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Who Asked Jesus Anyway?!

(Text: Luke 12:13-21)

(Gary W. Charles, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, 7-31-2016)

          As a general practice, it is wise to stay out of family squabbles, especially ones involving money. Hats off to Jesus for doing just that! In today’s text, an angry brother comes to Jesus asking for help with a family financial dispute. Obviously, this angry brother is not the executor of the estate, so he comes to Jesus to side with him and set matters right: “Tell my brother to stop hoarding the inheritance and give me what is rightfully mine.”

          That seems a fair enough request. Jesus, though, proves more annoying than helpful. He does not rush to the fix the family problem. Instead, he gives the begrudged brother a lecture. He warns him not to get caught in the trap of greed and cautions him that life does not consist of the number of our possessions.

That is not the answer that the angry brother is looking for from Jesus. And, to make matters worse, Jesus goes on to tell the angry brother a long, ponderous story. It is a tale about a farmer, who Jesus gives the nickname, “the rich fool.”

At first glance, the nickname seems ridiculous. In the great American story, the farmer is no fool; he is “Mr. Success.” He has done what I have been taught to do since childhood. Excel. Be successful. Accumulate enough for a rainy day, a snowy day, even a long stretch of sunny days.  The farmer has built a fortune for his retirement. No family members will need to care for him. He is independent now and he will be independent all his days, thanks to a huge nest egg that he has amassed.  

          The farmer can even quote Scripture to justify his action. After all, the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Joseph tells the Pharaoh to build lots of barns to stock up for seven lean years ahead. Nor does Jesus portray the farmer as a crooked businessman who has gained his riches illegally by bilking others and skipping out on his bills. He is not someone who has made his wealth by ripping others off. In fact, most of us would call him financially prudent and admirable. So, why does the successful, financially prudent businessman get nicknamed, “rich fool” by none other than Jesus?

In full disclosure, preachers absolutely love this parable, especially as the leaves turn their autumn colors and churches start to solicit funds for the next year’s budget. Preachers cite the closing punch line of the parable with vigor:  “But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'” What usually follows then is the preacher extolling members of the congregation to stop building barns, after all, they preach, “Your money will do you no good in the grave, so spread it around and let me tell how to make a huge check out to the church!”

That preacher riff on the parable is not at all uncommon, but I suggest it is also not that helpful. Like most parables of Jesus, this ones goes far deeper than a biblical prop for churches and pastors who are anxious to meet a budget.

The real problem with the farmer in this parable is that he has a very serious pronoun problem. “The relentless use of the first person pronouns ‘I’ and ‘my’ betray a preoccupation with self,” writes Lutheran pastor and professor, David Lose. “There is no thought to using the abundance to help others, no expression of gratitude for his good fortune, no recognition of God at all. The farmer has fallen prey to worshiping the most popular of gods: the Unholy Trinity of ‘me, myself, and I’. This leads to, and is most likely caused by, a second mistake. He is not foolish because he makes provision for the future; he is foolish because he believes that by his wealth he can secure his future: ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry’."

Just out of Seminary, I was called to serve a fine church in Wilmington, North Carolina. The hardest pastoral visit I made every few months was to a dirt poor retired railroad worker with severe emphysema. He had no family and his house was an absolute wreck. If I was honest with myself, I felt sorry for the man. He was so restricted and he had so little.

There was an uncomfortable ritual that ended each visit. This gentleman would go to his desk, open the top drawer, and pull out a bunch of church offering envelopes with a check in each one. He would then bundle them together with a rubber band, hand them to me, and ask that I give them to the church treasurer.

I hated that ritual at the end of every visit. So one day, I decided to try to write a different ending to our visits. I told him, “Sir, the church budget is really strong right now. Many people are even ahead in their giving from what we expected. It seems like you need this money more than the church does right now, so thank you but why don’t you keep it and use it for yourself.” Many years later, I cringe when I hear myself saying these words, but I was young, if that is any excuse.

