Sometimes the Bible Is Clear

Amos 5:10-15, Mark 10:17-31

October 15, 2006

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

On Monday night Luke and I had the joy of attending the concert with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Yale Camerata (under Maggie’s direction) at Woolsey Hall. We were seated in the balcony to the right of the stage where we could see Dave Brubeck’s face as he played piano. I don’t think the man stopped smiling for two hours. Not only is he incredibly skilled at playing jazz, he also so clearly has such a love for his work, such a joy in playing that it became almost a spiritual experience to watch him. He and the other musicians in the concert and the music became such a blessing to me that I found myself remembering a prayer we sometimes use as a grace at our house, “Thank you God for this food, and all whose hands have brought it to us.” This time, thinking of the hands of Brubeck on the piano and those playing other instruments, I prayed “Thank you God for this music and all whose hands and voices have brought it to us.”

Then, as Brubeck was exiting the stage for intermission, I saw that there was a man whose job appeared to be opening and closing the door to let the musicians on and off the stage; he was invisible to most of the audience. And I began to think about all those whose hands, invisible to us, had something to do with bringing us music that night. I thought about the people who clean Woolsey Hall, the ushers who took our tickets and gave us our programs, the people who produced and printed those programs, the people who worked the sound system, the people working at the electric company that night making sure the power stayed on in New Haven. After I saw how much the quartet sweated under those lights, I thought about the people who would dry clean their tuxedos, I thought about the people, perhaps in another country, who made those tuxedos. Then I thought about where Brubeck and his bandmates might live; I don’t know, but I am guessing that they have an income that would allow them to hire someone to wash their clothes and clean their homes or apartments, and that made me think of Vanessa.

For two summers our family has hosted a child through the Fresh Air Fund for a week in our home. Vanessa lives with four brothers and sisters and her mother in public housing in Brooklyn. Her father took off, so her mother supports the family with the help of her family and her job cleaning apartments for about minimum wage. Maybe Vanessa’s mother cleans apartments of some famous people like Brubeck and his band?

Anyway, it just became so clear to me that this magical evening could not have happened without the work of so many people who did not share either the applause or the salaries of Mr. Brubeck and his band, but that most of those people and their work were so invisible to those of us in the Hall that night that we never thought of them, like that man opening the door.

The prophet Amos speaks, “Therefore because you trample on the poor and deprive them of the food they need to live, you have built houses of fine stone, but you shall not live in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.” If the poor, who work very hard at breaking and shaping the stone for the houses of the wealthy, who plant and tend and harvest the grapes to make wine, if these folk are not treated justly and compensated for their work in such a way that they can buy food and shelter for themselves and their families, then they cannot do the work that society needs to function and thrive. It was true in Amos’ time and it is true in ours.

But Amos’ goes beyond the practical, functional reason why we should make sure society is structured so that everyone, especially those who tend to be invisible to us, is compensated for their work and cared for when they are in need. We should do it because it’s right, because it is good and just. We should do it because Vanessa and her mother and the electric company line workers and the ushers and the migrant workers who pick grapes and the young women and men and children in the factories in Mexico or China or India who made the clothes we are wearing today, all these people are not invisible to God, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Desmond Tutu once wrote: “Justice is not a case of the ‘haves’ giving to the ‘have nots.’ That is far too unworthy and shallow an interpretation of God’s intent for us. We must recognize that all people are our brothers and sisters in Christ; we are all members of God’s family. We would want the best for our family. We would want good education and health care for them, and we would willingly help in any way possible for that to happen. If they are being victimized we would move heaven and earth to speak out against such evil.” Do we see this?

Jesus nailed it on the head in his conversation with the wealthy man who wanted to go to heaven. It wasn’t that the man’s wealth was in and of itself evil, and Jesus certainly doesn’t say that poverty in and of itself is good. That wealth, however, blinded this man so that he could not see the faces of those who suffered under the system that had made him wealthy. He thought his righteousness was a personal matter and had nothing to do with them. Until he removed those blinders, the man could not truly serve God as he seemed to earnestly desire to do. Until he saw that being part of God’s kingdom was not just about him, but about the bigger picture of all God’s children, he would never find the door. In fact, this man’s wealth controlled him so completely that he is the only person Jesus ever called to follow him, to become a disciple, who said no. We all like to think that if we had been in the presence of Jesus and he invited us to travel with him, we would jump at the chance. But if Jesus looked deep into me to see what I was most afraid of losing and asked me to give it up, would I have had the courage to do so? Do I now? Do you?

Today we commissioned our Confirmation Class as those journeying to discipleship, and we received new members into our congregation who journey with us on the continuing road to discipleship. I think we owe it to them and to ourselves to say that sometimes this journey is difficult. It calls us to see things we would rather not see, to admit our complicity in injustice, to not make excuses for our behavior, or to think that we, rich or poor or somewhere in between, have done all there is to be righteous and now just need to await our reward. It calls us to speak of what we see around us, even when, as in Amos’ time, society “abhors the one who speaks the truth.” It calls us to reach out to those who were invisible in Amos’ time and are still often invisible in ours, and to the structures of our society that seek to keep them invisible.

Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand and we can interpret many parts of it in many different ways and struggle to understand what is right. But sometimes it is very clear indeed. “Hate evil and love good and establish justice in commerce and the law, do not trample on the poor and needy,” and finally, in Amos 5:24, “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” Confirmands, new members, old members, that’s what we’re called to be up to here, with the help of each other, and of God. Amen.