Sermon Text
Heaven Has Come Close
The Blessings of Miscegenation
Matthew’s fifth chapter calls us to let our yes be yes and our no be no. Be clear on which god we say yes to: yes to big G God, no to little g gods. Yes to God of Love, no to gods of hate. On this MLK Sunday, I want to share an amazing poem called “Miscegenation”, a word we don’t use much. It refers to the reproduction of people from separated racial groups, especially when one is White. Miscegenation was forbidden in much of this country until 1967.
“Miscegenation” by Natasha Trethewey[1]
In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi;
they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.
They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name
begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong—mis in Mississippi.
A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the same
as slaves, the train slicing the white glaze of winter, leaving Mississippi.
Faulkner’s Joe Christmas was born in winter, like Jesus, given his name
for the day he was left at the orphanage, his race unknown in Mississippi.
My father was reading War and Peace when he gave me my name.
I was born near Easter, 1966, in Mississippi.
When I turned 33 my father said, It’s your Jesus year—you’re the same
age he was when he died. It was spring, the hills green in Mississippi.
I know more than Joe Christmas did. Natasha is a Russian name—
though I’m not; it means Christmas child, even in Mississippi.[2]
Sitting in the Light
Over the past few weeks, we have celebrated how the light has come. How a star can offer us a word of guidance. How one baby can change the course of history. Today, Matthew echoes the prophet Isaiah: “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” Notice that we’re no longer the people walking in darkness. We’re tired, we sat down. “[F]or those who sat in the regions and shadow of death (for those is deepest pain), light has dawned.” How do we get some of this Light, and how can we share it?
The Holy Wild
Notice the Light happens after Jesus’ baptism, and after the devil taunts him, in the wilderness—that place of liminality and transition, neither here nor there, the unsettled place, a place of quiet desperation, where temptation is real, the place where many of us find ourselves this morning, It’s no fun. It’s full of despair and grief. It’s painful, and there’s no way around it but through.
The wilderness is also a holy place. It’s where Moses encounters the bush that burns and is not consumed, where he obeys Yahweh’s voice and removes his shoes to stand on holy wilderness ground. Moses leads the Hebrew children forty years in and around the wilderness, but it’s Joshua, who shares the name Jesus (“Yeshua”[3]), who leads the people into Canaan. After 40 years, only the generation born in the wilderness makes it to the Promised Land. I want to reclaim some language from the evangelicals. In today’s scripture, Jesus emerges from the wilderness “born again.”
The wilderness can be holy, a nursery for your soul. When Jacob camps out in the wilderness, a stranger attacks him, and they wrestle all night long. Jacob cries, “I won’t let this go until you bless me.” Anyone here still fighting yesterday’s battles? What is the dark night of your soul, your wilderness? Whatever it is, wrestle until blessed.
Three Rounds with the Devil
The Spirit compels Jesus into the wild, to go three rounds with the devil. The word for devil means “the great opposer”—the naysayer of every blessing, the defender of every bad choice. In this corner, the freshly baptized still wet behind the ears Nazarene: Rabbi Jesus. Yay. In the other, you loved hating him in Faust and the Inferno, he whose very name means The Adversary, the Devil. Boo.
Round One. The devil tempts Jesus to end his hunger pains by turning rocks into cheeseburgers. But Jesus, God’s son, knows that the whole point of self-denial is to build power, to become stronger than want. Jesus preaches a heavenly bread more delicious than a Dutch Crunch roll, and it’s made from every word that drips from the lips of God. Round One, Jesus! Yay.
Round Two. The devil proposes to help Jesus live up to his potential. Imagine you can do anything without consequence! Drive without seatbelts, insider trading, jump off a cliff! Let God sort it out! Since he was fresh from worship over at the Presbyterian church, the devil opens the pew Bible he just lifted and turns to page 477. Beginning with the 11th verse of Psalm 91, he reads scripture to Jesus. “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” Go on try it, jump off this cliff. What’s the matter? Are you some San Francisco hippie liberal apostate that doesn’t believe God’s Word? But Jesus knew that using scripture for personal gain is no good. Scripture must be interpreted and applied using God’s love and grace as the framework. Scripture leads us to steward our planetary home and to help people in need. Jumping off a cliff, how is that God’s will? Jesus had to be thinking, “how tacky!” because nobody should ever use the Bible as a party trick. So, he cleared things up by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16 “Do not test God.” Round Two, Jesus. Yay.
