EZEKIEL
34:11-17
PSALM
95:1-7
1
CORINTHIANS 15:20-25
MATTHEW
25:31-46
Sermon
– November 20, 2005
With Charity and Justice for All
There’s an old saying that “liberals” love humanity …it’s people they
can’t stand.
And with “conservatives”…it’s the opposite.
There are indeed those who will give to all sorts of “causes” – as long
as they don’t have to come in personal contact with any poor people. And there are indeed others who will give
generously to an individual in need – but refuse to look at the broader
societal structures and forces which may have forced the person to seek
charity.
As Christians, I believe, we
don’t get to pick: we are commanded to love people and to care about humanity.
Humanity, after all, is simply the sum of all the individuals in the
world, while humanity can be represented by the one person to whom we are
called to respond in a particular moment.
Today’s biblical passages make these twin responsibilities inescapably
clear. Love for the individual neighbor
who is hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison is commanded by
our Lord Jesus Christ, who adds that “As you did it to one of the least of
these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Wow.
Speaking through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord God says “I will seek the
lost, I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will
strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy.” I wonder what the response to that last line
is today in Trinity Church, Wall Street – or in Washington, D.C. – or wherever
rich, strong people may gather. Then
the Lord God says, “I will feed them with justice.”
When you were in school – or if you’re in school now – did you ever wish
the teacher would just tell you a couple of the questions which would be on the
final exam?
Well, here in these scriptures, we have been given two of the questions
which will be on our personal final exams, and on the finals for our
church, for our nation, and for the world when God brings history to an end and
ushers in God’s new Kingdom. The
questions are: did you seriously devote yourself to charity to help the most vulnerable members of society? And second, did you care about justice for the most vulnerable members
of society?
These are not questions for “extra credit.” These questions are as basic as the implied question of the
Registry of Motor Vehicles driving test examiner who looks to see if you know
how to put the car in gear. Charity and
justice are that basic. But to look at
our world today, there is certainly not enough of either charity or
justice. So, especially for people who
call themselves Christians, the challenges are clear and compelling.
Let’s start on the world stage.
According to Episcopal Relief and Development, malaria “is by far the world’s most devastating parasitic disease;
it kills more people than any other communicable disease. It is a public health problem in more than
90 countries inhabited by a total of some 2.4 billion people…over 300 million
people contract malaria annually. More
than 90 percent of all malaria cases are in sub-Sahara Africa…Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds.”
Those with malaria who don’t die become so sick that they can’t go to
school or to work for some time, and fall behind in school or lose income. Poor people in rural areas of already poor
countries are the most vulnerable.
And oh, yes, global warming – caused primarily by rich countries with
temperate climates – may expand the range of mosquitoes by raising temperatures
at the fringes of their breeding zones.
In addition to not responding enough to help eradicate this menace to
“some of the least of these members of Christ’s family,” rich countries may be
helping to expand the problem.
It’s up to Christians and other like-minded people to stand up with
and for those who don’t have enough power to save their own lives.
We hear, appropriately, alarm bells ringing about the possibility of
avian flu becoming a lethal human pandemic.
I am glad that the public health authorities are finally beginning to
face this, but guess what? We already
have a pandemic. It’s called
HIV/AIDS. Again, according to Episcopal
Relief and Development, (ERD), “HIV/AIDS will kill more people this decade than
all the wars and disasters in the past 50 years.”
We don’t hear as much about HIV/AIDS in this country as we used to –
because the pandemic is most virulent in – guess where? – Africa. “Average life expectancy in sub-Sahara
Africa, originally 62, is now 47,” ERD states.
Many of those who are dying are in the prime of their working and
parenting lives, leaving millions of orphans to be cared for by poor, aging
grandparents. The effect is to make
poor countries poorer, the most vulnerable people more vulnerable to any other
problems life can throw at them, and set back the next generation as
well as wipe out many of today’s adults.
The governments of rich countries are, as a whole, doing something, but
not nearly enough. There is plenty of
room for Christians to step up as individuals and as communities to help. I am happy to say that this modest-sized
congregation will, in 2006, for the third consecutive year, send a Healing
Mission team to Kenya, in East Africa, to build on the work already done to
train local church and medical leaders in the dynamics of recovery from
addiction to alcohol and other drugs, which will help slow the transmission of
HIV/AIDS for the simple reason that drunk people are more likely to be
promiscuous than sober people. (Ask
college students, they’ll tell you.)
We can make a difference and we are making a
difference. This is a program that
involves not merely charity but empowerment and justice. We are empowering people with the tools of
healing and well-being and with the knowledge that God, the ultimate Higher
Power, can help restore to sanity people who are powerless over their
addictions. And we are standing up for
justice simply by saying that a life in Kenya matters as much as a life in
Princeton, or Bernardsville, or Rumson – or South Brunswick. Jesus said, “As you have done it or done it
not to one of the least of these members of my family, you have done it or done
it not to me.”
