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.