After I invited this man to keep his money, he spoke and spoke, for the first time, without struggling for every breath. He looked at me without as much as a pause and said, “Young man, never deny someone the privilege of returning to the Lord a portion of what the Lord has given him.” I had no response. I took the offering envelopes and crawled to the car.

The angry brother, the rich fool in Jesus’ parable, and the young preacher in Wilmington, N.C. never understood what a dirt poor retired railroad worker knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. All good gifts, our intellect, our family, the good earth, and the list goes on, are gifts that God gives us to steward but never to own, to share, but never to hoard, to sow seeds for others, but never to harvest only for ourselves. More stuff does not secure our future, says Jesus, even if it is our rightful due to inherit it.

Throughout the course of my ministry, I have come to know and love many rich women and men, a few of whom also had a good bit of money, all of whom enjoyed giving and living for others with wild abandon.

I wonder whatever happened to that angry brother. Did he get his rightful inheritance? When he did, did it calm him down and make him dance with glee? Or did it leave him counting each coin wondering why he got less than the brother who was the executor of the estate? Did he ever once think about investing his energy in helping others and sharing with others what he already had? Did he ever pause to thank God for the very gift of life?

I wonder what Jesus would say to affluent America today when thousands go to bed hungry each night while political rhetoric is never about them. I wonder what Jesus would say when thousands in America live on the streets or in shelters, like the Central Night Shelter in Atlanta, where we housed 90 men every night, while it is the rare political leader who uses her political capital to advocate for affordable housing.  I wonder what Jesus would say when the fastest growing industry in many states in our country is private prisons, while there is little political will to rethink our criminal justice system.

The angry young brother wants more, wants his rightful due. Jesus asks the angry brother what he is doing with all that he already has. Many angry Americans want more than what we have. Jesus asks each one of us what we are doing with what we already have.

Well, who asked Jesus anyway?!     

AMEN

Prayer

The Doorway into Thanks

Luke 11:1-13

(Gary W. Charles, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, 7-24-2016)

I have been praying a lot lately. Praying for you and for me as we begin this new journey together. Praying for loved ones that Jennell and I left behind in Atlanta, including our two children. Praying for civility and truth-telling to find a prominent place in public debate. Praying for so many of my friends who keep being reminded, and far too often, that black lives matter little. Praying for law enforcement officers caught in the deadly social crossfire of violence gone wild. Praying for a large percentage of people today who see God as nothing more than an artifact of days gone by, see Jesus as nothing more than just another good guy who died too young, and see the Holy Spirit as nothing more than silly church hocus pocus.

I have been praying a lot lately. I have always wished that my prayers were more eloquent. While a student at Union, I would rush to my Hebrew class, not so much because I loved Hebrew, but because of the prayers that Sib Towner would pray at the start of each class. The eloquence of his prayers would move my soul for hours and I always left class wishing, “How I wish I could pray like Dr. Towner.”

Eloquent or not, I have been praying a lot lately. It is not that praying is new to me. I grew up in a family that prayed daily, but our family prayers were largely Prayer 101. We prayed at the dinner table every night, but never at breakfast and never at lunch. I still am not quite sure why. My late brother, Dale, and I were instructed to pray at bedtime, but those instructions were often ignored, especially as we approached our teen years. As I finished Seminary, I still did not pray as eloquently as I wished, but I knew much more about prayer. At least, I thought I did. Then, I entered the church and I realized that I had a lifetime of learning left about prayer.

I wonder in today’s text if the disciples of Jesus ask him such an odd question because he made them realize whole new dimensions to prayer. After all, why would these disciples who had prayed several times a day, every day, all their lives, ask Jesus:  “Lord, teach us how to pray.” Surely their request was more than about technique:  “Do we stand to pray or kneel or sit with our eyes closed?” “Is it best to craft long, eloquent prayers or to sit for extended periods in silent prayer?” Maybe the disciples saw something in the quality of Jesus’ prayer life that made them want to learn more about this mysterious human act, an act that, for them, had long since lost any mystery.

