I had a completely different sermon all ready to go, then the events of this week made me feel like I just can’t preach it anymore. This is what I’ll be preaching on Sunday:
God likes to root for the underdog.
In the very beginning, after creating the world only for it to be corrupted by sin – a sin that God made quite clear would result in the death of humanity – God was out for Adam and Eve’s best interests. They expected death, but instead were exiled from the garden of Eden and given 2 promises: the promise that life would continue and the promise that, one day, one of their offspring would ultimately defeat sin and the devil.
Years passed until God showed up at the door of a nobody named Abraham of Ur. There was nothing special about him: he was just a guy living in a place called Harran when God said, “You’re going to go to a land I will show you and I will make you a great nation – one that will bless all people on earth.” And Abram went. He had some adventures; he had some misadventures – but he was still a pretty small fish in the world, though he had this promise from God that one day he would be a great nation.
More years passed. Abram’s grandson Jacob, called Israel, had 12 sons. One of those sons, Joseph, was a bit, well, weird – so weird in fact that none of his brothers liked him. The disliked him to the point of wanting to kill him, and they threw him in pit intending to do just that. Instead, the brothers saw some travelling merchants and sold Joseph to them (because, they thought, there was no profit in murder). Joseph ended up a slave in Egypt.
But God was with that slave. Joseph rose to a position of power in his master’s household, was false accused of a crime and lost it all, only to get it all back again. Then, after advising Pharaoh about weather patterns, Joseph was freed and made the highest ranking official in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. Another nobody who God looked out for.
Years passed once more. Joseph’s brothers’ descendants, who moved to Egypt – because if your brother is in charge of a country it can’t hurt to move there – found themselves enslaved by a different Pharaoh who did not know or care about what Joseph did for the country. They cried out to God, and God sent Moses to deliver them from their slavery. After 40 years wandering in the wilderness they, under Moses’ successor Joshua, became a nation all their own: Israel. This people who once was slaves, was now a nation – the nation Abraham was promised
But all was not well in the land. The more powerful Israel grew, the less they mirrored God’s care for the nobody. They did not remember what God told them to do: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you.” (Deuteronomy 15:15) Instead, they made slaves of others and mistreated the nobodies among them.
So God sent his messengers, the prophets, to try and bring His People back on track. “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who make oppressive decrees,” they say, “to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.” (Isaiah 10:1-2) God commanded them, “Administer justice every morning: rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done.” (Jeremiah 21:12) And again, “As surely as I live, declares the Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:48-49). And just in case they didn’t get it, he said it even more: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8)
When the people of Israel did not repent, God sent them into exile in Babylon. But even then, he did not forget his people when they were brought low again. He restored them to their land after 70 years. They went back home and grew again, until something happened that changed everything.
A young woman at home one day was visited by an angel and told that she would bear “the Son of God.” In response, she sings a song for the nobodies: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant… He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:46b-48,51b-53)
This child, Jesus – whose very name means “The Lord saves” – grew up and began to teach. He didn’t really teach anything new, but reinforced the same message that God cares for the nobody: Blessed are the poor / Woe to the rich. Blessed are the hungry / Woe to the full. Blessed are those who weep / Woe to those who laugh. Blessed are the rejected / Woe to the accepted. (Luke 6:20-26)
But his overarching message had two parts: part 1) Turn back to God! (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength); part 2) Love your neighbor as yourself (and your neighbor is anyone who is in need – no matter if friend or enemy, the same or different). For this message, because it undermined the authority of those in power, he was killed – as he said would happen – but after three days he rose again. Jesus’ death and resurrection defeated sin and death, paving the way for something new.
And for a while, after Jesus’ ascension, things were going pretty well. Those in need were being cared for. If a problem arose, it was fixed, like when the Greek widows felt like they were being overlooked in the distribution of food (Acts 6:1-6). Paul, a believer who once persecuted the church, even wrote, “In Christ Jesus, you are all children of God though faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28) The usual distinctions of the world didn’t matter because in Christ we are all one.
Through it all, the message to love and the uplifting of the lowly continued. Paul wrote in other places, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – -to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29) and also, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love… Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse… Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not take revenge… on the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:9-21 excerpts).
This lasted for around 300 years. But when Christianity stopped being a persecuted class and instead became a preferred class, it started to go the same way as Israel. Differences in beliefs, at first just censured, came to be punishable by death. Other cultures were seen as lesser and oppressed, often using the Bible to justify so many kinds of evil. Justice was not being done; mercy was nowhere to be found; oppression was all that was in its place.
I say all this, because this week has been awful. I feel like Job saying, “Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7:11). For while all these things have no happened to me personally, the injustice of it all hurts me. The divisions these tragedies always seem to cause hurt me. The pain and anger and fear is everywhere, and it hurts me. I can’t fix it all. I can’t take away so many people’s pain, but I can fight for them. I can stand up for those who are oppressed. I can speak up for the poor, the hungry, the mourning, the rejected, and the oppressed. I can speak out on behalf of those of my neighbors whose voices have been taken away. I think it’s what Jesus would do.
But there’s more than that. There’s more than just a call to cry out for justice, because what we’re really doing is proclaiming that the kingdom of God – the new creation we wait for when there is no more sin, death, pain, suffering, or oppression – is not just something far away. The kingdom of God isn’t just something far off we look forward to, it is something that is now. Jesus doesn’t begin his work on earth with, “The kingdom of God is something to look forward to.” No, he says, “The kingdom of God has come near! Repent and believe the Good News!” (Mark 1:15)
When we stand for the nobodies – the underdogs – the oppressed – we proclaim the kingdom of God. We declare that the world we are looking forward to, a world where God rules eternally, isn’t just something far off – but is here, is now, and is forever.