, and changing the systems that feed power and wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. I had been too afraid to be on the streets at night, but I was not afraid to be the only white person in a class of people pushed over the edge because Dr. McGee made the conversation about all people living as if black lives matter.
As a church, we can not be afraid to be in the midst of those to whom Jesus ministered. We can not get stuck in the “us” and “them” debate, to view the marginalized as the recipients of our benevolence but not a part of our church. We must really mean “no matter where you are on life’s journey.” One of our members re-posted a picture on Facebook this week of a man with hundreds of face piercings. The original post asked for one word describing the man. He has made such obviously different choices with his appearance than I have. The word I chose was “human,” because I wanted to see he and I as “we” not “us” and “them,” I wanted to connect with all of the stories of Jesus embracing people others have left out, including them in his community. So often injustice is possible because we look at someone else, communities of people, and see them as other, not as us.
When pushed to the edge, Jesus did not jump over. He walked through the crowd, his supposed home town, and immediately embraced someone others were scared of. I wonder what would have happened if, in the 80’s when Grandmaster Flash’s message was so popular in my hood where it was a familiar story, everyone in the country would have seen us as them, would have heard “Broken glass everywhere, people pissing on the stairs,” and thought, “they’re just like me,” would have sought ways to be in deeper relationship with marginalized communities and shared meals together, and lived as if black lives, urban lives, native lives, women’s lives matter. This is what Jesus would do. May it be so for us.
Amen.
-Rev. Michelle Webber
Not Yet Ready
John 2:1-11
The other night my husband asked my daughter to clear the table and she said, “in a minute.” I had a flashback. I was a teen lounging in the living room reading a book when my mom asked me to do something and I said, “in a minute.” I don’t remember what she asked me, but I remember thinking it wasn’t fair that I had to live on her schedule. I’d do it eventually- whatever the “it” was she wanted. So reading our story today about the wedding at Cana, I became fixated on Jesus’ first response to his mom, “it is not yet my time.”
So far in the gospel of John, Jesus has been incarnated, baptized, and called four disciples, Andrew, Simon, who he called Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. Andrew and Simon listened to Jesus teach for a day, on John the Baptist’s recommendation, and then declared Jesus the Messiah. They went with him to Galilee where Philip accepted their invitation and then invited Nathanael, who was not convinced until Jesus told him what he had been doing under the fig tree. Jesus responds to him, “You will see greater things than these.”
They go with him and his family to this wedding. The wedding was a flop. There wasn’t enough wine, a bad omen for the future prosperity of the wedding couple. Mary knows what Jesus is capable of and she pushes him to step in. His mother ignores his complaint that he’s not ready and simply instructs the servants to do whatever he says.
After the wedding they go to Capernaum for an uneventful few days and then they go to the temple for Passover, where Jesus gets mad, turns over the tables, calling the temple his father’s house. He then vows that they will destroy the temple, but he will raise it up again in a few days.
It can make one dizzy- Jesus’ fluctuations. He is ready to call disciples, but not ready to perform a public miracle. And then he is throwing a tantrum in the holiest of public places. He is flirting with the idea of a public ministry. Almost like he’s not quite sure yet that it is his time.
How would the story read if he hadn’t performed his first miracle in Canaan at the wedding? While the disciples seem pretty impressed with him when he calls them in Galilee, the text says they believed in him because of what they witnessed at the wedding.
How many things do each of us procrastinate because we are not sure it is the right time? I can’t go to seminary, I’m too young, too poor, married to someone who’s not Christian. I went through all of those reasons. I can’t look for a church in another state- my family is in CA, my kid needs stability, my husband wouldn’t be happy. I went through all of those, too.
Tomorrow is our annual celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Like Jesus, he was a young man, only 39 when he was killed. I know 39 was not as young then as it is now. People “adulted” much younger. Here is what he said about waiting until you are fully prepared to start something you are called to do.
“Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
There was a woman in my home church, Robbie Sharp, who finished seminary the year I started. She had started seminary the year her first grandchild was born. She was a wise woman and I think of her often. I thought of her all day yesterday. She had this saying, “When there is a problem of abundance, you must first thank God for abundance.” Yesterday was an abundant day- with a memorial, a wedding, and a baby shower here. I thanked God all day and thought of Robbie. She once told me why she decided to go to seminary later in life. It had never been the right time before. Women weren’t accepted as ministers, she had children to raise, she was too old. Finally none of these reasons mattered anymore and she started seminary. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her last year of seminary and passed on just two years later. Perhaps God had wanted her in seminary at that time in her life and other places before, and perhaps she was, like Jesus, just not ready.