When I announced that I was leaving Central Presbyterian in Atlanta to accept the call from Cove, the best advice I was given was by a relatively new member. He encouraged me to spend my remaining time at Central not making sure every detail was in place prior to my departure. Instead, he encouraged me to spend this leaving time in giving thanks.

It was soon after his sage advice that I came upon these wise words from the marvelous poet, Mary Oliver in her book, Thirst:

“Praying
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”

Mary Oliver had to be reading my mind when she wrote these words, because

ever since my Hebrew class, too often prayer has been some kind of spiritual contest to offer the most eloquent prayers. I love it when she says about our prayers, “patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks.” 

I wonder if the disciples asked what they asked because they noticed that for

Jesus, prayer was always “the doorway into thanks.” Jesus tells his friends that prayer is not primarily utilitarian as are most of my prayers: “God, help me with this.” “God, we could sure use some of that.” “God, give us direction, give us a sign.” These utilitarian prayers are perfectly fine prayers, natural prayers, and are even a part of how Jesus teaches his disciples to pray:  “Give us this day our daily bread.” The front door into prayer though, says Jesus, is through “the doorway into thanks.”

When you pray, says Jesus, pray: “hallowed be thy name,” “thy kingdom come,” “thy will be done.” In other words, prayer is fundamentally not about us; it is about getting in sync with the One who cares for every last DNA strand of our being, for every blade of grass, for every creature that swims the seas, dances on the earth, and soars through the sky, and especially for those who are unnoticed and excluded and ridiculed just for who they are. In those moments when we find ourselves in sync with God and in step with Jesus, we find ourselves walking gladly through “the doorway into thanks.”

I have walked through “the doorway into thanks” almost every day since that April Sunday when you voted to call me to be your pastor. I have crossed that mysterious threshold giving thanks to God for Fran and Will, Beth Neville and Renee and Susan. Even before a call had been extended, I gave thanks to God for Jane and Greg, old friends, who helped me imagine myself as your pastor. I gave thanks for Josh who went out of his way to make sure that Cove never experienced anything but fine pastoral care and inspiring worship.

In a troubled world and when our lives are troubled, it is tempting to fast forward in our prayers, skipping over thanksgiving on our way to more pressing, utilitarian prayers. To quote Jesus, “lead us not into temptation.” Instead, may God give us wisdom to follow Jesus through “the doorway into thanks.” When we do, we cross over first into a silence in which “another voice may speak.” When our thanks is coupled with silence to listen for the voice of God, prayer becomes something more than a helpful habit of the faithful; it becomes the very doorway into life.

So, this is where I need you to help me finish this sermon. Some of us have been taught since childhood not to talk in church. Today, let’s set that custom aside and instead walk together through “the doorway into thanks.” First, I invite us to sit in silence so “another voice may speak.” Then, I invite us to offer our prayers of thanksgiving, followed by prayers asking God to intercede for others and then we will offer own prayers of petition to God.

So, let us together walk through the doorway into thanks as we come before God in a time of silent prayer . . .

O God, I give thanks for this call to serve as pastor of Cove Presbyterian Church, for the trust and confidence of the people of Cove, for my family that makes my ministry possible, and for those congregations over the years, to which you entrusted to my care.

Friends at Cove, as we walk through the divine doorway into thanks, for whom and for what do you give thanks . . .

Friends at Cove, for whom and for what concerns do we ask God to intercede today . . .

          Friends at Cove, what are your own petitions that you would bring before God this morning . . .

Risk

New Testament: Luke 9:18-27, 51
Old Testament: Esther 4

Before we read the passage from Esther, let me give you a little background to the story, because we’ll be jumping into the middle. First, some history: you might remember that Israel was conquered by Babylon and many of the Jews were forced into exile. About 40 years later, the Persians conquered Babylon and some of the Jews returned to rebuild their homeland, while others remained spread throughout the newly-Persian empire.

