Tag Archives: Jeremiah 29

Between the Mountaintop and the Promised Land

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Movies, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion

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IMG_2820One of my favorite genre of movies and literature involves dystopian communities or worlds.  Wikipedia defines dystopia as

“a community or society that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia. Such societies appear in many artistic works, particularly in stories set in a future. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many sub-genres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science, and/or technology, which if unaddressed could potentially lead to such a dystopia-like condition.”

I personally love to watch them because, for me, they are a filter, a pair of special lenses which allows all of us to see the gaps in our world.  Dystopian movies are creepy yet challenging.  They force me to analyze where my social status would be in their world and how I can bridge the gaps of injustices.

Last week, I watched the dystopian movie Elysium.  Throughout the story, there are two distinct living places – earth and an orbiting home in space called Elysium.  For those who can afford it, Elysium is a place where the rich live far away from the poor, a place where any disease and most injuries can be healed by a machine.  The humans on earth struggle to stay healthy, and they do not have access to such machines.  The people and corporations on Elysium use the much poorer people on Elysium to make a profit.  The people on earth are kept in check and even treated in a much harsher justice system than on Elysium.

As I watched the movie Elysium I wondered: Would I be on Elysium or on earth?  What would happen if everyone on earth had the same privileges as the humans on Elysium?  What would happen if people on our earth had the same basic privileges?

Another dystopian tale is The Hunger Games trilogy, and some of us went to see The Hunger Games:Catching Fire film in December.  In this story, their country is divided into 12 districts plus the capitol.  The people who live in the Capitol are not required to enter the games; however, the games are entertainment for them.  They live in excess with flowing food, entertainment and drink.  Their clothing and makeup style is surreal while those in the districts live in poverty and must fight to stay alive.

The Hunger Games makes me wonder: Which district would I live in, or would I live in the Capitol?  What would happen if everyone in the districts earth had the same privileges as the humans at the Capitol?

In our society, we think we’re so far ahead of the curve but there are so many “isms” like racism and sexism that keep the playing field far from equal.  I’m still getting to know the racial climate of Cincinnati, so I’m going to speak to my experience in St. Louis.  The areas of north city and north county are predominantly African American while the areas of south county and west county are predominantly white with west county being wealthy white people.  White flight still happens.  People fear when others of another color move into their neighborhood.  Instead of getting to know their neighbors, they only see color.

East St. Louis, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, was known for the white flight back in the 60’s and 70’s.  When I’ve driven through parts of East St. Louis in the past few years, it feels like it’s another country – one ravished by war and poverty.

Furthermore, my friends at Eden Seminary felt uncomfortable going off of campus as people of color were often pulled over in Webster Groves.  Even Webster Groves had unofficial segregation: a predominantly white area and predominantly African American area.  As I am white, segregation and discrimination wasn’t something that I experienced, so all seemed fine from my position.  By my seminary friends sharing their experiences and their fears of simply stepping off campus, my eyes opened to the area’s dreadful reality.

As this is the remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, opportunities open up for us to reflect on racial justice issues.  I know this time of year gives me pause to ask myself how I could better stand up against unjust systems.  While I may not be intentionally a racist, I must still ask in what ways do my thoughts and life choices hurt people who are racial and ethnic minorities?  Are there things I could do to stand up against these unfair systems?  How are my sins of neglect and indifference hurting my neighbor with less privilege and the Body of Christ?

I thank God that in every generation, we have people who are willing to be prophets, to teach us how to better treat our neighbors.  They are willing to stand up to the unjust systems even to the point of death.  Of course, we have Jesus the Christ, the one who taught us how to love one another, how to risk when our surroundings are full of injustice and how to give dignity to the expendables in our society.

The prophets of the Hebrew Bible stood up for the poor, widows, orphans and aliens.  Throughout time, we’ve had people risk life and reputation to stand up for what they believe.  Recently, these modern prophets include Mahatma Ghandi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. whose birthday we celebrate this weekend.

Granted, because of the leadership by people like Martin Luther King, Jr., official segregation washed away with the Civil Rights Act.  Separate water fountains and restaurant counters ceased.  Schools were integrated.

But there’s still unofficial segregation as we see when areas are predominantly inhabited by one color or another, or when the poor must choose between medication and food or when women make nearly 30% less than men when working, segregation still happens.