Let’s move closer to home. It’s
important to continue to reflect on Hurricane Katrina because it continues to
offer a flood of lessons about what it is like to be powerless in America at
the dawn of the 21st century.
As of December 1, FEMA will no longer pay for motels for 150,000
refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Now,
it is true that living in a motel is not a long-term solution, but I didn’t
hear that a long-term solution is going to be magically created on December 1,
so where exactly are these people
supposed to go?
And, oh yes, the government just decided weeks ago it would no longer
search for bodies in the wreckage, leaving certain neighborhoods
unsearched. So that means that some
people are searching through family homes now themselves, and finding
the bodies of their loved ones now, three
months after the storm. And many of
the bodies which were recovered by whatever government agency were misidentified,
are still unidentified, had their pockets picked, or were never matched up with
DNA samples given by grieving survivors.
Jesus said, “As you have done it or done it not to one of the least of
these members of my family, you have done it or done it not to me.”
In addition to rampant incompetence, heartlessness and worse by many of
the powers-that-be, this aftermath exposes longer-term, systemic issues. Why is it, for example, that the 9th
Ward of New Orleans is overwhelmingly black?
I learned why from National Public Radio: in the late ‘40’s and ‘50’s,
it was the only place in New Orleans where blacks were allowed to buy
homes. I mentioned this to my son’s
American Studies professor at Elmira College when I was up there for Parent’s
Weekend, and he said, “Oh, yeah. That’s
called ‘blue-lining.’ White people drew a blue line on a map
of New Orleans indicating where sea level
was and decided it was O.K. for blacks to buy land as long as it was below sea
level.”
And, of course, the levees were never designed to withstand more than a
category 3 storm, and the contractor who built them (as reported on NBC news)
told the Corps of Engineers that the ground the levees were built on was not
itself stable enough to support them in time of need. But the corps accepted the job, and our tax dollars paid
the contractor (which is now out of business) for building an expensive illusion.
“I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak,” says the
Lord God, “but the fat and the strong I will destroy.”
All too often in this world today, it is the injured and weak who get
destroyed and the strong who get stronger, but God has different
priorities. Come Judgment Day, things
will change. It’s up to us to
align our priorities with those of God – now.
Come Judgment Day, when God ushers in The Kingdom of God, there will be
no more need for Food Banks or Soup Kitchens: he will feed his flock
personally. But in the meantime we give to the food banks and help to staff the
soup kitchens – and we also can ask why does the leadership of the US
House of Representatives look to cut the budget for Food Stamps?
When God ushers in the Kingdom of God, there will be no more need for
shelters: God will provide a wonderful home for all who God saves. But in
the meantime, we at St. Barnabas help to staff the overflow shelter for the
Men’s Shelter in New Brunswick for two weeks each winter – and we can
also ask why is it that so many people who have jobs have to live
in a shelter for lack of affordable housing?
When God ushers in the Kingdom of God safety and freedom from fear will
be guaranteed by God. But in the meantime, we at St. Barnabas
help the women and children who take refuge in shelters for victims of domestic
violence with gifts of essentials and,
by helping them furnish new homes, make them less vulnerable to
the next sweet-talking con man who promises to “take care of them.” And we can ask, “What can we do to
eradicate the culture of violence among men which kills and wounds so many
women and children every year?”
We work with individuals and we seek to change society as
Christians. And we don’t give up. We are commanded to do charity and to
seek justice. We are strengthened by
whatever we see each other doing to make the world more just, more safe, more
compassionate. We encourage each other,
and draw inspiration from those working on other concerns and with individuals
besides those I’ve mentioned who are responding to the same biblical
imperatives.
But more than that, God himself can strengthen and guide us so that we
do not lose heart, and so that we can see and act on the opportunities all
around us to serve most vulnerable members of Jesus’ family and to stand up for
systemic change for justice for all.
And more even than that, we have been granted by God a vision of the
Kingdom that God will bring in for which we have the awesome and honored
task to prepare.
In the Kingdom of God there will be no violence of any kind, no poverty,
no oppression, no sickness, no injustice, no prejudice. Even death itself will be destroyed. For as St. Paul writes in today’s Epistle,
Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
That vision of boundless life, of glorious peace, of overwhelming love
is what can sustain us as we labor for justice and for charity in a world which
needs both so much. By planting tiny
seeds of hope, of righteousness, of compassion, of justice, we are participants
in preparing for the great harvest when all come to fruition in the Kingdom of
God that is coming.
I pray that we
all may say, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord! Glory, glory, hallelujah!”
(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard
St.
Barnabas Episcopal Church
Monmouth
Junction, New Jersey