Whatever Is Right; Sermon from September 21, 2014; Bethany UCC

Exodus 16:2-15

The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Then the LORD said to Moses, "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days." So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "In the evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your complaining against the LORD. For what are we, that you complain against us?" And Moses said, "When the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the LORD has heard the complaining that you utter against him--what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the LORD." Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, 'Draw near to the LORD, for he has heard your complaining.'" And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. The LORD spoke to Moses and said, "I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.'" In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.

Matthew 20:1-16
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.' When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.' When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.  And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?'  So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

Whatever Is Right

Today I am here on behalf of A Just Harvest, a non-profit agency that feeds a hot, nutritious dinner every night to an average of 170 people in Rogers Park.  Meals are provided by partnering institutions of faith, and our dinner is served by volunteers.  In my role at A Just Harvest, I listen to the stories of the people who join us for dinner every night.  And currently, I do a lot of knocking on doors, talking with neighbors about raising the minimum wage. 

Please pray with me; Lord, we am grateful for the opportunity to seek your voice in our lives.  May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight, O God, you who are our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to visit CTS to hear Dr. Reza Aslan speak.  You might not know Dr. Aslan unless you are a theology nerd like me.  Aslan is a religious scholar who’s recent book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, has been sitting at the top of the NY Times Best Seller list.  He also received some unintentional fame when, while appearing on a Fox News talk show, was challenged on his right to author a book on Jesus, since his religion is Muslim.  Aslan responded that he was a historian and religious scholar, and the book is first and foremost an expose on Jesus, the actual man who quite specifically lived in an ancient world called Palestine.  (And he thanked Fox News for the bump in book sales.)

During his speech last week, Dr. Aslan said that, historically speaking (that is, not using the New Testament as historical fact), the only facts we can verify about Jesus of Nazareth are when he lived, and that he was crucified alongside two bandits by the Roman Empire.  (Bandits – not thieves – is a better translation, according to Aslan.  Bandits was the word used to denote revolutionaries and insurrectionists. Crucifixion was used in Roman times to send a message of intimidation – a warning – such as ‘don’t you dare try this.’)

Aslan argues that while we can’t historically verify the happenings detailed in scripture, we can learn very much about Jesus of Nazareth through the context in which he lived, and in that context, what he had to say about it.  One of the facts we do know is the enormous wealth inequality that existed in his time.  Rome was a massive and hugely successful empire with everything from Roman Senators to a subsistent peasant class to slaves.  Jesus is often referred to as a ‘carpenter’ – and in our modern world, we envision a competent, middle class tradesman who does woodworking and building.  But the Greek word in the bible was ‘Tecton’, which was actually simply one step up from a slave.  A Tecton was someone who traveled village to village looking for day labor.  A tecton more closely resembles the men you see hanging on the street corner near Home Depot, waiting for a truck to pull up and hire them for the day.  A Tecton, Aslan said, was a status so low in Roman society that the word was actually used as a curse word.

A curse word.  Think of the words in use today to denote someone of undesirable status.  That was the man we call the Christ.

Because of this massive wealth inequality in his time, apocalyptic ideology and insurrection were common, and were commonly put down by Rome.  Historical records show that the city Suferus, not far from Nazareth where Jesus lived, was a site of rebellion and put down, quite brutally, by the Romans when Jesus was about 5 years old.  The city was burnt to the ground, and Jesus likely watched it happen from the high elevation of Nazareth only a few miles away.  Ten years later, when Jesus was probably around 15 and finishing his apprenticeship, Herod Antipas, the appointed ruler over the Galilee region who eventually beheaded John the Baptist, set about building a gleaming city upon the ruins of Suferus.  As this was the greatest building project in the history of the region, there is no doubt that Jesus was one of the mass of day laborers that flocked to that city looking for work.  Nazareth was a village made up of mud huts and no roads…and every day we can assume that Jesus walked the hour journey to Suferus, a gleaming city of mansion after mansion, to get a days’ wage. 

