Recognize! Pay Attention!

The Posada tradition is well known throughout Mexico and the southwest of the United States. "Posada" literally means "lodging" or "inn." Traditionally, it was practice for nine days, starting on December 16 and ending on the 24th. They are full of joy, celebration, food, and emotion.

There is music to sing in the Posada, that marks the journey of Joseph and Mary from house to house. There are people who sing in the outside, and people who sing in the inside. The last stanza from the people in the inside of the homes, recognize that the people looking for Posada, for lodging, are special people...

¿Eres tú José?

¿Tú esposa es María?

Entren peregrinos, 

no los conocía. 

"Are you really Joseph?
Is Mary your wife?
Enter holy pilgrims
I could not recognize."

Then, the outside people become inside people, and everyone gathers in the home to sing, to eat, and to celebrate. Then, the song changes...

Entren, santos peregrinos, peregrinos,

reciban este rincón,

no de la pobre morada, de morada,

sino de mi corazón.

Oh please enter, holy pilgrims, holy pilgrims,

please enjoy this corner here,

not of this, our humble dwelling, humble dwelling,

take my heart and enter in.

An article that has been shared a lot on Facebook states that Jesus was not born on a stable. It challenges the notion of the Posada, and of our traditional understanding of how Jesus was born. It was written by Ian Paul, an English theologian.  He says that there are three things that have emphasize the idea of a stable during the ages: issues of grammar and meaning; ignorance of first-century Palestinian culture; and traditional elaboration.

Beyond the issues of grammar and meaning, he mentions some interesting things:

"It would be unthinkable that Joseph, returning to his place of ancestral origins, would not have been received by family members, even if they were not close relatives. Even if he has never been there before he can appear suddenly at the home of a distant cousin, recite his genealogy, and he is among friends. Joseph had only to say, “I am Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Matthan, son of Eleazar, the son of Eliud,” and the immediate response must have been, “You are welcome. What can we do for you?”"

The homes, during that time in Bethlehem were different. The homes were very interesting. The stables were not outside, but inside the home. They had some guest rooms upstairs and the animals and the family usually stayed in the first floor. So even if Joseph’s family had no space in the guest room, they could have stayed with the family itself, in the main room of the house, and there Mary gives birth. The most natural place to lay the baby is in the straw-filled depressions at the lower end of the house where the animals are fed. 

What is the meaning of all of this for Ian Paul? He says that in the Christmas story, “Jesus is not sad and lonely, some distance away in the stable, needing our sympathy. He is in the midst of the family, and all the visiting relations, right in the thick of it and demanding our attention.”

He also states that Dick France thinks that “the problem with the stable is that it distances Jesus from the rest of us. It puts even his birth in a unique setting, in some ways as remote from life as if he had been born in Caesar’s Palace. The message of the incarnation is that Jesus is one of us. He came to be what we are, and it fits well with that theology that his birth in fact took place in a normal, crowded, warm, welcoming Palestinian home, just like many another Jewish boy of his time.”

He came and demands our attention. He came to be what we are. I like this idea of Jesus being born in a normal, crowded, warm and welcoming place. I don't think this fact takes away from the specialness of angels and shepherds in the Gospel of Luke. It is still God sending a great light for the people that were walking in darkness. He came to be what we are, do that we could learn to pay attention, to see his face in every face we see. 

Another piece of news that has been shared on the Internet (even newspapers in PR shared the story) is the event that happened in Jefferson Mall where a woman went off on two other women she assumed where Latinas because she thought one of them had cut in line. Beyond the profiling, prejudice and discrimination exhibited in the video, I thought about the context. This woman, an older person, shopping in the mall, probably tired from a busy day, very close to paying for her things, all of a sudden perceives that there are people cutting on the line. She probably feels that she has the right to complain about it. 

But here is the thing that should have demanded her attention and ours. Here is the moment of choice and decision. Here is where we all called to recognize a son or a daughter of God in others, and think about how to say things. About how to respect others as we want to be respected. How to treat others as we want to be treated. About how to recognize Jesus' face demanding our attention and expecting the welcoming and warmth that we would have like to see for the baby Jesus that we celebrate on Christmas day. 

Instead, she made a lot of assumptions: they do not speak English, they are on welfare, they are foreigners, they deserve to be judged and harassed. They are not deserving of respect, they are not deserving of grace, because they are infringing on my perceived right. 

What other things could she have done in that situation? 

Think about it, because part of our learning is thinking about other possibilities, where we don’t discriminate, where we think and connect with other realities, where we exercise empathy. 

Jesus probably was not born on a stable. He probably was born in a home, surrounded by distant relatives that helped Mary and Joseph. That saw the shepherds as they came in looking for the savior that was announced by angels. 

Then, our job as posaderos and posaderas, is to pay attention to Jesus, who is in our midst and to recognize that the people that we share our lives with, whether we know them or not, whether they speak the same language, or believe in the same things, are all distant relatives, are all connected, all are Jesus. We need to take part on the journey recognizing other sons and daughters of God, and treating them with respect and love, the same love that we celebrate tonight, because God gave God’s son, to be one of us. Let it be so. Amen. 

Would Jesus Use The Unfriend Button?

Reformation SundayLuke 19: 1-10

Remembering Desiderius Erasmus

The Presbyterian Historical Society invites congregations each Reformation Sunday to remember a person that was important to the Reformation movement. This year, they invited congregation to talk about a man by the name of Desiderius Erasmus. He was a Renaissance humanist, a Catholic reformer, and a Dutch educator. He published the Novum Instrumentum Omne: the first published version of the New Testament in Greek. 