Yet the story is not over.  There is still hope, a hope that Jesus saw in his lifetime and a hope that King preached about right before he died.  King closes his final sermon by saying the following:

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 34 is the text in which King’s speech is referring.  The day before he is assassinated, King gives this speech in support of sanitation workers who were striking in Memphis.  The end of the speech is haunting.  King is resonating with Moses at the end of Moses’ life.  Moses never makes it to the promised land, much like King

Instead, it’s Joshua who leads them to the promised land.

Just as King was like Moses, are we called to be like Joshua – leading people to the promised land?  Are we the ones called to be a true prophet and risk our lives to make sure all in our society have equality and dignity?

When I was thinking of a title, I originally decided to go with “Still on the Mountaintop.”  But I was wrong.  We’re so much farther than the mountaintop.  We’re miles past the mountaintop.  But we still have a ways to go to see a true new heaven and new earth, an actual promised land.  And when people will stop being abused or murdered because of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation, then we’ve gotten to the promise land.  We will have created the Kingdom of God of which Jesus often spoke.

Let’s learn from our history – whether it’s the history of this country or the history of humanity.  Let’s even learn from these crazy fictional dystopian stories by realizing that some people will always try to suppress the rights of others.  Humans often feel like someone needs to lose in order for them to succeed.  Maybe if we try to help all people succeed we will find our own success.  As it says in Jeremiah 29:7 “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

That’s the type of vision King had for us and that’s the type of vision Jesus had for all of God’s children.  There are no segregated neighborhoods.  People aren’t arrested or pulled over based on the color of their skin.

So here’s our challenge today – working together to usher in the new heaven and new earth that’s mentioned in Revelation 21.   We are called to usher in the promised land where all live together in love.  Let us seek the welfare for all of the Body of Christ.

Can you see this promised land?  We’re so close now… Close your eyes and listen to the Spirit of God inside of you… you will find it.

Sermon: Living in the Scarcity Mindset

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Religion

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This sermon was delivered on August 4, 2013 at St. Paul United Church of Christ, Old Blue Rock Road, Cincinnati.

A study was reported this week that 30 percent of mothers have struggled to purchase diapers for their children.  That’s one-third of the mothers in our country.  Instead, she will sometimes reuse a diaper, causing health and developmental issues for the child and extra stresses upon herself. If a woman makes minimum wage, she’s spending six percent of her pay on diapers alone.

Some may suggest cloth diapers.  But many of these women don’t have washers and driers in their household.  Many have to travel to laundromats to wash their clothes.  Travel is time-consuming and costly.

If this mom is on minimum wage, she would need to work about 87-88 hours per week in order to live.  Many people who work hard on minimum wage still need government assistance.

We all hope in the American dream – that ambitious people will climb from poverty to money.  Unfortunately, this is becoming more rare.  Through personal experience, I see how people with money socialize very little with people in poverty.  Imagine a black tie event, or a golf fundraiser.  Each entry is $1000 dollars.  At this event, wealthy people network with other wealthy people giving them more opportunities to make more money, leaving middle class folks like most of us or people in poverty to rarely associate with people of power.

Sure, some believe that people need the incentive to make more money, something that will drive them to be ambitious.  I believe that seeing a CEO making ten times as much money would make people be more ambitious.  Twenty five times as much money would drive people.  Do CEOs need to make a full 273 times the amount of the average worker?  In the booming 60’s, the average CEO made 20 times that of the average worker.  Twenty times seems relatively fair – enough that would drive people to work for more.  But before the recession hit, the ratio for CEO to average worker pay was over 350 times to one.  The person at the top of the pyramid was so heavy with wealth that the rest of the pyramid crashed.

And no matter how much someone makes, whether it’s the CEO or the entry level employee, there is never enough money in each of our lives.  Rich people are afraid they won’t have enough with billions of dollars, just like those in poverty also don’t feel like they have enough, except that the person in poverty struggles each day to keep their head above water.

This isn’t to discourage the average worker from negotiating more from his or her workplace.  Everyone deserves to be paid fairly.  But at what point does the plentitude need to begin to drip a little more from the people in the top tier of workplaces and society to those at the bottom of the pay rungs?  When are they holding back their extreme abundance when the rest of our society struggles?

Jesus knew how to tell a good story to help the rest of us humans see the world in a very different light.  A good portion of what Jesus spoke about in many of his sayings and parables happen to be about loving our neighbor and taking care of the poor.

