As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
One never knows what
the gospel reading is likely to stir up as we meditate on it. Today's gospel
lesson dredged up for me experiences from my teenage years in LA. The early
1960s in America was one of great ferment which was
played out in California as elsewhere in the States. The Viet Nam War, the
Civil Rights movement, a presidential assassination, race riots, hippies, to
name only the most obvious examples. A political furor was stirred up in
California when the state legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act in
September 1963. This outlawed discrimination against people of color seeking
housing. Up until then it was legal to refuse to sell your home to someone on
the basis of ethnicity. This practice was promoted by the
real estate association in California. Their basic argument was that if people
of color moved into white neighborhoods, property values would drop. So people
should have the right to dispose of their property as they saw fit to protect the value of their property. So proposition 14 appeared on the November
1964 ballot to amend the California Constitution to nullify the 1963 Rumford
Act. It passed with a 65% vote in favor of the proposition.
So why would that
vignette come to mind? A dramatic Act was undertaken to heal a sickness in
society and the people rejected it. Saying basically, don't mess with the way things are because the cost is too high. The cost
outweighs the benefit. Of course, that all depends on your point of view.
Financial costs versus the benefits of needed healing.
In today's gospel,
the Gadarenes may have feared the possessed men, but when Jesus heals them and
the village pigs end up being the cost to be paid for that healing, the people said no thank you. Please leave our neighborhood. You have
destroyed our livelihood. And one might add the gloss that the livelihood was
gain from an unclean occupation from a Jewish point of view. So Jesus walked
away.
There is a cost to
discipleship and when we face that cost it is so very human to decline to pay
it. It will always take us out of our comfort zone. It very
likely will have financial implications. And we can say no, and Jesus will walk
away. The Christian message is not about coercion. But it is about decision.
The gospel elsewhere quotes Jesus saying "I did not come to bring peace, but
a sword." [Mt 10:34]. He came to change relationships. To rethink the
tried and true. To reorient priorities. To find ways to fix inequities, to
bring outsiders back in. To remind us that the father wants all to be saved. No
one is to be left behind. Jesus can help us move in
the right direction but the decision is ours, to accept or decline the offer.
In 1965 the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 14 was unconstitutional
thereby reinstating the Fair Housing Act. Jesus walked away, but what he did
remained. The healing happened in spite of the views of the Gadarenes. In
California the housing market was changed forever.
However, some people's attitudes still haven't changed. But for many the new
lived experience has helped people overcome their fears. It has taken a long
time and the journey to healing is far from complete in California, or in our
country. To be Christ's disciples requires that we go inward to soften our
hearts. To remind ourselves that all are God's children, all, not just some.
Glory be to Jesus Christ!
