Friends in Lowly Places

 “Follow me… Go and learn what this means, ‘For I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”  - Matthew 9:9,13a

 You have heard the expression, “He has friends in high places.”  We mean it as a description of someone who has powerful or influential connections.  It’s a commentary on power. 

 Power ranks right up there at or near the top of the things that intoxicate, lure and entice human beings.  In 1 Timothy 6:10 we read, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in  eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.” 

In our culture we know, and most certainly have seen demonstrated in the public arena in recent times, that money and power are very closely related.  Money means power, and power means money.  The money people and the power people are often one-and-the-same and most certainly scratch each other’s economic and political backs as a matter of course.

 Also, as a matter of course, we (the average general public) pretty much accept it, except when offenses and abuses are made in the pursuit of power and money that are so grievous and so public that we cannot help but be outraged and offended demanding that justice be rendered. 

 But the grievous and highly public offenses are only the tip of the iceberg, and we accept much of the rest of it as a matter of course because we resign ourselves to the reality this is simply how the world works.  “Welcome to the real world, pastor,” someone said to me this week as I was lamenting over something.  “Welcome to the real world,” we often admonish each other in tacit resignation. 

 My brother has been involved political and economic involvements on numerous levels for his entire adult life.  Years ago he was on the City Council in Rockford, Illinois.  He was encouraged by many to run for mayor of Rockford.  He was a personal friend and campaign manager for 8-term congressman John B. Anderson of Illinois, and was asked to run for his seat in congress when he stepped down in 1980.   He was president of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, vice President of the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, and now he is a “Public Affairs Consultant” in the state of Illinois (a fancy name for a lobbyist).  He has been involved, in one way or another, in Illinois politics and economics for most of his adult life.  He’s been on a first name basis with governors, mayors, senators and representatives. He’s seen and experienced much: the good and the bad, the honest and the corrupt and everyone and everything in between.  It could be said that he is a person “who has friends in high places.”

 He is a very interesting person with whom to converse.  He has told me some things over the years that have curled my hair, if you will, and stuck with me.   One of the things that he has seen come true is something that the late 19^th century historian Lord Action once said: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”   He has witnessed first hand that axiom come true in situations that never make the front pages, but happen behind the scenes. 

 He shared stories with me of good people who’ve had good ideas and values, but over time the good ideas became secondary to an almost pathological quest for power. 

 I believe in my lifetime of almost 6 decades I have not seen or experienced a time when this power-game was more widespread, more insidious, and I might even say more vicious as right now.  It really matters not in what arena you look that you see the power game being played to the hilt.  We see it within the church - within congregations and denominations; between congregations, denominations and affiliations - as powerful forces pull one way or another over a myriad of social and theological issues.  We see it in the political arena as the left and right fight it out for the political high-ground often reducing incredibly complex issues to sound bytes and black and white simplicity. You see it on an international scale as nations compete for influence and power, especially on the economic and jobs front. On we could go.  Everywhere we look it seems as if we are being asked to align ourselves with one power that pits itself over and against another power that is perceived and made out to be bad, evil or wrong.  I don’t know about you but I seldom find life that simplistic and clear-cut!

 I have great respect for my brother, a Christian man, as I have watched his career unfold. One of the things I respect about him the most is that whatever decisions he’s made or positions he’s has arrived at, he has been inherently conscious of who might get stepped upon or over as a result.   I know he has passed over numerous golden opportunities to attain office or influence for exactly that reason. 

 The thing I admire about him the most is that even though he does “have friends in high places,” he has even more “friends in lowly places.”  He lives in downtown Chicago, in a little condo, near Lake Michigan.  It’s a real experience to walk around downtown Chicago with him.  He may know numerous power-people on a first name basis, but he knows an army of lowly people on a first name basis.  You walk around downtown and it seems as if everywhere we go he knows parking attendants, bellhops, bartenders, table servers, and clerks.  And he not only knows their names, but he knows something about their families, their lives, their troubles and their joys.

 I have entitled this sermon today, “Friends in Lowly Places.”  The Jesus that I see, not only in this scripture for today, but in the pages of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, is a Jesus who had made friends in lowly places, and a Jesus who scorned and shunned traditional definitions of power.

 Let's take a quick look at the gospel of Matthew, only up to this point of chapter 9.  Chapters 1 and 2 are about Jesus’ genealogy and birth (a very humble birth it was); chapter 3 is about humbling himself in baptism in the Jordan River; Chapter 4, the Temptation Story in the wilderness, is exactly about Jesus’ unequivocal rejection of traditional forms of human power.  Chapters 5-7 is the Sermon of the Mount where Jesus guts most conventional conceptions of power by turning them inside out; in chapter 8 he touches a leper who is considered ritually unclean by the righteous, heals a Roman centurion’s servant, who is considered and outsider and even an enemy by Israel, and casts the demons out of two men living in a cemetery; in chapter 9, just before our verses for today, he forgives the sins of and heals a paralyzed man.

 In today’s scripture he confronts Matthew, not by denouncing him for working for the occupying government and participating in what could construed as traitorous activity, but with an invitation to follow - no sales pitch, no promises, no deals, no resumes or pre-qualifications, just  “follow me!”

 The next thing we know he is dining with a crowd of rift-raft and sinners.  The power-people are up in arms, “Why does your teacher eat with… sinners.”   At the end of today’s passage he allows another person who was considered ritually unclean to touch him – a woman with an issue of blood.  Woven between these two incidents he raises the corpse of a little girl to new life. 

 The way in which Matthew presents the story of Jesus up to this point, I believe, drives home a poignant truth.  By rejecting and shedding conventional conceptions of power Jesus was not blinded to the lonely, the lost and the forsaken but sensitized to them.  That’s what a quest for power inevitably does.  It blinds and desensitizes us to the lost, the lonely and the forsaken.  He knew them.  He reached out to them.  He showed mercy and love to the people that all the power brokers, religious and otherwise, had stepped over and stepped upon.

 “Follow Me… Go and learn what this means, ‘for I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”

 In the context of Matthew’s gospel this passage is an invitation to discipleship, but not merely any kind of discipleship.  It is an invitation to be a disciple of Jesus.  But know this!  The journey of following will be difficult.  He will take you to places and ask you to do things that will be absolutely the opposite of the conventional ways we think and act; the opposite of the normal expressions of human power.

 It’s a journey whose chief characteristic is to show mercy, even and especially, to those we consider sinners, which is no easy thing in a power-based-world that often flexes its mighty muscles against the lowly, lost and forsaken - steps on and over them to get ahead.

 “…for I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

 Jesus was quoting Hosea here, as well as paraphrasing a favorite and recurring theme of other Old Testament prophets, especially Amos (5:21-24) and Micah (6:6-8).  To paraphrase these prophets, the Lord God is not impressed with our pious words, strict morals, upbeat worship services, and the melody of our songs if we lack the one critical ingredient in being a disciple of Jesus – mercy.

 In verse 11 we hear the judgmental cries of the righteous, “Why does your teacher eat with… sinners?”

 And he is still at it, present in this meal of bread and wine, dining with this batch of sinners; extending to us the same invitation and mercy he extended to Matthew and the others; accepting us just the way we are: proud or broken, angry or sorrowful, arrogant or hopeless, committers of sins or omitters of good; not demanding that we first be worthy; loving us too much to leave us lost in our sin and thirst for power – finally transforming us, I pray, into disciples of the same mercy he has shown us.  Amen.