A days’ wage – the denarius – was barely enough to feed a family for that day.  It was a subsistence wage.  It was the kind of cycle that ensured you only ate each day if you worked each day.  That’s why we can see, in our Matthew scripture today, why these day laborers were still waiting around at 3 pm and 5 pm – still hoping to make a days’ wage to feed their family. 

What Aslan has uncovered in his historical research is that Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and his consistent focus on the poor, came from intimate knowledge of the poorest and the wealthiest of his time. 

Every day at A Just Harvest, we feed people – about half of our attendance – who are working for a similar subsistence wage.  These are working people who cannot stretch their minimum wage pay far enough to provide food for their family, let alone afford housing, medical care, car repairs, birthday gifts – the kind of life that we assume everyone deserves.  A life of dignity, right relationship, celebration – pursuit of happiness.  Not of subsistence. 

And every year we repeat the scenario of searching for funding for feeding these hundreds of people.  In our modern day of wealth inequality, we receive money from people who can write a $15,000 check, people who can write a $100,000 check, and people who can’t afford a checking account – but still give us $10 per month.

So in our Matthew text today, we have these workers standing around in the daytime, and the odd occurrence of the landowner – not the manager – coming round and offering them work, repeatedly.  The morning workers are promised ‘a days’ wage’, but the workers hired mid-day are promised ‘whatever is right’. Which, of course, sets up the basic point of the parable – what IS right?  By the end of the parable, we see that every worker hired was paid equally, whether they worked 1 hour, 6 hours or 12 hours.  It was counter to most people’s sensibilities then – as it is now. 

After all, the capitalist system tells us that we should value people according to their ability – and those in minimum wage jobs have the lowest value. Capitalism tells us that those with skills will get ahead by virtue of their ingenuity, but that the economy functions best with a flush labor force desperate for work on a subsistence wage – if you can call making $17,000 a year a subsistence wage in our modern day, that is. The minimum wage was never indexed for inflation when it was created in 1938, and reached it’s peak in the 1960’s – and has been declining ever since.

Jesus’ parable of the vineyard owner turns this value system upside down.  It seems to say that every willing worker deserves the dignity of a days’ wage, regardless of output, in the Kingdom of God.  At CTS, we like to call it the kin-dom of God, stressing not so much the importance of God as King, but as God’s people as kin.  The beloved, covenanted community of God. 

Indeed, we are given insight into the community of God in our first text from the Old Testament. I have a confession; the Exodus scripture today is one of my favorite scriptures.  We encounter the Israelites as they leave their slave conditions of Eqypt for the unknown ‘wilderness’ with Moses.  Egypt, in the time of the Israelites, was another example of a harsh, brutal society built on the labor of slaves and peasants.

From bible stories like Jacob, we know that the pharaohs often had so much wealth – in these times, in the form of grain and cattle – that much of it would go to waste in silos while entire towns were starving.  The Pharaohs operated with a mindset of scarcity – that there were limited resources in the world, and so the smart, secure, important thing to do was to store up as much as you could.  Even if others suffered.  Even if it was ultimately for naught, because the food decayed and was never used.  This mindset of scarcity begins to be all-consuming, and leads one to see the world as a zero-sum game; where others’ loss is exactly mirrored in our gain – and if others get ahead, we get behind– and so we hoard resources to ensure security, prosperity, a larger and happier kingdom.

We certainly see this mindset of scarcity in our own world, don’t we?  We hear it everyday in fear mongering about businesses leaving Illinois.  We see it in government austerity, when Congress cuts the budget for food stamps and demonizes the character of people who need them.  And we hear it– I hear it - in conversations about raising the minimum wage – that increasing people’s livelihood will cause employers to cut jobs, or require customers to pay more, or simply that ‘we can’t afford it’. 

In the text, we see that once in the wilderness, uncertainty and fear grip the Israelite community. Although they have been freed, liberated, from inhuman conditions of Egypt, but the future is unknown, and their anxiety prevails.  They begin to complain to Moses and long for the security of Egyptian food – even when it comes without human dignity. 