For Round Three, the devil ups his game, pulls out a map of the entire known world at the time of Jesus, and offers it. “We are prepared to give you dominion over every kingdom. You will control the money, the natural resources, the borders, the media. It’s all yours, Jesus. Now, who’s your daddy? Don’t you just love the way I do business! There’s a place for you at my side, Jesus. Let’s naysay together.” But Jesus knew that the devil doesn’t need one more advocate. The world needs hope and good examples to follow. Opposing everything good leads to chaos, aimless chaos. So Jesus reminds the devil and us, “No matter how much other gods offer, my followers shall have no other gods but our God. Not today, Satan!” He’d been waiting to say that. And you know what, Satan gave up. Round and match, Jesus! Yay. The devil fled the arena, leaving Jesus exhausted, hungry, poor, unsheltered.
Jesus offers us a path of purpose. Stand tall in your powerlessness. He will transform temptations into epiphanies.
Going Public
The devil gets away unscathed, unpunished, free to slay another day, waiting for us in the wilderness. Why didn’t Jesus smite the devil once and for all? Does he have to welcome everybody just as they are? Perhaps Matthew is telling us that evil is inherent in this world, that we will always be tested. Let your yes be yes, your no be no.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had that kind of clarity. His faith allowed him to dream that children “will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”[4] Jesus modeled character in the presence of the devil himself. He did not wage war against the devil, which has always seemed like a missed opportunity. Dr. King said that “If [we] succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and [our] chief legacy… will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”[5] Until we follow the example of Jesus, meaningless chaos will continue, a spiritual pandemic.
Dr. King’s mentor was Howard Thurman, who preached Christianity as a technique of survival for the oppressed. “That [Christianity] became, through the…years,” he says “a religion of the powerful and the dominant…must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. In him was life; and the life was the light of [all people]. Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage. [F]ear, hypocrisy, and hatred…need have no dominion.”[6] Not today, Satan.
Guiding Star
My Star Word that chose me this year is offer. To offer is to present something that someone else can accept or reject. Years ago, I got tired of what the world offers those who are not part of the dominant culture. So, the Spirit compelled me into the wilderness to do ministry with a team of marvelous people called Faith in Action Bay Area, a coalition of over 100 congregations building moral power through faith-based actions. Last year we championed the only housing measure that passed in San Francisco, a tax on homes held vacant. It’s not perfect. And we’re seeking to fine tune it as it is implemented. Next Sunday, leaders from Faith in Action Bay Area will be our guests after worship. With PICO California, we’re conducting a statewide housing survey. We’d love to hear from every person here.[7] We know that we will never defeat injustice once and for all, but we can’t let the perfect become the adversary of the good. Even as the poverty gaps widen, wars rage, and billionaires are held as high priests, we recommit to following the dream of Dr. King, the ministry of Jesus, for “the kingdom of heaven has come close.”
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
And to bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
And to right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
And to try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right, without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell
for a heavenly cause
And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To dream the impossible dream
To reach the unreachable star
Benediction
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” (MLK)
[1] This poem is in the style of ancient Arabic ghazal poetry.
[2] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023), 94.
[3] < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua>
[4] < https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety>
[5] Morehouse College address, quoted online in Prior’s Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Conference 2005, Google books.
[6] Jesus and the Disinherited
[7] Please the survey online at <https://tinyurl.com/FIABAsurvey23> whether you’re a homeowner or renter.
Scripture
Matthew 4:1-17
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Jesus Begins to Preach
12 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— 14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:
15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
16 the people living in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”
17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
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