The book of Esther is set in Persia, with those who remained, about 50 to 75 years later, when the Jews have developed an identity as a “holy people centered around a holy book” – rather than a holy land. The Jewish main characters in this story – Esther, an orphan, and Mordecai, the uncle who raised her – belong to “a people out of place, a people away from their ancestral home, a people scattered, looking for something that would give hope.” [1]

The story begins with the Persian king, Ahasuerus, who, at the end of a weeklong banquet displaying his wealth and power, calls for his Queen, Vashti, to come entertain his buddies. Knowing her husband (and his taste for wine) she refuses. The king’s men suggest that, if word of this gets out to the other women in Persia, they might have a feminist uprising on their hands. What if all the women start disobeying their husbands? Obviously, Vashti has got to go.

But soon enough, the king gets lonely, and decides he’ll have a yearlong national search for the most beautiful young woman to be his wife. It’s kind of a cross between “The Bachelor” and “America’s Next Top Model.” This is where Esther comes in. Mordecai gets her into the competition, but makes her swear she won’t reveal she’s Jewish. Her religious background would, in all likelihood, disqualify her.

During the year of preparation, Mordecai spent most days in the courtyard of the king, keeping his ears open to learn how his niece was doing, and sending messages to her when he could.

Finally, it was time for Esther to meet the king. “When she was taken to King Ahasuerus in his royal palace,” the story says, “he loved her more than all the other women; of all the young women she won his favor and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great banquet to all his officials and ministers—‘Esther’s banquet.’ He also granted a holiday to the provinces, and gave gifts with royal liberality.”

For some time, Esther lived “happily ever after” in the court of the king. Mordecai continued to hang around the courtyard to keep tabs on her. Unfortunately, one day, King Ahasuerus’ right-hand-man Haman commanded Mordecai to bow to him. As a Jew, Mordecai refused to bow to any human authority. This incensed Haman, who was a megalomaniac, and felt that it wouldn’t be enough to punish just one man – he wanted to punish every single Jew in the land. Haman went to the king saying, “There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their destruction.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, the king was very easily manipulated, and he gave in to Haman’s demands. Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, giving orders to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day: the thirteenth day of the month of Adar.

Mordecai stumbled upon a copy of this decree, and that’s where our reading begins.

Esther 4

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, [he] tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; ²he went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.³In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

4 When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them. ⁵Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why. ⁶Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, ⁷and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people.

9 Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. ¹⁰Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, ¹¹‘All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden sceptre to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.’¹²When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, ¹³Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.’ ¹⁵Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶‘Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.’ ¹⁷Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

At the point Mordecai brings Esther news of this plan to exterminate the Jews, it’s hard to really imagine how much has changed for her. She grew up as an orphan living in a minority culture; now she is the queen, living a life of comfort, luxury, and safety. And then she discovers her people are in danger. In order to help them, she knows she may very well have to give up everything.

“If I perish, I perish.” These are words of extreme bravery from a woman who is probably not even twenty years old. Esther knows that what she’s being asked to do – disobey the king’s command – is exactly what got Queen Vashti deposed in the first place. There is danger to her just in approaching the king, let alone revealing she is a Jew. No one knows exactly what the king will do – he’s unpredictable and prone to drinking – but a smart person could guess.

A smart person could also guess what would happen to Jesus if he entered Jerusalem. I wonder if he was thinking of Esther when he “set his face” toward that city as he does at the end of our gospel lesson for today. Jesus was, of course, a faithful Jew. From other gospel stories we know that he was familiar with the Hebrew Bible – he mentions the stories of Jonah and the Queen of Sheba, he interprets the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue, he quotes the Psalms from the cross. So it makes sense for him to know Esther’s story.

It makes sense for him to know that the Jewish leaders were upset with him for the things he’d been saying: he critiqued their hypocrisy, their lack of compassion toward the needy, their greed, and their lack of humility.[2] He also ate with tax collectors, claimed to forgive sinners, and didn’t exactly follow the rules for fasting and Sabbath-keeping.[3]

It makes sense for him to know that the Roman authorities would’ve wanted him dead. They saw him as seditious, as challenging the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. The historian Reza Aslan puts it clearly: “Crucifixion was … a symbol of what happens when you defy the will of Rome. [It was] a punishment reserved … solely for the most extreme crimes, crimes against the state.”[4]

And so, as he set his eyes toward Jerusalem and toward what was likely to be his doom, I wonder if the words of a young woman trying to save her people echoed in his memory: “v’c’asher avdoti avdoti” – “If I perish, I perish.”