God responds that he hears their complaints, and will provide flesh in the evening and bread in the morning, if they will only trust him.  And sure enough, quails appear in the evening, and in the morning, a fine, flaky substance covers the ground.  This is the origin of the ‘manna from heaven’ – even the Israelites didn’t know what it was until Moses made it clear; this is the living bread. 

But God’s provisions came with conditions; there would be no hoarding of food. The Israelites could collect only what would feed them for one day - if they collected more, it would rot by morning.  God was challenging the Israelites to break out of the scarcity mentality of Egypt, and to learn a new way of living that required trust and sharing, and would manifest in abundance.  God was challenging the Israelites to see themselves as a covenanted community, first and foremost, where all can eat with dignity until their stomachs are full.

God’s message is there is no scarcity. God urges us to trust, and live into a mindset of abundance in all things.

At A Just Harvest, we have been inviting congregations to screen Robert Reich’s documentary, “Inequality for All.” Reich is an economist who was the Labor Secretary under President Clinton, and I see in his movie this contrast between a mindset of scarcity versus a mindset of abundance.  Reich talks about the differences of a ‘vicious economic cycle’ versus a ‘virtuous economic cycle’.  In the virtuous cycle, a healthy middle class of workers who are paid well put more money into the economy, which in turn spurs economic demand, which in turn spurs tax revenue and investment in public infrastructure.  People live in abundance, and it multiples.

In the vicious cycle, cuts prevail.  Stagnant wages in the face of inflation mean people buy less, which spurs more layoffs, which spurs less tax revenue, tighter government budgets, cuts in income supports, and less investment in the public good.  Workers struggle to make ends meet and people have to pay more for things like college education, which causes even less spending and higher personal debt.  Sound familiar?  In the vicious cycle, people are gripped by a mindset of scarcity, and it multiples. Or subtracts, in a manner of speaking.

In a world where we discount the need for every member of the community to feed themselves with dignity;  insecurity, anxiety and fear prevail for all.  If our loss is their gain, then we must hoard every bit of manna we can to protect ourselves.  But, somehow, that doesn’t lead to abundance.

Reich’s point is the economy is not a zero-sum game.  Counter-intuitively, it more closely resembles God’s multiplying manna from heaven.  Investing in the public good of education, infrastructure, and higher wages lifts all of the community.  Supporting a policy that says all workers deserve enough to live on – a living wage – does not mean that others will have to sacrifice, because when you put money in the hands of people who live check to check, they immediately put it back into the economy, which generates more consumer demand, turning the cycle into the positive rather than the negative.  But more importantly, it preferences the principle of whatever is right – that investing in people’s economic well-being is right, and trusting that principle first and foremost mirrors God’s covenant with community.

Don’t be mistaken, I know we are living in a complicated world where jobs can be scarce, budgets are tight, and wealth does seem to have the ability to fly away – to multinational corporations and far away countries.  But if we don’t begin with the basic principle of trust in every person as a member of God’s community, that each person deserves a days’ wage that allows them the dignity to support themselves, then we are buying into the mindset of scarcity. The covenant with Yahweh asks that we make decisions that care for community regardless of our sense of security, knowing that our well-being is connected to theirs.  God’s request, in Hebrew times and rearticulated through Jesus’ ministry on earth, is that we live into a mindset of abundance that values the last as well as the first.  That we trust that we can respond compassionately to each individual within our community – and in fact, that compassion, that manifestation of God’s love for creation, will multiply readily into abundance.  And then we will be a little bit closer to bringing forth the kin-dom of God on earth. 

Amen. 

Surely God is in this Place! Sermon from July 20, 2014, San Lucas UCC

Genesis 28: 10- 19

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.  He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set.  Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.  And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham hour father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in your and in your offspring.  Know that I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this pace – and I did not know it!”  And he was afraid, and said, “how awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gage of heaven.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.  He called that place Beth-el.

Isaiah 44:6-8

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,

And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:

I am the first and the last

Besides me there is no god.

Who is like me?  Let them proclaim it,

Let them declare and set it forth before me.

Who has announced from of old the things to come?

Let them tell us what is yet to be.

