19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Hey look, I know how we are supposed to take this week’s readings. Going to church on Sundays is important, organised religion is wonderful and the elevated status of the clergy is a valid and healthy “difference” ordained (pun intended) by God. Well you can believe that if you want right after you pour a glass of wine for the tooth fairy and feed my winged swine.
Ok I am being a bit extreme, to be fair I AM probably going to church on Sunday and I DO appreciate having a sense of community (not a hierarchical prison) in my faith and there are differences in the way we all minister to the world and thank God for that. But the way these readings are traditionally preached about “yay yay yay Gooooooooooooo church” doesn’t cut it for me in my marginal non-ordainable dirty female space where I can’t keep as silent as I am supposed to. Cause the church is not perfect and most aspects of it do need to be problematised, especially the inequities when it comes to power. And the closed-mindedness on these issues by the clergy, even often decent men who are in some ways great human beings but love their collared privilege too much to ask the deeper questions…that is pure toxin to the life of the body of Christ. Because parts of bodies all need to be treated with care and respect for the whole to thrive. You can figure your toes are less important than your face, but then you might get gangrene in them.
So I felt a bit sick about the celebratory tone of this week’s readings like I always do after the Lord’s prayer when the priest (or someone) says “Look not on our sins but on the faith of your church” all smug like as if the church’s faith is so shining bright it makes up for all our sins. We say “don’t look at how I treat refugees, look at how shiny white bleached the priest’s chasuble is. Don’t look at the way we abuse children, look at how well we polish candle sticks. Don’t look at the fate of the widow and orphan in our land, close your eyes and enjoy us chanting “Lord, Lord, Lord” in a euphoric incense high.”
But what does today’s gospel add to all the self-congratulation of the celebrating church with its “different” gifts that not everyone can have?
Ok it starts of as Jesus the super-preacher doing the right thing by his church and going back to the “official church” instead of breaking free (the part you usually hear about when people preach on this Sunday). But what does he actually say his mission is? To make an easy life for a small elite number of dude-bros? To make the most beautiful liturgy full of spiritual valium to quiet the conscience of the middle classes? To build higher and higher monuments to tell God that we PRAISE him?
Jesus’ reads a traditional text to explain his mission:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus is here to upset the status quo, to change the world to bring material change to those who are not having a great time. For him to do that imagine what that would actually mean for the privileged? For us?
But it’s ok isn’t it, because Jesus means some sort of eschatological future fulfilment of all things in the heavenly kingdom. His not mixing religion and politics is he? He’s not actually criticising our church or our society?
“Today” Jesus says “This is being fulfilled today”. The presence of Christ means changing the world. The presence of Christ means an end to captivity, blindness and oppression. Can the church take it? Do we still want to celebrate this charismatic young preacher?
Pray God I will summon up the courage to reflect on what Jesus wants me (yes me) to do to further his mission. Which oppressed people am I keeping from God’s transforming grace?
shecallsme 