"Queen Esther" by Edwin Long (1879)

Esther’s bravery is astounding. To get a sense of the danger she faced by approaching the king, imagine a teenage, Muslim, Syrian refugee jumping the White House fence to get President Obama’s attention. Esther did this because she recognized a call. But a call from whom?

I wonder if you’ve noticed the one person – the one entity – that I haven’t yet mentioned in Esther’s story (or in this sermon): God! Actually, God is never mentioned in the entire book of Esther – nor is prayer. This is a big part of the reason why the book was almost excluded from both the Jewish and Christian canons – and why Esther is the perfect role model for those of us in 21^st century America who are trying to hear God’s call.

Moses had a burning bush from which he heard God’s voice saying, “Bring my people out of Egypt!” Isaiah had a vision of heaven and the Lord seated on the throne, saying, “Whom shall I send?” Mary had the angel saying, “You have found favor with God!” Paul had a blinding light and a voice asking, “Why do you persecute me?”

Esther didn’t have any of that. There were no miracles, no divine appearances, no booming voices from heaven for her. Just her uncle, and a piece of paper spelling doom for her people.

And the thing that burned was her conscience.

If I had to guess, I’d say most of the people in this room experience God’s call in a similar way. If you’ve recently gotten magical instructions on how to build an ark, PLEASE let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to assume you’re struggling like me to understand what God wants us to do.

This church is at a turning point. You’ve discerned God’s call to bring a full-time minister for the first time in recent memory. Not only that, but you’ve called a pastor with more than 30 years of experience in ministry and a heart for social justice! Gary will help you as you seek to discern what God is calling this church to be – but it won’t be without risk.

Of course, there’s the financial risk. A full-time salary means an increased budget. An increased budget requires more generosity. Can you make this community your number one giving priority?

There’s also the risk to your comfort level. Growth means change, and change is hard. What if more young families start coming? What if their kids make noise? What if we need more volunteers to teach Sunday school? What if worship begins to look different? What if the people in worship look different?

And finally, there’s the risk to your lives. When we listen for God’s call, we can find it changing us in so many ways. It takes us places we never would’ve gone on our own; it makes us reorder our priorities; it introduces us to people we never would’ve met; it changes the way we see the world; it reshapes our lives.

And if we perish, we perish.

But read the rest of Esther’s story – she didn’t perish!

Remember Jesus’ story – even death could not stop him.

Look at your own story – God’s not done with you yet.

So let’s go to the king. Let’s set our faces toward Jerusalem. Let’s risk everything, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus!

And who knows? Perhaps we have all come here for just such a time as this.

Amen.

---

[1] “I Love to Tell the Story” podcast for November 30, 2014. www.workingpreacher.org/narrative_podcast.aspx?podcast_id=562

[2] Hypocrisy – 11:39, 42; Compassion – 11:43, 14:7; Greed – 16:14; Humility – 10:29.

[3] Tax collectors – 5:30, 7:34, 15:1-2; Forgiveness – 5:21; Fasting – 5:33; Sabbath – 6:7, 14:1, 3.

[4] Reza Aslan, Fresh Air interview, July 15, 2013.
www.npr.org/2013/07/15/198040928/christ-in-context-zealot-explores-the-life-of-jesus

Sharing Our Faith: Kristin Dinwiddie

Letters in the Sand – Letras en la arena

The buckets need to be filled.

The wheel barrows need to be dumped.

The blocks need to be stacked.

The mezcla needs to be mixed.

The walls need to go up.

And here I sit . . . on the dusty arid land, being careful to avoid the bits of thrown away “stuffs” of others.

Across from me, sits a lovely wide-eyed 6 year old with a smile that never ceases.  We sit just outside of the ring of organized chaos that is building a home for his aunt, uncle, and two cousins.  But we could just as easily be miles away, as we are so intent on what we are doing, we cannot be distracted.