Do not fear, or be afraid;

Have I not told you from of old and declared it?

You are my witnesses!

Is there any god besides me?

There is no other rock; I know not one.

Surely God is in this Place!

Good morning.  My name is Jessica Palys.  I work with Pastor Marilyn at A Just Harvest, and just graduated Chicago Theological Seminary.  Pastor Marilyn asked me to step in for her here while she’s having a restful time in Puerto Rico.  I am grateful to be here with you all today.   Please pray with me:

God, we are blessed by your presence and do bless others with your presence.  We gather here, grateful that your love has sustained us another day.  I ask that not my words, Lord, but your meaning touches our hearts this morning.  May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight, Oh Lord, you who are our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

In today’s first scripture reading, we learn that Jacob has stolen his father’s blessing, which was intended for his older brother Esau.  He is afraid.  He flees his homeland because he fears vengence from his brother.  He comes to a place, and has the first personal encounter with God through his dream, which, for Jacob, shows that God’s promise for his family is still true, even though he tricked his father into giving him the blessing.  For the first time Jacob knows that he is, actually, still protected by God. 

He wakes and proclaims, “Surely God is in this place!”

God makes many promises to Jacob; God promises him land; many descendants living all throughout the area; that God will bless other people through the blessing he gives Jacob.  Furthermore, God commits never to leave Jacob and always to ‘keep’ him.

The blessings make clear to me that, not only is God in that place, but ‘Surely, God is in Jacob!’  Not only will God stay with Jacob and keep him, but through Jacob, God will bless other people.

Last Sunday, Pastor Marilyn said we are called not only to follow, but join and lead in the movement of Jesus Christ that makes the promise of Life available to all.  That God calls us each by name to receive the love of God, and bring that love to others.  Is this not the blessing of Jacob?  Surely, God is in THIS place too!

In my sleep, I sometimes have personal encounters with God.  Has anyone else had these? Sometimes I dream, and like Jacob, in those dreams I talk with God.  I find clarity.  I find peace and comfort, and hope.

But the problem is, I wake up.  And I am faced, again, with the reality of the world around us – the world as it is.

I was at a training all last week in beautiful Woodstock, IL, on a large seminary campus with green fields and trees and no television.  This was an organizing training, and the training asked us to fully focus inward on our own fears and obstacles.  The schedule was so jam-packed that I hardly had time to check Facebook or call my mom, let alone keep up with the weekly news.  It felt a little like dream-time.  But then it ended, and I returned to the world as it is.

Last night’s online headline in the Chicago Tribune read, “Be with us, God, we need you now” in East Garfield Park.  This was because 22 people were shot in Chicago in 12 hours on Saturday.   An 11-year old girl was at a sleepover making s’mores when a bullet came through the wall and hit her.  82 people were shot over the July 4^th weekend in Chicago.  And in the last few months alone, one shooting occurred 3 blocks from our office at a Just Harvest, and 2 of the deaths were friends of Marilyn’s daughter. 

I wake up from my dreams to find record numbers of tragedies.  It’s hard to fight the urge to go back to ‘sleep’.

Guns and bullets are terrorizing our city streets this summer. Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that guns are the only reason people die on Chicago’s streets.  I recognize the decades of dis-investment – when government funding and business leaving neighborhoods, followed by jobs, and then those able to follow the jobs, leaving a wake of poverty, powerlessness, and fear. 

In the second scripture we read today, the prophet Isaiah speaks a challenge from God – “let any who is like me, show themselves!  Show their power!”  God challenges the idols and the demons to show the power they have – because none have the power equal to God. 

Fear is a demon.  Fear is something that can multiply almost instantaneously.  Have you ever seen fear grow through a crowd just based on uncertainty?  After 9/11, I saw this around me and occasionally felt this panic myself – if a plane flew too low, or I heard an explosion, or whispers from people in a crowd in the midst of confusion.

