6-2-2024 Stalking, Walking and Talking by Rev. Marie Duquette

Jesus provokes the Pharisees, the disciples, and us today, to consider what constitutes a just law and what is an acceptable reason to break the law.

https://www.youtube.com/@MarieNDuquette

Transcript

June 2, 2024  Stalking, Walking and Talking

I have entitled my sermon today Stalking and Walking and Talking to make it easier for us to remember, because this is a bit of a rambly sermon--because there's a lot of ramble going on in this text, right? Stalking, Walking and Talking. To begin, let's review where are we in context. Here is what has already happened in the Gospel of Mark which we will be in all year.

It begins with the baptism of Jesus. As we know, Mark doesn't have the birth story. Jesus calls the first disciples. He starts healing people. He starts to get more popular. He heals the man that his friends lower down through the roof--you remember that. He forgives the man's sin. He eats with sinners. He eats with tax collectors. He talks about not putting new wine in old wine skins -- we're going to do something new! He talks about fasting.

So in chapter one,  Jesus is growing through popularity and healing. In chapter two, he's growing in controversy by forgiving and hanging out with the wrong people. And by the end of today's passage, the Pharisees got together with the supporters of Herod of all people--you must remember these would have been their enemies--they're going to team up with their enemies to plan how to destroy Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.

It's ridiculous, right? it's just ridiculous, but this reveals just how early Jesus was stirring controversy, and you know that sometimes when people stir controversy, it's not them who is doing the stirring, right? It is them who is doing the next right thing that needs to be done--and others start stirring because what they are doing makes them uncomfortable. Have we ever seen this today?? Right. Stalking, walking, and talking.

Let's start with the Stalking Part. I find it so interesting that this reading begins when Jesus and his disciples are walking through grain fields, and for some reason the Pharisees are there, and maybe it's just me but I find that kind of odd. I want to say,

“Don't you have anything better to do than to creepily follow a guy that you don't even like just to try and catch him doing something wrong?”

It makes me think of fan behavior and stalkers and it gives me weird paparazzi vibes. They're literally walking on the Sabbath, picking up a little bit of grain, and I could just imagine the Pharisees like coming in between the stalks of grain saying,

“That's wrong!”

Right?

“What do you think you're doing here?”

They pounce as soon as they see something wrong. The truth is we live in a world full of suspicion. We live in a world where there is this slow boiling undercurrent of anger. We have seen people lose their cool, lose their temper, pounce on others unnecessarily. And you get the feeling when it happens, like they were just waiting for an opportunity to do it, right?

The other issue is that frankly, stalking has never been easier than in the year 2024 thanks to social media. It is almost blessed to stalk people--that's another sermon--but let me just put it over here and say, that's a problem, right? That IS a problem.

So after this surprise accusation in the grainfield, the next thing we hear about is the healing of the man with a withered hand. Jesus continues talking with the Pharisees about the sabbath and you get the feeling he's trying to help them see the light.

He asks them, “Is it lawful to do good or evil on the Sabbath?

And they refuse to answer him. Now you know how that works. Somebody refuses to answer you because they know you're right! They know the right answer, and they don't want the right answer to be the right answer, so they say nothing.

He asked them, “Is it lawful to do good or evil on the Sabbath?”

And then they don't answer, and then Jesus becomes angry about their lack of compassion. He's angry and he heals the man anyway. That’s interesting: he’s angry and he heals the man anyway. Sometimes we separate those two, as if anger itself is an evil thing--not necessarily. Sometimes it's extremely empowering, it causes people to work for change, to be advocates, to go against the tide, to stand up and say, “This is wrong. What you’re doing is wrong.”

Especially when the thing that someone is doing that is wrong is harming one of God's beloved children. So the Pharisees are super mad about Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. They’re mad enough to go to their enemies, the Herodians, and start plotting how to kill Jesus-- and we are only in Chapter 3 of Mark.

I think it's interesting how early the plotting to kill him happens.

Like what happened to all the steps in the middle? The let's sit down and have a meal together, a cup of tea, a beverage--find something in common--remember why we liked you once not that long ago.

But so often, people move from anger to, I must do away with the thing that is making me angry because it's too much effort to work through it with them, right? And this leads to things like estrangement. You probably know someone who's estranged. You probably know someone in your life that's estranged. I do. It hurts, right? It's all because they couldn't, or wouldn't, work through and talk about it.

Stalking, walking, talking. So anger is both a catalyst that can motivate us, and it also has to be handled with care. The question for us today is: does our anger, individually and collectively, lead us to work for positive change in life in the world all around us? Or, does it lead to destruction and death? And that is the question on which law needs to rest.

So often laws are created arbitrarily because the people making the laws here, have issues with the people over there. It has nothing to do with lifting up life in the world and protecting it, right?