Even though neither of us speaks the other’s language, we understand each other.

He brought to our little party what looked like a wooden chair spindle that he had found sticking out of a concrete block.  I show him how to write in the arena with the ‘pencil’.  I write out the letters of my name one at a time, K-r-i-s-t-i-n, as he attempts to sound them out.  He then takes his turn with our shared pencil and writes the letters of his name, upside down, so they are right reading to me, A-l-e-x-i-s, with a precision and accuracy that I have never mastered.

I had taken a respite from the filling and dumping and stacking and mixing to draw letters in the sand.

We adjourn our meeting in the sand and reconvene in the 2 square feet of shade along the concrete block wall.  I removed my earrings as Alexis watched.  He moved his face within inches of mine.  He stood perfectly still, while staring at my ears.  I had no idea what he was doing or thinking.  He finally broke his gaze and walked over toward his abuela.  He returned with a small metal tin, which I thought he found in one of the many trash piles around, and handed it to me.  I wasn’t able to remove the lid so he returned to his grandmother for her assistance.  He walked back to me with the seriousness of someone much older.  He then very deliberately took a small fingerful of the salve contained in the tin and smoothed it on each of the holes in my earlobes with the gentleness of butterfly wings.  He cared for me.

What a gift I had received for just taking time to write letters in the sand.

Now I am home and day-in and day-out . . .

The clothes need to be washed.

The rugs need to be vacuumed.

The meals need to be cooked.

Although the filling, dumping, stacking, mixing, washing, vacuuming, and cooking are so very important, it is the connecting with each other that rewards the soul beyond measure.

I hope I can remember to take a moment every now and then to again draw letters in the sand. 

Hunger

Old Testament: Deuteronomy 8:1-4

New Testament: Luke 22:7-23

People don’t live by bread alone.

There’s another kind of hunger – the hunger to connect – that pop culture explores with differing visions of a future apocalypse in which a few human survivors battle – you guessed it – zombies. “The Walking Dead” is one of the most-watched shows on television today, and it’s based on a very popular series of graphic novels. A Wikipedia list of zombie movies[1] shows countless films dating back to 1932, including several from the “Night of the Living Dead” and “Resident Evil” series, as well as “Abraham Lincoln versus Zombies,” “Ninja Zombies,” and one with the imaginative title, “Zombies, Zombies, Zombies!”

It seems our culture is experiencing a bit of an obsession with the undead these days. For example, everyone knows that, whether they are lightening fast or shamblingly slow, and whether they were created by a space invaders, ancient curse, or global pandemic, zombies are killing machines that feast on the living. They wander the earth, motivated only by a desire to eat, and to do so mindlessly.

At least, that’s what I thought until I saw the movie “Warm Bodies,” which came out a couple years ago. It’s the first movie I’ve seen that tells its story from the zombie’s point of view, through the eyes of its main character, R.

“I am dead,” he narrates at the outset, “But it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it.” He is part of a group of zombies that have gathered in an airport and spend their days wandering from one terminal to the next, biding their time between hunting trips to the nearby city. R has a friend named M, and they have conversations that consist mainly of groans and awkward stares, infrequently punctuated by a question: “Hungry?”

R wishes he could speak more clearly. He wants to express the thoughts trapped within him. “In my mind I am eloquent,” he explains. “I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses. … it [makes] me sad that we've forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to me the most tragic. I miss my own and I mourn for everyone else's, because I'd like to love them, but I don't know who they are.”[2] This was not the mindless zombie I was prepared to see. This was a creature stuck in a meaningless life – or at least a meaningless “un-death” – motivated by hunger, yes, but moreso by the desperate desire to connect.

R is not unlike us in that way, we who hunger and thirst all too often for fame and glory and power; we who spend so much time glued to email and Facebook and iPods that we can easily forget the world – and people – around us. And yet there is someone reaching out to us, trying to get our attention, straining to help us experience a moment of grace in which we are filled by more than just bread alone.