I wonder what ways we are like Jesus in the story of the wedding, like Robbie delaying her call, waiting to be really ready. In this chapter of John, Jesus seems to be straddling his adolescence, part of him still the slouchy teen resistant to living into his potential on his mother’s time table, part of him establishing his authority in the world, like a college grad finding their first job and moving out of the house, making their own house rules, paying their own bills. He even has a temper tantrum when he encounters the injustice of his world for the first time as an adult.
It’s interesting to think of Jesus adulting.
Adulting is defined by the Urban Dictionary as:
Adulting
Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups.
Used in a sentence: Jane is adulting quite well today as she is on time for work promptly at 8am and appears well groomed.
(Urban Dictionary)
This is a trend now, verbing nouns. And it is interesting to look at Jesus’ adulting in this way. What verbs are used when he is adulting- what does he do?
He invites people to “come and see”
He decides to go
He names Simon, Peter.
He tells Nathanael what he was doing under the fig tree
He refuses- his regression to pre-adulting.
He tells the servants what to do
He went to Capernaum with his mom and did not much for a few days- perhaps another regression into pre-adulting
He goes to the temple for Passover
Makes a whip
Chases the animals out
Shames the money changers
Turns over tables
And vows to restore what people are destroying
This is what adulting means to Jesus, to vow to restore what people are destroying.
We all need those regressions into pre-adulting sometimes, don’t we? That’s why the meme “I just can’t adult today” is so popular. We need breaks- times when we aren’t jumping to someone else’s time table, when we do “not much” for a few days. But we also need to do what we have the gifts to do. To catch ourselves when we say we’re not ready yet, or we’ll do it in a minute. We need to invite others to come and see our gifts, to encourage them to use their own gifts, to name the gifts we see in them. And sometimes we need to cause a stir. To name what we see in a way that is so dramatic that people take notice. Like turning over the tables in the temple. Not drama for its own sake, or to destroy things, but as a vow to build up what others are destroying.
We see many people stepping into this role in our country, causing a stir. Sometimes they seem to get in the way of our adulting, but think of them not like Jesus at the wedding at Cana, who is resistant to becoming public, but like the Jesus in the temple, who has learned the lesson of his other’s nudging. He is adulting and his eyes are open to the injustice in the Temple.
We have many people whose eyes are open to the unfairness of our country, systemic racism and sexism, an economic system that benefits mostly the 1%. Like Jesus, they seek to build up what has been destroyed, the basic humanity of all people. Some of us have had our humanity hardened by existing in a system skewed to our advantage. Other have had our humanity hacked away by navigating a system skewed against us. Let us give up the luxury of saying, “I’m not ready yet” and use all of our skills to building up what others have destroyed.
To do what Jesus did for the first time at the wedding at Cana, and transform a bad omen into the promise of prosperity. Amen.
-Rev. Michelle Webber
So far in the gospel of John, Jesus has been incarnated, baptized, and called four disciples, Andrew, Simon, who he called Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. Andrew and Simon listened to Jesus teach for a day, on John the Baptist’s recommendation, and then declared Jesus the Messiah. They went with him to Galilee where Philip accepted their invitation and then invited Nathanael, who was not convinced until Jesus told him what he had been doing under the fig tree. Jesus responds to him, “You will see greater things than these.”
They go with him and his family to this wedding. The wedding was a flop. There wasn’t enough wine, a bad omen for the future prosperity of the wedding couple. Mary knows what Jesus is capable of and she pushes him to step in. His mother ignores his complaint that he’s not ready and simply instructs the servants to do whatever he says.
After the wedding they go to Capernaum for an uneventful few days and then they go to the temple for Passover, where Jesus gets mad, turns over the tables, calling the temple his father’s house. He then vows that they will destroy the temple, but he will raise it up again in a few days.
It can make one dizzy- Jesus’ fluctuations. He is ready to call disciples, but not ready to perform a public miracle. And then he is throwing a tantrum in the holiest of public places. He is flirting with the idea of a public ministry. Almost like he’s not quite sure yet that it is his time.