We are told by history that something that was available to few people, now was available to many. He issued a second edition in 1519. This edition was used by Martin Luther to translate the NT to German in 1522. English language Bibles (Geneva, King James-1611) were also strongly influenced by Erasmus. He also influenced the Spanish language translation of the Bible by Casiodoro de Reina (a former Catholic monk and later an independent Lutheran theologian) and edited by Cipriano de Valera (Reina-Valera 1602). Therefore, it is said that the reformation of the church began with the reformation of the Bible. 

To me… what was behind these efforts to make the Bible accessible to all, was the knowledge that God’s word has the ability to make things new. This was a “radical inclusion” back then, because the Catholic Church, at that moment, had somehow excluded people from being able to experience the word without barriers of any kind. The reformers worked then to make the Bible available to those that wanted to study it, struggle with it and be transformed by it. It is a shame that their noble intent had to deal with human sinfulness… and that their struggle for inclusivity ended up in fighting and in “unsurmountable differences and exclusivity” that still hunt the Protestant church today. 

Regretfully, human beings have a hard time getting over that hump. We like to classify, separate, categorize, divide, grade, group, label, rate and sort without end… because we think it makes it easier to understand ourselves and the world around us… but sometimes I wonder if that is true… or if the measures we use for our categorizations are the right ones. 

Jesus’ lesson… Who is it for? Who are the lost?

The lesson on this Sunday has us speaking about a tax collector: Zacchaeus.  He is so famous that he even has a song! “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.” 

The classical approach to this parable is to think that Zaccheus is the object of salvation in this story. Zaccheus is a sinner, a wealthy tax collector, but he feels curious about Jesus. He climbs up a tree and Jesus sees him. Jesus, breaking all the rules of etiquette, invites himself to Zaccheus house. Zaccheus not only accepts, but freely offers to give half of his possessions to the poor. Jesus is seeking out and saving the lost… and Zaccheus is one of the lost, and so Jesus saves him. God calls us by name and offers us salvation… and we respond. We are changed. Even Calvin says that Zaccheus is “changed from a wolf not only into a sheep, but even into a shepherd” (Robert Leach FotW) Amen.

But… what if Jesus’ lesson is for someone else? What if this is not a story about Zaccheus per se… but about a challenging to the Jewish attitudes toward others, like the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee?

Some of the latest translations of the Bible to English and Spanish (Common English Bible and in Spanish the Reina Valera Actualizada) have an interesting take on the story… let’s look. All of the other versions state that the characters in this story are Jesus, Zaccheus and the crowd. All of them state that he was a ruler among tax collectors, and that he was rich and all of them lead us to assume that he was a wee little man, because he needed to climb up a tree to see Jesus. All of them have Jesus saying “Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today.” All of them state that Zaccheus was happy to welcome Jesus. This is when the third character in the story comes in. The crowd GRUMBLED when they heard the invitation! Jesus has gone to be the guest of a sinner! Not of a tax collector. Not of Zaccheus… of a sinner.

At this point is when the CEB and the RVA-2015 differ. Most of the other translations have Zaccheus responding to the crowd by saying to Jesus “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”  So Zaccheus is transformed! But… what if we change the tense of the verbs here like the newer translations do?  “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.” According to these versions… Zaccheus is already giving half of his possessions to the poor! If he cheats, he repays four time as much. If Zaccheus is not changed by Jesus’ visit, who is transformed in this story? Who is the lesson for? Who are the lost that the Human One has come to seek?

Jesus declares that Zaccheus is also a son of Abraham. This could be shocking to the crowd for two reasons: they consider he is a sinner, as they have made abundantly clear, and also it is believed that some tax collectors were foreigners. The thing here is that “Jesus is always welcoming the wrong people and confounding the good righteous people” (Laura S Sugg FotW). The crowd has classified, separated, categorized, divided, graded, grouped, labeled, rated and sorted Zaccheus. And Jesus is telling them that their measurements are wrong, that this man is also deserving of God’s love and grace. That maybe they are the ones that are lost and that he has come to seek them out. 

Would Jesus use the unfriend button?

And now, we come to the question that serves as our title for the sermon today… “Would Jesus use the unfriend button?” This came to me because I have seen a trend on Facebook of people inviting folks to unfriend them due to the political atmosphere that is part of the United States these days. That lead to a search on the Internet to answer the question. There seem to be two sides.

Jesus would use the unfriend button: This is not about politics. Is about being friends with someone who discriminates, is a racist, and tells lies. Not going to be friends with them. And...

Jesus would not use the unfriend button: Jesus says that you have to engage even those that are your enemies as Jesus himself did in Scripture. You must go beyond toleration. You must love them.

As I think about ways of moving forward after a contentious election cycle, I look to Jesus' actions. He did hang around with people that were rejected by his society. He denounced others that he was not in agreement with. But... he did not reject them. He answered all their questions. He kept conversations, even when they were tense, because it seems to me that he believed that it was through relationships that reconciliation and transformation were possible. Somehow I believe that Jesus would not use the unfriend button. He believed in radical inclusion, radical love, a radical kingdom. He proclaimed that Zaccheus was a son of God. And he declared this in front of the grumbling crowd, so that they could see his example, learn his lesson, and rejoice in being also children of God. We should rejoice in his friendship, love, and grace as well.  
  
Our musicians were invited to provide the music for a worship service that gathered Presbyterian leaders from all over the country. The last song of the worship service had this line:  “we learn, year by year, to let love shine through, until we see Christ in each person we meet.” This is my prayer for all of us. To learn the lesson of radical inclusivity. To let love shine through. To see each person we meet as a child of God. To make the word of God available to all... a word of love, grace and peace.