But fear can also be marketed.  Packaged up and sold to us through commercials or movies.  Narrated in pop music. Reinforced over and over again on the evening news, in our politician’s speeches, and shown in our “tough on crime” laws.  Fear will tell us that there are people who are simply evil who will always be evil, so we need strong laws and long prison sentences, regardless of how much it costs us.  Fear will tell us we can’t trust each other. Fear will keep us from standing together.

Just like fear can be packaged, fear can be profitable.  And it turns out fear can be very profitable.  Since the 1980’s, millions of dollars have been funneled to private prisons across the country to hold the national inmate population.  Many of these private prison contracts with state governments contain mandatory bed quotas – a requirement that a certain number of people must be incarcerated, filling a bed, at any given time – or our tax dollars go to pay for empty beds.  You have to wonder if our “tough on crime” laws – 3 strikes, zero tolerance, and mandatory minimums – are intended to protect us or to keep prisons full.  But the laws are sold to us on the basis of fear.

And that fear, many would like to believe, will go away if we carry a gun.

Last week Pastor Marilyn and I discovered that a Gun Shop is opening in the city of Niles – at 6143 W Howard, just 6 miles from our office, and a few hundred yards from 2 different schools.  A recent report found 20% of guns -ONE OUT OF EVERY 5 guns - used in Chicago crimes can be traced to 4 gun shops whose owners cannot control where their guns end up.  One of those owners is proposing this additional gun shop in Niles.

We know in our hearts that more access to guns will not bring God closer to us in this city.  More access to guns will not make one less mother cry out to God in pain.  We know more guns will mean more mothers’ cries, not less.

In Isaiah God says, “Do Not fear, or be afraid.”  God asks us to have courage rather than fear.  “You are my witnesses!’ it is declared.  God knows it is scary to be a witness to love in the midst of trial.  It is scary when we live in fear, and when we are led to be afraid of each other so that we all feel that we should be carrying guns.  But we cannot be afraid.  We must deliver the promise of life for others, and sometimes that requires standing up for each other.  Standing with each other.  Standing for each others’ promise of life.

We serve a God who has foretold the ending already – we are loved.  When we love each other – despite these fears dividing us – we are fulfilling the new thing that God promised.

Like Jacob, I say Surely God is in this place.  Surely he is.  I have seen God here in the walls of San Lucas.  Surely God is here in this city. But what Jacob doesn’t realize is that God is in him.  God blesses Jacob, and through Jacob, God blesses others.  God has blessed us, and God is in this place in our hearts – in each of us.  And we can bless others with our hearts and our actions.

There’s a hearing in Niles on Tuesday of this week on the proposal to open this gun shop.  I pray that God will be in that place, and that God’s voice will be heard in that place.  I pray that God’s voice will surely be louder than the demons of fear. I pray that God’s people in Chicago’s communities will have courage and stand up with each other against this fear.

We are called, by name, to carry our blessings forward and give others the promise of life. 

God says, “Do not be afraid.  I am the first and the last.  I will stay with you always, and I will keep you.  There is no other rock; I know not one.”  Come now, Lord, return to us again and again, and help us live our dreams.

Humility at the Table; Sermon from September 1, 2013

You can listen to it here;  Sermon ("Buen Provecho - For Good Benefit")

Micah 6:6-12
“With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
⁷Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

⁹ The voice of the Lord cries to the city
    (it is sound wisdom to fear your name):
  Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city!
¹⁰ Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
    and the scant measure that is accursed?
¹¹ Can I tolerate wicked scales
    and a bag of dishonest weights?
¹² Your wealthy are full of violence;
    your inhabitants speak lies,

with tongues of deceit in their mouths.

Luke 14:1, 7-14
1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.  8 "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host;  9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." 12 He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

I just returned from Guatemala where I spent 6 weeks studying Spanish in Xela, a mountainous town in the Mayan Qui’che region of Guatemala.  Xela is actually the Qui’che word for Quetzaltenango, which is what it says on the map if you wanted to look up where I studied.  Guatemala is home to 21 different Mayan groups, who, even today, make up 51% of the population. The women still wear traditional dress, although men only don traditional clothing in certain villages.