How would the story read if he hadn’t performed his first miracle in Canaan at the wedding? While the disciples seem pretty impressed with him when he calls them in Galilee, the text says they believed in him because of what they witnessed at the wedding.
How many things do each of us procrastinate because we are not sure it is the right time? I can’t go to seminary, I’m too young, too poor, married to someone who’s not Christian. I went through all of those reasons. I can’t look for a church in another state- my family is in CA, my kid needs stability, my husband wouldn’t be happy. I went through all of those, too.
Tomorrow is our annual celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Like Jesus, he was a young man, only 39 when he was killed. I know 39 was not as young then as it is now. People “adulted” much younger. Here is what he said about waiting until you are fully prepared to start something you are called to do.
“Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
There was a woman in my home church, Robbie Sharp, who finished seminary the year I started. She had started seminary the year her first grandchild was born. She was a wise woman and I think of her often. I thought of her all day yesterday. She had this saying, “When there is a problem of abundance, you must first thank God for abundance.” Yesterday was an abundant day- with a memorial, a wedding, and a baby shower here. I thanked God all day and thought of Robbie. She once told me why she decided to go to seminary later in life. It had never been the right time before. Women weren’t accepted as ministers, she had children to raise, she was too old. Finally none of these reasons mattered anymore and she started seminary. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her last year of seminary and passed on just two years later. Perhaps God had wanted her in seminary at that time in her life and other places before, and perhaps she was, like Jesus, just not ready.
I wonder what ways we are like Jesus in the story of the wedding, like Robbie delaying her call, waiting to be really ready. In this chapter of John, Jesus seems to be straddling his adolescence, part of him still the slouchy teen resistant to living into his potential on his mother’s time table, part of him establishing his authority in the world, like a college grad finding their first job and moving out of the house, making their own house rules, paying their own bills. He even has a temper tantrum when he encounters the injustice of his world for the first time as an adult.
It’s interesting to think of Jesus adulting.
Adulting is defined by the Urban Dictionary as:
Adulting
Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups.
Used in a sentence: Jane is adulting quite well today as she is on time for work promptly at 8am and appears well groomed.
(Urban Dictionary)
This is a trend now, verbing nouns. And it is interesting to look at Jesus’ adulting in this way. What verbs are used when he is adulting- what does he do?
He invites people to “come and see”
He decides to go
He names Simon, Peter.
He tells Nathanael what he was doing under the fig tree
He refuses- his regression to pre-adulting.
He tells the servants what to do
He went to Capernaum with his mom and did not much for a few days- perhaps another regression into pre-adulting
He goes to the temple for Passover
Makes a whip
Chases the animals out
Shames the money changers
Turns over tables
And vows to restore what people are destroying
This is what adulting means to Jesus, to vow to restore what people are destroying.
We all need those regressions into pre-adulting sometimes, don’t we? That’s why the meme “I just can’t adult today” is so popular. We need breaks- times when we aren’t jumping to someone else’s time table, when we do “not much” for a few days. But we also need to do what we have the gifts to do. To catch ourselves when we say we’re not ready yet, or we’ll do it in a minute. We need to invite others to come and see our gifts, to encourage them to use their own gifts, to name the gifts we see in them. And sometimes we need to cause a stir. To name what we see in a way that is so dramatic that people take notice. Like turning over the tables in the temple. Not drama for its own sake, or to destroy things, but as a vow to build up what others are destroying.
We see many people stepping into this role in our country, causing a stir. Sometimes they seem to get in the way of our adulting, but think of them not like Jesus at the wedding at Cana, who is resistant to becoming public, but like the Jesus in the temple, who has learned the lesson of his other’s nudging. He is adulting and his eyes are open to the injustice in the Temple.
We have many people whose eyes are open to the unfairness of our country, systemic racism and sexism, an economic system that benefits mostly the 1%. Like Jesus, they seek to build up what has been destroyed, the basic humanity of all people. Some of us have had our humanity hardened by existing in a system skewed to our advantage. Other have had our humanity hacked away by navigating a system skewed against us. Let us give up the luxury of saying, “I’m not ready yet” and use all of our skills to building up what others have destroyed.
To do what Jesus did for the first time at the wedding at Cana, and transform a bad omen into the promise of prosperity. Amen.
-Rev. Michelle Webber