Flip

This is my fifth sermon preached for Bemidji United Methodist, preached on 9/1/19. Posting a day late because of Labor Day.

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14

An intriguing origin story for this image
https://medium.com/@CRA1G/the-evolution-of-an-accidental-meme-ddc4e139e0e4

Grace and Peace to you, from God our Loving Creator, and Jesus the Teacher and Messiah, Amen

Happy Palindrome Sunday, all the Annas, Bobs, Hannahs, Elles, Eves and Ottos out there. It’s 9-1-19. In two weeks, it’ll happen again on 9-15-19, because the date is still the same backwards and forwards.

But most elements of our world don’t work the same backwards and forwards. You can point a remote at a TV or stereo backwards and it still works. A video game controller can be played backwards, but you may not go the way you’re thinking. Playing a record in reverse might not warrant secrets from the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. However, if you sync Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon somewhere in the opening of the MGM Lion in the Wizard of Oz, for whatever reason, the movie matches eerily well with the songs of the album.
(Below is a beautiful example of the combination)

Some foods match up weirdly well, like french fries and chocolate milkshakes, or Doritos and cottage cheese. Or, if you’ve ever been to the Red River Valley, cinnamon swirl bread with cheese spread. Other tastes definitely shouldn’t go together, like brushing your teeth and drinking orange juice right afterward… Never a great taste together. Until they had orange-flavored toothpaste for a while. Needless to say, you don’t really see that much anymore.

And sometimes, you feel called to just throw things together, and it ends up working out. When I cook, I don’t measure seasonings too often… a shake here, a couple there… Seems to have worked out so far. Sometimes we do the unconventional things, because there’s something in our inner being that compels us.

Or maybe we’re called to do the unconventional thing because God is calling us to do so. To flip the script of what we would normally do. Take a left turn instead of the right. Go down a road that you think will end up where you think it might, all for the sense of adventure. And yet, it’s more than just making a different turn for the sense of adventure. What Jesus is calling us to do in our Gospel text for today is to humble ourselves of our own feelings and misgivings, and lift another above ourselves.

There’s a picture that has been floating around the internet for a few years of a baseball game and three spectators watching from the fenceline. One side shows the three people of differing heights standing behind the fence, with only one person being able to see the game. That side is called “Equality” because they are all on the ground. The other image is one with the three people behind the fence, but the middle person has a box to stand on to see over the fence, and the third person has two boxes to see over the fence. Now all can see the baseball game. That side is called “Equity”. An added box to the right of that “Equity” box is the image of the same three people with the same baseball game, but the fence has been removed. That image is called “Liberation” or “Justice”.

I believe that progression of images is very indicative of American politics, and frankly, American Christianity these days. When it comes to conversations of race, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability… I believe tolerance is the first stopping point for people to grasp these realities. If tolerance is the stopping point where people are comfortable, then progress can no longer proceed. We tolerate colds. We tolerate subzero temps in the winter. Tolerance is the end of the conversation.

Equality is the next stopping point. If we believe that individuals of different races, gender identities, sexual orientations or abilities have equal societal barriers, then we miss the point of the conversation. That’s the inability to see the realities affecting the individual, in an effort to equal the playing field. So that we can be comfortable with each other without getting too involved. If I know you have the same troubles as I do, and the same societal issues that I do, then we can stand together on the same footing. And maybe that’s enough for some people, as a step above tolerance.

When equity is involved, then you have the added benefits of assistance. Programs like Affirmative Action, Medicare, Social Security, SNAP and WIC benefits, Temporary Aid for Needy Families, and the Affordable Care Act - help people access benefits and services that would otherwise be unavailable to them. When organizations that promote equality in the workplace or an open welcoming environment actually put societally marginalized people in leadership roles, in an effort to move past the conversation of equality, this is where equity comes in.

Lastly, liberation is the removal of those societal barriers. Liberation or Justice is the radical upheaval of the social norms. Standing in the face of, “we’ve always done it this way”. It’s taking issues like insurance and medical bills and removing the need for them. Seeing an issue like student loan debt and removing the debt and the reason for the debt completely. It’s putting the common good above the individual. It’s Spock’s “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. It’s putting everybody else’s needs above your own.

It’s Jesus throwing around the idea that we should not only sit at the lowest seat at the dinner table, but when we invite people over for dinner, we invite the people who can never repay us the favor. It’s Jesus alluding to the Last Supper, where the Savior of the World was humbled to the point of washing the feet of friends, literally sinking below all the others, raising the needs of everybody else. It’s Jesus dying next to a thief and murderer in a public, humiliating and painful way. It’s Jesus living a life full of teaching, service, and salvation, so that all of us can in turn share in that teaching, service and salvation.

This is more radical than adding two unrelated foods together, or unrelated pieces of art, or people of different origins together. This is more radical than reading the same dates and words forwards and backwards. This is Jesus throwing the table of the status quo in the face of society and calling us to live beyond the societal norms to serve below them. To wade in the muck and messiness of life alongside our neighbors and serve them without any hope of repayment. So that they may be lifted up above what people expect.

There’s a concept in midwestern Scandinavian Lutheranism known as the ‘Good Lutheran’. The ‘Good Lutheran’ sits in the back. Why? Maybe it’s a keen understanding of giving other people the better seats because of the added concept of ‘Minnesota Nice’. Maybe it’s the ability to be quicker out the door. Or farther from the pulpit so the preacher can’t see you close your eyes. Or the ability to see everybody else in the sanctuary and make sure certain people are there. Whatever the reason, the ‘Good Lutheran’ sits in the back.

I don’t know if there’s a similar concept in Methodism, but I think this congregation is doing it’s best in not sitting in the back. I think you folks are amazing in community engagement, leading the way in so many directions. Serving the community meal week after week is definitely placing the community’s needs above your own. It’s my hope that the continued conversation about welcome and inclusivity is a fruitful one, not only for the congregation but the wider community of Bemidji. For a rural small city to have one inclusive congregation is extraordinary on its own. Having two already in a town of this size is beyond extraordinary. Three would be a radical step in moving the dialogue from rural death and stagnation to continued growth and progress. It’s moving the conversation of radical acceptance to a community-sized conversation. It’s moving beyond the decisions of national bodies to a localized community that looks to welcoming in the face of fear.

I was reminded yesterday that things happen in God’s time. That God’s got this. We don’t know why things happen the way they do, when they do. Why a hurricane suddenly changes directions to hit another state that wasn’t expecting it. But we know that God’s gonna see us through it. That God’s gonna be there alongside us in that storm. That God sent a child into the world to guide us through whatever storms we face in life.

And God calls us to face the storms of life so that we can be there for our neighbors. To serve them in spite of ourselves. To lift them up despite our limited will or strength. To live not for ourselves but for God and God’s creation. So that when we encounter ourselves in a situation with someone totally unlike ourselves, that we might remember that God gave us Judy Garland and Pink Floyd, but it took something beyond the norm to discover their beautiful combination. Tip the scales, flip the script, disturb the status quo. Be who God is calling you to be. God’s got this because God’s got you.

Amen.