We're All in the Same Boat

Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Lectionary text: Romans 5:1-8 (NRSV)

I’m not privileged.

I have no special status.

No one has helped me.

I don’t owe anything to anyone.

I have pulled myself up from my own bootstraps.

I haven’t had an advantage that others didn’t have – in fact, I can name several ways that I was disadvantaged growing up and have overcome it.

When I was getting ready to attend college, my parents were going to help me with the cost of tuition.  We had a family business dealing with software for the oil and gas industry.  When I was starting college in the fall of 1986, oil had fallen from $27 a barrel to less than $10 a barrel.  Sound familiar?

I remember my parents coming to me and telling me that while they would help as much as they could, paying for college was going to be up to me as our business was barely hanging on.  So I managed to graduate in four years and came out with only a few student loans that I paid off before going on to get my master’s degree (which I also paid for).

I could easily have folded and said it was too hard.  I pressed on.  

I could have easily blamed the economy and quit.  I endured.  

I could have gone into deep debt but I lived frugally in order to have a brighter future.

Let’s all give it up to me!

Well, the details of this story are all factual but they only tell part of the story.  I was privileged to have two parents in the home that supported me throughout my childhood.  It was a stable home and I was never mistreated nor did I worry about my parents splitting up.  I was privileged to have parents that instilled in me a sense of hard work.  I was able to creatively work my way through school to lessen the debt load because I had parents who modeled a can-do attitude.  I was privileged to even want to pursue education because I was born to parents with college degrees (dad also had a master's) who set an expectation for higher learning.

     

Beyond these privileges, I have always been in the racial majority.  This is an advantage that is difficult for those who haven’t experienced otherwise to understand or comprehend.  What does it mean to be the only one of your race in a social setting?  What if there were historic social inequalities that remain hidden just beneath the surface?  What if I had to second-guess my relationships with those of the majority race because of past slights I had experienced?

I don't even want to
get started on this sign!

This week’s epistle reminds us that we are all sinners.   Yet, we all receive the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  We are privileged to stand before God blameless – not because of anything we earned but because what we’ve received in the love of God.  If I can stand on this privilege, I must do so with humility, recognizing that we are all in this together.

This may be a crucial step for Christians to take in order to recognize our brothers and sisters who may be hurting because of injustices built into a system where people have not received the same treatment under the law.   It may be a matter of gratitude.  I am grateful for the blessings – earned and unearned – that I have received.  If we can’t develop a sense of thankfulness, we will end up entitled – maybe like I portrayed myself in the first part of the blog.  I think the apostle Paul would say that a sense of entitlement is deadly spiritually.  

I don’t think it will help us as a society either.

Join us for worship on Sunday as we continue to unpack this text together.  I'll try to bring more humility and less entitlement!

In Christ,

Sam

Photo by Steve Harwood via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

The Thanksgiving Sacrifice

Third Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Reading: Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19 (NRSV)

This particular Psalm was evidently selected during the Easter season because one could easily interpret the selected verses as read from the perspective of the resurrected Jesus.

When we read, "The snares of death encompassed me", we would no longer see it as metaphorical but actual.  Jesus did, in fact, die.

And when we see the Psalmist say, “O Lord, I pray, save my life!”, we remember how Jesus prayed in Mark 14:36 in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

If we hear Jesus' voice in this Psalm, one cannot help but equate his mother Mary with the "serving girl" mentioned in verse 16.  It is Mary's very words from Luke 1:38 which state, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

So just as we see the risen Christ within these verses, we may also find them as verses that resonate with our lives as we go through the pain of isolation.

What does this do to people psychologically and

spiritually when we are created for community?

What stands out to me is the idea in verse 17 of offering a thanksgiving sacrifice.  This was done liturgically in the temple and the rules for such are lined out in Leviticus 7:11-18.  For modern American worshipers in the 21st century, our rituals surrounding thanksgiving usually occur around this named national holiday in the United States.  We also regularly offer praise and thanksgiving in worship through singing, litanies and corporate prayers.  We make an offering through our financial gifts that is hopefully done out of thanksgiving for all that we have received!

But what does it mean to express thankfulness itself as an offering?  And if we seek to be grateful when all around us is chaos, is this a sacrifice on our behalf?  Can I afford to part with my grief over all that I've lost?  Is it too much to look for resurrection or is this merely glossing over a deeper pain that will fester if I don't tend to it?  But if I tend to a wound too long, will it ever heal?

I hope to address these questions as we further examine this Psalm in worship on Sunday.  Plan on joining us either Sunday at 11 am via Facebook or YouTube or at a time of your choosing!

In Christ,

Sam

Photo by Tim Dennell via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

All scripture used from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.