Pentecost 13C | Luke 14:25-33 | Tribalism
In the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the major
sub-plot is the story of a trial in which a black man in depression-era
Alabama is on trial for raping a white woman. Most of us have read the
book or at least seen the movie, but for the memory impaired,
I’ll give a short summary of the trial. The accused is Tom
Robinson, who, the prosecution says, was caught in the act raping
Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a prominent white family in the town.
The hero of the subplot is Atticus Finch—the father of the
narrator and a white attorney—who has drawn this case as a public
defender. This results in much criticism for Finch, but is a godsend to
the accused, Tom, since Finch is an honest man. Finch points out during
the trial that it would have been impossible for Tom to have made the
welts that mar Mayella’s face, since they are on the right side,
indicating that the attacker was left-handed.
Tom’s left arm, however, is handicapped. He could not possibly
have injured the young woman in the way the prosecution is insisting.
Finch then lays out an alternative theory of the crime: It was Mayella,
in fact, who was coming on to Tom. Her father walked in just as she was
making her advances, and he beat her for her sexual impropriety,
framing Tom out of sheer malice.
Unfortunately, however, the all-white jury chooses to ignore the
evidence, and convicts Tom anyway. In desperation, Tom later tries to
escape from the jail, and in the attempt is shot, not once, but
seventeen times. The white community got their blood, at the expense of
the life of an innocent man.
It is a tragic ending to a very sad story, and unfortunately, it is not
a rare or infrequent occurrence. For this is not just a story about the
racial divide in American history, it is a timeless scenario about
tribal loyalty and unfortunate human nature.
The sad fact is that, throughout most of the world, if there is a
conflict between a person of the local clan, tribe, or nation, and an
outsider, public opinion—and often the courts—will side
with its own and decide against the other, even if “it’s
own” is clearly in the wrong. Sad, even tragic, but all-too true.
This is precisely the kind of situation that Jesus is speaking to in
our Gospel reading today. The opening sentences of our reading are
often described as one of Jesus’ “hard sayings,” and
taken at face value, it is indeed a stumper. But while this saying is
often dismissed as being a case of Jesus’ famous hyperbole, what
Jesus is getting at is actually a lot deeper and more profound than
simply, “Make sure you love me more than yo’ mama.”
The problem lies in the trickiness of translation. The Aramaic uses a
single word to mean “hate,” “dislike,”
“disregard,” or “not prefer.” (OTHERS??? SEE
NOLAN) If we apply the last meaning, it is awkard, but intelligible:
“If any person comes to me, and does not un-prefer his father and
mother…they cannot be my disciple.” But it becomes more
intelligible still if we rander that double-negative as a positive; in
fact, it leaps right out at us: “If anyone comes to me, but
prefers his family…he cannot be my disciple.”
This makes a lot more sense, but then what does Jesus mean by
“prefer”? Prefer to whom? Jesus is talking in this passage
about our commitment to the Gospel, the “good news,” which
is synonymous with his vision of the Kingdom, where there are no
outsiders, no “haves” and “have nots,” no
“us” and no “them.”
This might sound ambitious, even utopian. So much so that later
Christians commuted the Kingdom to the afterlife, or to some
far-distant Millenial period. But Jesus IS being ambitious, and that is
the point of this “difficult” passage. The Kingdom is
not something Jesus said would one day arrive, or was to be enjoyed in
a far-off heaven when we die. He said we must live in the Kingdom here
and now, we must reject the conditioning that says you must prefer
those who are “like us” and reject those who are
“other.”
For if you prefer your father or your mother or your wife or your child
or your brothers or your sisters or your tribe or your race or your
country or your species above those who are different from you, then
you are NOT my disciple, because you are not BEING my
disciple—you are not LIVING the Good News, you are NOT residing
in the Kingdom, where everyone is equal, everyone is provided for, and
everyone knows justice and peace in equal measure.
This is exactly what Muhammad was up against when Allah’s
messages began coming to him. He, too, was charged with making the
Kingdome manifest in his own time and place, and amongst his own
people—this is, after all, what prophets do. And this was no easy
task. His people were caught up in a perpetual cycle of violence due to
the practice of blood feuds, where neighboring clans were literally at
each others’ throats over petty grievances, the origin of some of
which were long forgotten.
But even the smallest perceived slight against clan A easily escalated
until someone from clan B had been killed, and then that person had to
be avenged through the death of someone else from clan A, who then had
to be avenged by the death of someone from clan B, and so on and so on
into mindless, bloody infinity. These blood feuds were tearing Arabic
society apart, making it impossible for the locals to create stability
or prosperity, and making them the laughing stock of the more
“civilized” nations around them.
Muhammad’s mission was to end the blood feuds, to unite people of
every clan and tribe, and even of many different religions, in order to
build the Kingdom. In Arabic, the Kingdom is known as the Ummah, the
Just Society, and everything in Islam is subordinate to this one ideal.
All of human life is subject to scrutiny and evaluated in terms of
whether it supports the Ummah or undermines it. In the Ummah, none go
hungry, the sick are tended, the lonely are comforted, and justice is
extended to every person equally.
It’s a grand dream. But Jesus and Muhammad ask us to do more than
dream. They ask us to sacrifice. Jesus tells us in our reading today
that we must count the cost. Do you call yourself a Christian or a
person of faith? If so, are you really prepared to pay the price? Are
you willing to give up your sense privilege and entitlement? Are you
willing to treat everyone—male and female, black and white, gay
and straight, rich and poor, east and west, Christian and Muslim,
capitalist and socialist, Democrat and Republican, human and
animal—everyone, everyone, EVERYONE with the same preference that
you treat your own family, indeed, your own self? Because if
you’re not, what the hell are you doing here?
I have a confession to make: I can’t do that. Not yet. I am
filled with prejudice, hatred, and envy. I have no right to call myself
a follower of Jesus. But I’ll tell you what I’M doing,
here. I’m learning. I’m learning—through the slow,
painful process of seeing through the tyranny of my own ego, the
blindness of my religious heritage, and the obnoxious conditioning of
my culture—how to live in the Kingdom. I don’t follow Jesus
perfectly. I follow him miserably and feebly. But even though I might
be stumbling, even crawling, I am, I must believe, crawling in his
direction.
And as inadequate as that is, it is, at least, not running away because
the task is just too hard. This is, indeed, one of Jesus’
“hard” sayings, but not because he actually wants us to
hate anyone, but because he wants us to LOVE EVERYONE. And THAT is
hard. But it is also part of the Good News that Jesus doesn’t ask
perfection of any of us. Otherwise, the Kingdom would be empty. He asks
us to follow, at whatever stumbling pace each of us can manage. We are
not called to be perfect. We are called to follow. We are called to set
aside our cherished notions, our tribal loyalties, our ideas about who
we are and what we’re worth—in essence, everything and
everyone of value to us. And to put in its place one crazy and
impossible notion: that God loves all of us equally. And God commands
us to do the same. Let us pray…
It is easy, O God, for us to get attached,
Attached to ideas, to people,
And we have this notion that “loyalty” is a good thing.
But help us to root out every notion of “loyalty”
That does not contribute to the building of your Kingdom,
the Community of God, the Just Society,
so that we may finally and fully live out the Good News that we proclaim,
even though to do so may cost us everything we hold dear.
Reveal to us the emptiness of the illusions that drive us,
The compulsions that manipulate us,
The ideas that compel us,
The loyalties that divide us,
So that we may be worthy to be called Jesus’ disciples,
For we ask this in his name, and seek after his way. Amen.