Pentecost XIII                                          Dr. Dale B. Martin             Isaiah 28:14-22                                        Sunday, August 26, 2007

Psalm 46                                                Solemn Mass

Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-29

Luke 13:22-30

 

Cutting the Pie

 

It sometimes surprises people that there really isn't much in the Bible about a lot of things certain Christians are worried about. There's relatively little in the Bible about sex. Or I should say that there's a good bit of sex in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, but few actual rules about it or worrying about it. There's just about nothing in the Bible about the “traditional nuclear family,” in spite of all the “family values” rhetoric. There's not much about nationalism or patriotism. Shocking that there's nothing at all in the Bible about the American flag! And there's very little, if anything, about “accepting Jesus as your Lord and personal savior.” One thing that is all over the Bible, though, is concern about justice—and injustice.

 

Such as Isaiah 28. Isaiah is addressing the ruling class of Jerusalem , who are confident that they've been able to use their wealth and influence even to “make a pact” with death and Sheol. They're not afraid of anything. And why should they be? They hold the power. Thus far, they've succeeded by making lies their “refuge.” They have protected themselves through dishonesty and denials: “In falsehood we have taken shelter.” God says, though, that he will use justice as the plumbline to test just how upright they are. “Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies.” “When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it.” The complacency and comfort of those in power, those who maintain their power through lies and shallow denials, will be destroyed as punishment for their injustices.

 

But isn't it hard to decide what is really just and what unjust? Isn't justice hard to define or identify?

 

Well, in the particulars, I guess that is so. But mothers everywhere have come up with at least one way to teach it to their little boys. I know you've either done this yourself or seen some mother do it. There's only one piece of chocolate cake left, and two grabby, greedy little boys. My mom says, “Okay, Dale, you're the oldest, so you get to cut the cake to share it with your brother.” Awright!!! “I'm cuttin' the cake. I'm cuttin' the cake.”

 

So I cut the piece of cake and am ready to give my brother Lane his piece. Well, maybe they're not exactly the same size. I do give him half. It's just that his half is a little smaller than my half. But wait a minute! My mom stops me and says that Lane gets first choice of the two pieces. That, I am now told, is the rule: the one who cuts the cake gets last choice of the pieces. Woah, that's not fair! I mean, I'm bigger than he is. I need more cake than he does. Or, Mom, think about seniority ! I've been around longer, so I should get a bigger piece.

I do not win this argument.

 

In our house with four hungry kids, we learned that this would be the system. A regular size pie would make six pieces, one for each member of the family. We had to take turns cutting the pie, but the cutter of the pie got last choice, and that meant usually the smallest piece.

 

I dreaded when it was my turn to cut the pie. The pressure! One of my very favorites: lemon meringue pie made with Eagle Brand Sweetened and Condensed canned milk—you know what I'm talking about; don't act like you don't—with toasty, buttery graham cracker crust, and real meringue baked lightly on top. Mmmm. I told my little sister that the meringue was calf slobber so she'd give me hers. To this day, she doesn't like meringue. When we had lemon meringue pie made with Eagle Brand Sweetened and Condensed canned milk and I had to cut the pie, you would have needed a surgical scalpel, an electron-microscope, and a Ph.D. in geometry to cut that pie more equally than I did.

 

Whoever cuts the pie, gets the smallest piece. That's justice.

 

John Rawls, a famous political philosopher and ethicist in the twentieth century, talked about how to think about ethics and justice. How do we think ethically so that we can set up social systems of justice? One of his thought experiments was to suggest that we imagine ourselves constructing, say, an economic system, but without knowing what kind of position in that resulting system we ourselves or our loved ones would occupy. We might, for example, set up a legal system in which we ourselves would end up not as the judge and jury, but at the accused, perhaps even the guilty. We construct the best system we can but as if behind a “veil of ignorance” of what position or role we would occupy in that system. We design a system, a legal system, a health care system, an educational system, a prison system, whatever, as if we might have to occupy the position of the least power, of the greatest weakness, in that system. Would we construct a system of apartheid if we knew we would be black? You cut the pie as if you will get the smallest piece.

 

And all that time, I didn't know my mom was a “Rawlsian.”

 

What would our society, our country, be like if we and our leaders had to live by that sense of justice and injustice?

 

What if the American Congress was given the task of coming up with a health care plan for the country. I'm totally fantasizing here. The members of Congress could come up with whatever plan they wanted, but with the knowledge that they and their families would have access to the least resources, the least amount of money provided for their doctors and hospital stays, the worst equipped emergency rooms, the least referrals to specialists, and the least access to elective procedures. What kind of health care system do you think our representatives would devise?

 

What if we relatively well-educated, middle-class citizens of Connecticut were told to reform the state's educational system so that all children would be enrolled in the same system, but we knew that our children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews would get last choice of which school to attend? What kind of system would we come up with?

 

Suppose George Bush and Dick Cheney had been told, “Okay, you think you need a separate system for arresting, imprisoning, interrogating, trying, torturing, and punishing all those people you have branded as terrorists and eternal enemies of the American people? Okay. Devise the system. Build a prison. Make totally new rules for accusing someone or allowing the accused to defend himself. And make it all secret and subject to no disciplinary or legal oversight except that of the accusers. But with one stipulation: after serving out your terms as President and Vice President, you will be put into that system on charges chosen by your enemies and tried for what others believe to be your crimes. You will be imprisoned, interrogated, and tried under the exact conditions you set up, with your enemies in charge of the place.” If George Bush and Dick Cheney knew they would be its next occupants, do you think we would have had Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo ?

 

“But, Oh Mister Owner of the House, we ate and drank with you. We sat with you in your skybox at the Yankees games. We were the respectable people in town. We occupied the richest nation on earth. We had the strongest military.” But he will say, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers. People will come from east and west, from Asia and Africa, yea from the Middle East, and will eat in the kingdom of God . But you will be cast out. The last will be first, and the first will be last.”

 

But scripture is a strange thing. Sometimes it seems to send us mixed messages. Parts of our Psalm for today sound eerily like our world:

 

The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms are shaken;

God has spoken, and the earth melts.

 

Other parts try to reassure us:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

…

Come now and look upon the works of the Lord,

what awesome things he has done on earth.

It is he who makes war to cease in all the world;

he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear,

and burns the shields with fire.

 

But is God now doing that among us? It seems to me that faster than God can beat our swords into plowshares, our country beats them right back into swords. Where is this “river whose streams make glad the city of God ”? Where is this “holy habitation of the Most High”?

 

It is both ours to make, and God's to bring. The strange thing about scripture is that it is not at all sentimental or romantic. At times, it confronts us with realizations of just how unjust we and our country are. Scripture shows the inequitities and injustices of our selves and our societies.

 

But then it opens doors also to visions of hope. Because if we don't have glimmers of hope, we will lose even the desire for justice. We will certainly lose any feeling that we may accomplish it.

 

So right in the midst of forcing us to face the injustices of our society and to attempt again and again to force our leaders to do justice, scripture opens a door to heaven.

 

“You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom,… But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new convenant.”

 

Our challenge is to take the threats of injustice seriously, but also to accept our salvation by grace. To live with the assurance of grace without forgetting the demand for justice. “You have not come to something that c an be touched…”