“Minority Report” is a departure from what I normally post in Etena Sacca-vajjena. Although I contributed to the text, it was written by the Reverend David Grant Smith. The Reverend Smith gave me permission to re-print his sermon here so that it would be more accessible to my students and others.  Although the Reverend Smith does not directly address education issues, he demonstrates the need for reading text in context as well as the importance of understanding the worldviews held by others.

“Minority Report” | A Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost 2010

Jeremiah 18:1-11 / Psalm 139:1-5, 13-17 / Philemon 1-21 / Luke 14:25-33

Lord Jesus, stay with us… be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.

What do a clay jar, a weaving loom, an escaped slave, and state-sanctioned execution all have in common? If you guessed that they are all images found in today’s readings, then you’re right. In preparing for today’s sermon I half-jokingly posted on Facebook that I was sermonazing – grazing for sermon ideas. Some clergy I know offered to me what they were planning to preach. But one friend asked me what the text for the day was. I wrote back to him the list of references for today’s readings, and then said, “Read them for yourself, Steve, and then YOU TELL ME what the text of the day is!” He did. He read the texts and then wrote to me from his spiritual horizon – that of someone who is very familiar with Christian theology but who is not a Christian, and who, as he likes to say, does his “best to follow the Buddha Dhamma in the Theravada tradition.” Writing in the first person, as if he were himself a Christian who was going to preach today, this is what Steve wrote to me:

Suppose someone not raised in the Christian tradition were to pick up a copy of the Bible to learn more about our tradition and … randomly opened up to today’s readings. What type of impression would that person get about our faith: anti-family (e.g. teaching children to hate their parents), warlike/deceitful (calculating chances of war/victory and only looking for peace if you can’t crush your opponent), and with a capricious God who does what he wants and hurts you if you don’t agree with him [like a potter and a clay pot]. What kind of religion is this?

Of course, we have a context in which to read today’s scripture. For example, we don’t want to become attached to the things of this world, we need to consider the ramifications of both denying Christ and following him, and that while God has the ability to crush us what is important is that he sent his son to redeem us.

We would expect non-Christians to take the time to look at our scripture in the context of our faith, traditions, and history; not to impose their own interpretations after only quickly reading our texts.

Yet how often do we not take the time to listen to others [before saying things like]: Islam is an evil religion, let’s have a burn the Koran day, Buddhists practice idol worship, we can’t build a mosque in New York (or Kansas) and so forth. Even in our day-to-day lives we can too quickly jump to conclusions without taking time to investigate. For example, my inconsiderate neighbor did not mow his yard for three weeks. Yet he does not seem so inconsiderate when I find out that he spent those three weeks at his father’s home while his dad recuperated from surgery…

We do not have to agree with the teachings of the Koran and we may pray for the soul of those who follow the Buddha Dharma because we [believe] they are on the wrong path. But as Christians, we must take the time to understand non-Christians rather than to impose our own flawed understanding on their scripture. Otherwise, we must accept that, as Christians, we have a pretty petty God who preaches hate and war and who tries to break up families. [Steven L. Berg]

As you can tell, Steve is not only acquainted with Christian scripture, tradition and theology, but can speak from the perspective of a Christian even though he isn’t a Christian. He has put himself into the position of becoming aware of the context in which our religion operates – and the metaphors and images it uses – in order for him to express a spiritual truth which is important to people of all religions, cultures and nations – the need to be understood.

When I read what my Buddhist friend had to say to me about the readings assigned for a particular day in the Christian calendar, at first I was very impressed. But then I began to feel more than just a little bit ashamed. I realized that I didn’t know enough about the sacred texts and contexts of other religions in order to speak to people of other faiths about their texts. I have only read excerpts of the Koran; so I don’t dare try to comment on it. I don’t even know enough about Buddhism to fully understand my friend’s place in the Theravada tradition, and how it is like or unlike Zen, Tibetan, or other forms of Buddhism. I was humbled to have a friend from another religious tradition honor me and my religious tradition by being attentive enough to the Christian tradition in order to speak with such understanding.