So how do we deal with laws that clearly should never have been made laws to begin with? How do we deal with a law that should never have been made a law to begin with? You know that in the Antebellum South, it was against the law to teach a Black person to read. That was a law designed to oppress--not to free. That was a law to keep people down, rather than lift them up. If you apply the question, “Does the law lift up life around us or cause destruction and death?” That was clearly a law that never should have been made! And as we begin Pride Month, dozens of new state laws in this country have been enacted targeting LGBTQIA people's rights, and in particular, transgender young people. Transgender young people being guided by their families, and people who love them, and doctors, are now being told they cannot come to school, they cannot get an education . Does that sound at all like being told we will not teach you to read??

So today is the second day of Pride Month, and I wanted to bring something to help you remember it. We have this on our wall in our house. [Shows tea towel with painting of Stonewall in NYC] Pride month began in June 1970, to mark the first anniversary of the violent police raid at New York Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, when the police decided they should go in and start arresting and harming people in that bar simply because of who they were. Pride month is about protests and inclusion. It's about being allies. It's about walking with. It's about standing with people against those who would harm them--people up, who up until 1969 in this country, were unable to openly celebrate who they were and who they love for fear of violence, not just by ordinary citizens, but by people in authority, including the police.

When we read in the paper, when we see on TV, that people in authority are intentionally being violent and causing harm to other people --LGBTQIA people, black and brown people, immigrants and refugees, it's a long list, right? When we see that happening, it's important to remember movements that have happened over time where ordinary citizens have stood with those people to stop the violence--and been harmed themselves. This is what it means to be an ally. So when you hear people saying,

“I don't know why we have to have a whole month to celebrate Pride,” it's important to remember this is what we're talking about. Standing up for what is right, protecting people, allowing love to rein, allowing people to live freely and authentically--that's what's we're talking about.

That brings me to a little bit more on this man stretching out his hand. I think it it's interesting that Jesus says, “Stretch out your hand.”

And I think it's interesting because, the image that we get in our head is, how was his hand? Was it like this? Was it like this? Was it behind his back? What was going on with his hand that he had to stretch it out? It  could have been withered with horrible arthritis. Maybe it got crushed under something--that could have happened. But have you ever noticed when you are uncomfortable someplace, when you feel like you might be criticized or that violence might come to you. When you are fearful of being your authentic self; when you look around the room and you don't see anyone potentially to be an ally, what do we do with our hands? We put them in our pockets. We cross them in front of us. It's a protective thing, isn't it?

So the man even stretching out his hand that alone was an act of God. That alone was unusual--and on the Sabbath day!

And I ask us to think about this week, what kind of things might I be holding on to so tightly that it would be hard to stretch our hands, and allow ourselves to be healed? What kind of things about ourselves do we need to talk about but we're afraid? When is this country going to treat mental illness like any other kind of illness? When are we going to have conversations that flow more freely, so that we can be allies that help one another? You know things that are kept in the dark collect shame. Things that are kept in the dark collect fear. This is the way forward to stretch out our hands to talk about it. What are you holding on to so tightly that you need to consider that Jesus is saying to YOU, stretch out your hand. Stretch out your hand--you don't need to hold on to this all by yourself. There are people, faithful people, who will love you and walk with you and talk with you. And it's also important for us to look in the mirror and remind ourselves that we need to be those people that when someone does stir up the courage to stretch out their hand, that we don't recoil, and we just listen.

So in the end, it's about this man holding on to his hand. It’s about the Pharisees holding on to tight rules; people holding on to their own sense of rightness. It's about perceived self- protection. And Jesus provokes this fight on a Sabbath, why? To draw out healing for what is held tight and bound up for both the man and the Pharisees.

It's only the second day of June and already this month we have seen God's healing grace moving through people and situations. It is important to remember that too, because the work we are called to--inviting people to stretch out their hand, and stretching out our own. In walking with people whom others are being violent towards--it's important to see all around us God Is with Us. In pride month, allyship is saying to our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters and siblings, stretch out your hand.

This has come a long way long way since 1969 when the police didn't think anything of going into a bar to beat people up because they were gay and transgender.

Something else that happened this week: twelve jurors did a hard thing conducting themselves with integrity, humility, and a careful commitment to the act of service they were asked to perform. We need to pray for those jurors going forward. You know that, right? Yes. They were brave. They were empowered. They were doing the next right thing, God bless them.

And then the last one I want to mention is that Mrs. Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama, died on Friday. God bless her. If you have read--or if not, I encourage you to read--Michelle Obama's biography or memoir, Becoming. In it, she talks about her mother and how helpful her mother was during those eight years that President Barack Obama was in office--in helping to give her granddaughters especially, and her daughter a sense of safety, in an environment that was often hostile.

Pete Souza, the White House photographer, took a famous photo of Barack Obama the night he was elected in 2008. In it, Barack Obama and his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, are sitting at either end of a small couch--like a love seat--and they are looking away, not really engaged with each other, but they're holding hands. Some of you have seen this photo, yes? It's so beautiful, isn't it? And in Becoming, Michelle Obama talks about this photo. She says she asked her mother about that moment when she saw the photo, and she asked her how it came to be that she and her husband were holding hands right before it was announced that he had won?

And her mother, Marian Robinson said, “His father left when he was two. He lost his mother to cancer. He was moments away from becoming the leader of the Free World with no parents. So I took his hand.