They are a hard-working people.  Women carry their goods to market on their heads, which could be anything from laundry to chickens to roses.  Men carry the heavier goods on their back with a strong strap anchored to their forehead.   

In addition to my 5 hours of classes per day, my fee of $185 per week included boarding and meals with a Guatemalan family.  Maria Louisa, [CLICK] the 78-year-old mother of the house, prepared meals for her extended family and myself every day.  Dinners were usually black beans, tortillas, rice, and an egg.  Breakfasts were black beans, tortillas, and an egg.  Lunches might include stew, or might be black beans, tortillas, rice, and an egg.  This is the typical meal in Guatemala – because it is the cheapest food that will leave one feeling full.  In fact, the week before I left I made dinner for my Guatemalan family, a stew full of fresh vegetables.  They were very gracious in complimenting the meal, but were still going for the beans and tortillas after.  It’s simply the most affordable food to fill your belly on a budget.  Guatemala is the third poorest country with the highest rate of malnutrition in Latin America. 

After our meal we would share coffee. Guatemala produces some of the best coffee in the world!  But in our house we drank instant, because like the produce, the best coffee in Guatemala is exported, and too expensive for the average Guatemalan family.   At the end of a meal in Maria Louisa’s home, I would say ‘muchas gracias’ for the meal, and they would respond, “buen provecho”.  Buen provecho is usually translated by foreigners as ‘bon apetit’, but that’s not correct. Buen provecho actually means, ‘for good benefit’, as in, "May this food be of good benefit to you”.

  

In all my travels, the most memorable moments always happen when people eat together.  Eating together is an expression of comradery, generosity, and humility.  People offer the gift of food, and you offer respect by receiving their gift of food and their traditions. Sometimes you have to watch to see how your food is to be eaten.  Mealtime is when we all slow down enough to be generous with each other and listen to each other. Sitting at a table together humbles us and establishes us as equals.  Jesus knew this. 

Our scripture today from the Gospel of Luke has Jesus participating in yet another meal.  Pastors like to joke about how there’s hardly a verse in Luke that doesn’t depict Jesus either going to, coming from, or sharing a meal.  And as we know, he eats with all kinds of people – disciples, tax collectors, prostitues, Pharisees, and foreigners.  Earlier in Luke, the Pharisees complain about his habit of breaking bread with the sinful.  “Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they ask.  He replies, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. 

By our passage in Luke 14, Jesus has been invited to yet another dinner party but begins to take issue with the way people claim seats of honor in the banquet.  Today’s reading is about pride and humility.  Jesus lived in a culture of honor and shame.  It was a patron-client world; one did not survive by their own merit, as they do in our culture, but by being related to networks, family, friends, and brokers of other patrons. Being publicly embarrassed, such as being asked by a host to give up your seat for someone more important, could impact your immediate economic livelihood, like the ability to barter with your neighbor for basic goods, or to arrange a marriage in your family.  If you had the ability to throw a banquet, you were of the wealthy class, and you likely only invited those who would someday invite you in return.  Jesus contradicts this status-oriented culture immediately, calling on followers to serve the sick, lame, crippled, and people who could in no way return the invitation, and therefore put their status at risk.

This type of pride and humility hardly affects us in our modern world, except perhaps when you travel. As an American, I have status that is welcomed all over the world.  There is a certain amount of pride that comes when you travel from being an American – our democracy, our prosperity, our free media, our freedom to determine our own merit.  But traveling sometimes teaches you a different aspect of being American – the unintended consequences of American foreign policy. 

You see I have a hard time talking about the poverty of Guatemala without talking about the cause.  And while chronic education deficiency, high birth rates to young mothers, and government corruption continue to plague Guatemala’s prospects, the country is still reeling from a 36-year civil war that began in 1960 and only ended in 1996.  And it’s difficult to discuss that war without pointing to America’s overzealous communist-era foreign interventions. 