Extravagant profit seems to be the bottom line when it comes to the rich man in the parable.  Not only does he have enough, he uses his resources to pay for barns to be torn down and new ones to be built just so he can continue to hoard.  This is more than he could ever to expect to use himself, and affluence actually leads him to being lazier in his life.  Remember the saying “the one who dies with the most toys win?”  Well, the man in the parable believed this, except that God calls him out on being a fool.   For God, being rich means extravagantly loving God and loving one’s neighbor.

The lectionary text stops at verse 21 after the parable, but I thought the context of the larger chapter is important to this story and expanded today’s reading.  Jesus then tells his disciples “Do not worry about your life.”  He’s telling them to drop this fear of scarcity of material goods.  There are so many other issues on which to spend our energy.

But maybe we worry because we know we’re living under a system that not everyone is treated fairly and a serious lack of balance.  Maybe we act out of fear that we’ll be living in poverty at some point as well.

Of course, there are many CEOs, business owners, corporations and small businesses with much integrity – who are trying to use their wealth and power to build our societies and humanity.  Unfortunately, we hear much more about corporate greed which is still a huge part of our picture.  In his book The Powers that Be, theologian Walter Wink writes the following:

“According to eighteenth century philosopher of capitalism Adam Smith, businesses exist to serve the general welfare.  Profit is the means, not the end.  It is the reward a business receives for serving the general welfare.  When a business fails to serve the general welfare, Smith insisted, it forfeits its rights to exist.  It is part of the church’s task to remind corporations and businesses that profit is not the ‘bottom line,’ that as creatures of God they have as their divine vocation the achievement of human well-being (Eph 3:10).  They do not exist for themselves.  They were bought with a price (Col. 1:20).  They belong to the God who ordains sufficiency for all.”

Taking care of those in all parts of our society is part of our job as people of God and has been part of humanity’s call since the Old Testament.  Jeremiah 29:7 says “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  When we can keep in mind the success of the whole and of the many, not just the few, our foundation is stronger, and our communities can succeed greater.

For the record, I don’t have a problem with capitalism as long as everyone has a chance to succeed.  But even the best systems, theories and programs have faults.  Like Walter Wink says, “the Powers are good, the Powers are fallen, the Powers need to be redeemed.”  Our system of economics is sorely missing something right now, especially because people who work still need government assistance.  There is seriously something out of balance.  And as a follower of Jesus the Christ and as someone called to be both pastoral and prophetic, I would be failing my call if I didn’t preach on ways to make sure “the least of these” are taken care of.

Like the goods in the barns from today’s parable, the plenitude is not flowing from the rich.  When 30 percent of mothers can’t afford diapers, and people working for minimum wage need to work over 80 hours of week to live when people are making 270 times that amount, it is a conversation that we, as Christians, need to have.  And I know that there are a wide range of perspectives on this issue in this congregation.  Where do we start the conversation?  Where do we start reflecting?

Many of us live in this mindset of scarcity.  This mentality makes us stay silent and frightened.  And today’s text is telling us to go against this nature of worry-only-about-our-selves, to step outside of the scarcity mindset.

When we make decisions about our lives, do we listen for God or do we look at the amount in our bank accounts?  Do we hold back in fear of scarcity or do we spring forward in love and abundance?

Let’s move it another step further – What is God calling us to do as a congregation?  Are we using the earplugs of fear to mute the call of God?  Do we follow God’s call with trust that God will provide time, talent and treasure?

Where do we have abundance?  Maybe we don’t have a large congregation, but God has blessed us with a building.  How is God calling us to use this building to build God’s kingdom?

Too often, we support systems that promote the rich man in Jesus’ parable.  Have we let companies with unfair labor practices know that they are hurting the entire of humanity?  Do we let our pocketbooks decide who has the better labor practice – by spending our money at local businesses that take care of their employees?  If we don’t use our voices, are we are no better off than the rich man in Jesus’ parable?

As we go forward wondering what God’s visions for our world, our community and our church are, we must be willing to stand in faith.  We must be willing to risk, to allow our treasures to be used to grow, to allow our building to be used for the good of our community.  We must be willing to stand against systems where hard working people can’t afford diapers, toiletries, shelter and food.  For when we advocate for the well-being of all, we will find our well-being.