From the Daily Lectionary for Monday in the Fourth Week after Pentecost
Matthew 19:13-22
Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.
Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Lutheran theologian Warren Carter has written an insightful book on the Gospel of Matthew. It is entitled Matthew and the Margins. Carter traces the call of the disciples from an orientation of self-serving enlightenment, that is to say, personal salvation, to an orientation of profound empathy… It is a progression from love of self to love of one’s neighbor. The insight has to do with the question, “who is our neighbor?” Matthew is crystal clear on this point. Our neighbor, according to the teachings of Jesus, are the poor, the prisoner, the sick, the marginalized, the voiceless, the vulnerable among us, even our enemies. Matthew uses again, for the third time in his narrative, the image of the child as his example, they being the least among us. The child was expendable in the ancient world. It is for the expendables that Jesus gave his life. “It is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”
To put it in our contemporary parlance: Black lives matter; poor lives matter; prisoners’ lives matter; sick lives matter… you get the point. God’s passion is for the beaten-down of our world because God is a God of community, and the human community in which God chooses to live is lacking, less than whole without the least of us being raised up to well-being and dignity. The suffering of Jesus on the cross is a symbol of God’s profound empathy and solidarity with the victimized of our world.
This reorientation was a profound stretch for the would-be disciples; and it is no doubt a stretch for us. Jesus advises a young man in his audience how this reorientation might be achieved: “Go, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor.” And we are told the young man leaves grieving.
Matthew’s point is that this radical reorientation demands our detachment from the things that we are taught will make us happy: Family, material possessions, even our very lives. The stakes are so very high that we must “love less” our wants and needs in deference to the cause of God, which is to restore and renew the world into the likeness of heaven, in which all people have a place at the table, in which all people are honored as bearers of God’s image.
Surely we have learned by now that what the culture teaches us about what will make us happy is an illusion. True happiness is to be about the cause of God, to be about the truth… and the truth is freedom for ourselves and for our neighbor who struggles without it. To be sure, this is hard and rigorous work, the road less traveled, but we are not alone. We have allies, committed souls of conscience and like mind. Ironically (and God shows up in irony), there is no grief in following the way of Jesus, only glorious possibility.
A Prayer for the Oppressed (BCP p. 826)
Look with pity, O God, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