Grace comes to R when he least expects it: in the middle of a feeding frenzy when he and his friends come upon an unsuspecting group of survivors. It’s there that his eyes fall upon a woman named Julie, and he suddenly feels something. The feeling stops him in his tracks, and he chooses to save her, rather than eat her, taking her back to the airport and protecting her from the other zombies. Over time, they come to trust one another, and R feels life – real life, not undeath – begin to return to him. Amazingly, his closest friends begin to experience the same thing.

Their hunger fades away as they discover that zombies do not live by brains alone. The color returns to their faces, they regain their vocabulary, their wounds begin to heal. The phenomenon spreads from zombie to zombie, and R realizes that, with the help of his friends – and Julie’s love – he may have discovered a way to heal the world.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, or what will happen when it’s done,” he says, “but at the very bottom of this rising siege ladder, at least I know … I’m not going to say good-bye [to Julie]. And if these staggering refugees want to help, if they think they see something bigger here than a boy chasing a girl, then they can help, and we’ll see what happens when we say yes while this rigor mortis world screams no.”[3]

I think there is something bigger to this story than a boy chasing a girl. Sometimes this does seem like a rigor mortis world. The news brings us daily reports of terrorist attacks, economic injustices, mass shootings – human frailty on an epic scale. One thing that makes Presbyterian worship services unique is that we always have a time for confession, because we recognize that our sin has reached epidemic proportions.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah says, “All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,” and in the New Testament, Paul says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”[4] It can be hard to see the light, to make our way in all this darkness, to reach out and connect with God and with one another. One of the ways we fall short of God’s glory is by separating ourselves from each other.

At General Assembly this year, I was honored to vote in favor of adding the Belhar Confession to our Book of Confessions – the collection of documents that help guide us in our faith. This is the first document in that collection that comes from the Global South – it was written in South Africa, in the middle of apartheid.

It begins with a powerful witness to our continuing conviction that unity is central to our life together: “We believe in one holy, universal Christian church, the communion of saints called from the entire human family.” It goes on to affirm that Christian “unity must become visible so that the world may believe that separation, enmity, and hatred between people and groups is sin which Christ has already conquered, and accordingly that anything which threatens this unity may have no place in the church and must be resisted.”

We must resist the temptation to break away from others who look, act, or think differently than we do. We were created to be in relationship with all kinds of people, so that we could hear all kinds of voices, and thus, hear God’s voice more clearly. When we cut ourselves off from others, we cut ourselves off from God, and we start to get hungry. Because people don’t live by bread alone.

Jesus understood that kind of hunger – understood how people can starve to death – spiritually – and I think that’s why he decided that the last thing he’d do with his disciples was share a meal with them. He gathered them all together to eat the Passover meal – but he changed things a little. As he gave out the bread, he said, “This is my body.” And he blessed it and broke it. He told them that, every time they ate bread, they should remember God and remember how God feeds people. God feeds people by giving them food to eat, like in the scripture from Deuteronomy, and by giving them spiritual food – like Jesus’ teaching and presence and love.

We’re about to celebrate communion together, which means we’ll eat small pieces of bread to remind us of the ways God has fed us – the ways God is feeding us right now, in this place, in this act of worship together. Jesus tells us: “Where two or three gather together in my name, I am there among them.”[5]

Friends, we are gathered in Christ’s name. He is here among us – among us who sometimes feel like “The Walking Dead” – who are wounded, scarred, not sure we can go on. And in the midst of all this, he gives us his very self as food for the journey. In this rigor mortis world, let us dare to truly LIVE! In the midst of our fractured humanity, let us dare to connect. In the face of ravenous hunger, let us come to the table and be fed. This invitation is extended to all:

Those who have much faith and those who have little;

those who have been here often, and those who have not been for a long time;
those who have tried to follow and those who have failed.

Come, not because I invite you: it is the Lord.
And all who hunger can meet God here.

Amen.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

[2] Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies. New York: Simon & Schuster, pps. 10, 4

[3] Warm Bodies, p. 106

[4] Isaiah 53:6, Romans 3:23
[5] Matthew 18:20