In the ancient world, when cross-cultural encounters required travel by foot or by boat or by animal caravan, often taking weeks or months to reach a desired destination, time was a factor that was built into the encounter itself. It took time to reach the desired location. It took time to learn the language and the culture. It took time to teach one’s own language and culture (either when visiting a foreign land, or when a foreigner was visiting yours). And because time and the ability to travel were luxuries which often required great resources, such cross-cultural encounters were precious, rare, and the opportunity of a lifetime. But in what is now called the modern global village, cross-cultural encounters can take place multiple times a day without us even needing to leave the comfort of our own computer desk or TV couch. We can step into and out of cross-cultural and interfaith encounters with the click of a mouse, or the flip of a remote control without ever thinking twice about it. And as we do so, how much do we work to understand the perspectives of those whom we encounter? And how much thought do we give to what impact the things we say or do will have on the people of other cultural and religious perspectives?

In today’s reading from Luke, one of the major points that Jesus was making to the large crowds who were following him was that when we choose to follow him we need to be aware of the cost of that decision. Every decision we make has consequences. And in the context in which Jesus was calling his disciples, making a decision to follow and pay allegiance to him – instead of to Caesar – would be about the same as deciding to do something that’s going to get you killed. Jesus was calling people not to take over the world, but to be a minority presence in it. Jesus was inviting people to stand over and against the dominant cultural paradigm of his day, and daring folks to be different. The Jesus movement was one that spoke of liberation from possessions as a form of liberation from the grip of empire and domination; to find solace in God rather than in Caesar.

Twenty centuries later, and living in our current context, we as American Christians have no idea whatsoever of what it is like to be in that minority stance to which Jesus first called his disciples. Unless we grew up in another country or culture, we don’t know what it feels like to hold and cherish our religious and spiritual values in a cultural context where the dominant spiritual tradition and heritage is different than our own. We live in a country in which the Judeo-Christian tradition is prominent.

Yet, the call which Jesus gave two thousand years ago is still an active call. Jesus is still calling us to hold to a minority viewpoint. Jesus would not necessarily want for us to be living in such a comfortable context where we would enjoy being the majority. Because, you see, when we become a majority and cease to see and understand things from a minority perspective, we can very easily stop carrying the cross and we start nailing others to it. We become the king with twenty thousand troops waging war on the king with only ten thousand, and we forget what it feels like to be the one who is begging for the terms of peace, rather than the one who is brokering it on our terms.

Today as we present our gifts and offerings at the Altar, we will be singing a hymn which actually comes from the perspective in which Jesus was inviting us to consider the costs of discipleship. The words of the hymn I have decided to follow Jesus is attributed to an Indian prince in the region of Assam, India, and is sung to an Indian folk tune. You will find the hymn on one of the inserted pages in your bulletin. In the context of India, to be a Christian – that is one who has decided to follow Jesus – there is a definite cost to discipleship. Christianity is very much in the minority in India. And if you belong to the Dalit caste (sometimes called the untouchables) and are a Christian, there are actually laws which state that to make such a decision is to forfeit all political and property rights. In that context, to follow Jesus is to leave family and possessions behind; it is to stand in the minority; it is to simultaneously bear the cross and see it as your destination.

The past weeks and months have been filled with rhetoric about whether a certain group of people should have the right to build something in a particular location which happens to just be a few blocks away from where a huge tragedy took place nine years ago this coming week. If we are to examine what that rhetoric is all about, we can easily see that it is about the struggle between being in positions of minority and majority – the struggle between power and powerlessness, between strength and mercy. As disciples of Jesus, who calls us to embrace the path of powerlessness and the way of the cross, it would do us well to remember the context from which the hymn I have decided to follow Jesus has come, and to ask for the Holy Spirit of God to empower us to live into words of our Collect of the Day:

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

–The Rev. David Grant Smith

5 September 2010

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The Reverend David Grant Smith has been  the priest at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Penn Yan, New York since 2008.  He is a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University and Colgate Rochester Divinity School.  He also studied music at Michigan State University.