Because in 1944, a government came to power in Guatemala that, for the first time in their history, bestowed equal rights to the native Mayan population.  The Indians received social security, education, and labor rights for the first time since the Spanish conquest.  Worker unions began to unite the Mayan Indian population with the rest of the peasant laborers in Guatemala, and their political power grew. Ten years later that same government started land reforms, attempting to force a government buy-back of land from the wealthy 2% who owned 72% of Guatemalan land.  However the largest landowner in Guatemala was by far the American-owned United Fruit Company.  As you might expect, the United Fruit Company complained to the US government, who subsequently orchestrated a military coup under a ‘communist threat’ that led to civil war. 

Over decades, a war that began with ideology coupled with systemic prejudice against the Mayan people and became something that’s been classified as genocide against the Mayans.  Through it all, according to a United Nations report from 1999, the US continued military support for the Guatemalan government while aware of the genocide because it was strategically to our advantage.

I didn’t know this when I first arrived in Guatemala.  I learned about it through movies and lectures provided by my Spanish school as part of our curriculum. This is, of course, the realm of giant political powers clashing around the globe, but it got me to thinking about when the US comes to the table of nations, claiming the place of honor and putting our interests first.  It becomes a different experience, then, to sit down at the dinner table in Maria Louisa’s home knowing the legacy of my country is connected to why my Spanish language program is so very affordable.  The sharing and caring shown to me was now humbling.

What does it mean for us to be Christians with this varied legacy?  What will it take to let God’s love shine through us to be a healing force in a world divided by wealthy and prideful interests?  All that is required, says the Hebrew prophet Micah, is to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.  Walk humbly?  Perhaps walking humbly with God, and with each other, is key to finding a way to transforming that legacy into a way of saying, “May this be of good benefit to you.”

Humility is what is required when we are faced with truths that are uncomfortable to hear, but hearing those truths can bring healing.  Humility is required of the members of FCC who travel with Re-Member to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  Learning and listening to the experience of the Native American is a memory that never leaves you.  But through that humility, our church has found a way to say, “May this be of good benefit to you”, with 18 bunk beds and countless donations. 

Humility is required with those we perceive as enemies, in order to find a way to not be enemies.  Earlier this year I visited Israel and Palestine with a class from my school, and encountered many organizations focused primarily on helping traumatized Palestinians and traumatized Israelis listen to each other’s pain as the only real pathway to peace in that region.  That sentiment is echoed by Rigoberta Menchu, a indigenous rights activist from Guatemala who lost nearly her entire family during the civil war.  Now after a lifetime of violence, she says; 

“I think that nonviolence is one way of saying that there are other ways to solve problems, not only through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means the recognition that the person on one side of the trench and the person on the other side of the trench are both human beings, with the same faculties. At some point they have to begin to understand one another.” 

We begin this understanding by humbly listening to each other.  

Humility is sometimes required to sit at a table with people different from us, taking the risk of being wrong.  Eating together is a great way to start the conversation.  As Rigoberta Menchu is famous for saying, “the world’s not going to change unless we’re willing to change ourselves.” 

There are many signs of light in Guatemala 17 years after the conflict.  Many enterprising social agencies have been founded to work with local populations.  There is no shortage of co-operatives working towards better trade, employment, education, housing and health for Guatemalans.  In fact, FCC has supported the work of one of those organizations, Mayaworks, since before the end of the Guatemalan civil war, with the help of Bob and Terry Davis.  I know this because I bought this folder from them, here, in high school, circa 1994.  Nowadays, because they are a welcoming and very affordable country, Guatemala receives good-hearted people from all over the world who travel with church work trips, volunteer organizations, and as students in Spanish classes.  

My school offered volunteer opportunities for students in the medical clinic or family support center, and for reforestation on the mountainsides.  But I think the most important work of my school was our Stove Project, building concrete and brick stoves for the rural Mayans that still cook over an open fire in an enclosed space.  With the stoves they build each year, they help decrease the amount of respiratory disease in the population. 

So today, I pray that we may have the strength to live lives with more humility, more listening, and more understanding, knowing that if we take the risk to walk humbly, we won’t be walking alone. God will be right there, walking along side us, finding more ways for us to love kindness, and do justice.  So each day we may be able to say, in God’s name, “May this be of good benefit to you.”  Amen.