A vaccination called justice

Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8

People have been saying that racism is a pandemic that we just never found the right vaccination for. And even the treatment isn’t yet broadly accessible. People have been saying that racism is a pandemic that has killed thousands and thousands of people. And yet, before COVID-19, I never really understood what they meant. It felt exaggerated. Well, after 3 months under Shelter-in-place, I feel like I start to get it.

If racism is a pandemic without a vaccination and a with a cure only few people choose to access, then that means: It’s awful. It feels like it will never end. It changes how you behave completely. It defines who you interact with and who you are afraid of. It is always on your mind. It defines your reality.

Or, like a man put it on his protest sign: Treat racism like COVID-19. Assume you have it. Listen to experts about it. Don’t spread it. Be willing to change your life to end it.

Sounds like a huge ask? Well, Jesus had his life ended to change ours. Change is what we are baptized into. Change is what we are here for. Change through sacrifices and compassion.

Today’s Gospel emphasizes on the need of compassion. On Jesus’ compassion that is so great the he will eventually die for it. Today, he comes into a town and sees the cruel reality. Few have too much, some have enough, most live on the edge. They lack decent food, they lack any kind of health care, many are sick. They are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. In short, they are truly vulnerable. There is no one to protect them. And most people don’t seem to care enough to really change the system. Or they fear to lose privileges and don’t want to change it after all. 

Well, Jesus is moved and he gets right to work. And the harvest is plentiful. There is so much to do, so much to change, so much to be made right. There are so many crying for justice, so many who want to be heard. There are so many who are deaf to the cries and who have to learn how to see the people around them and listen to their voices. The harvest is truly plentiful, it’s actually pretty overwhelming, but the laborers are few. Somehow, it was always easier to perpetuate a system than to change it. 

What does Jesus do? He tells them about God who cares for the lost and the sad and the weirdos and the poor. He cures every disease and heals every sickness. 

He heals the disease of privilege as a God who was born an immigrant homeless boy.

He heals the disease of racism as a God of all nations who unites everyone in Christ.

He heals the disease of marginalization because God himself chose to be marginalized. Now, that means: To hang out with God is to hang out with the marginalized. And suddenly, the marginalized can become a changing force in a society. It’s really quite easy if you think about it.

But even Jesus can’t do all of this work of changing the world into the kingdom of God by healing alone. Even Jesus needs more laborers, more multiplier to spread the word. That privilege in God’s eyes means to suffer in the fight for the marginalized. It means to use whatever we have to give people a voice and to listen to them.

Not by speaking for them, as the church has long thought it is our task. But by listening to people, by creating spaces for others to be heard. 

Throughout the last 2 weeks celebrities like Selena Gomez, Shawn Mendes or Lady Gaga have been handing over their Instagram accounts. Now their millions of followers hear black men and women telling their stories. Lady Gaga said: “I vow to regularly, in perpetuity, across all of my social media platforms, post stories, content, and otherwise lift up the voices of the countless inspiring members and groups within the Black community.” 

Jesus was moved and his friends were moved. And when we are moved, we start moving. We start getting actively engaged, we start reading, listening, seeing the world with newly opened eyes. And suddenly there are people we hardly ever noticed before. When we are moved, we put on the glasses of compassion. And suddenly we see all the needs around us. It’s overwhelming. It’s exhausting. It’s easy to feel too small and to give up easily. It’s easy to suffer from compassion fatigue.

But we are driving on a tank filled with hope. Not just any hope. But hope deeply grounded in suffering and compassion. The experience of believers is like a chemical chain reaction, one substance setting off a whole sequence of processes. We know that suffering produces patience, and patience produces character, and character produces hope. Suffering is the catalyst in this process, and hope is where it all starts and where it will all end. The hope that God really loves this world so much that he did send his one and only son to show us God. That’s where it all starts. And the hope, that one day, there will be peace with God for all creation, that’s where it will all end. Peace with God always means justice. There is no peace without justice. There is no flowery wordy reconciliation without justice. Peace with God equals justice for all. 

On the road to justice, Jesus calls his friends to work. To cure diseases and sickness and to cast out unclean demons. Demons that have us firmly in its grip. Demons like when I am still, for a second, surprised, that my primary care giver in Berkeley turned out to be a black woman.  And that she also speaks German because she used to live in Munich. And when I ask her, how she liked it there, I actually expect to hear about racism she encountered. But she is too nice to tell me right away and so we talk about great Bavarian food and the beautiful Alps. And when I finally ask her, she just says: “Well, yes, there were some strange looks once in a while.” And I know that that is an absolute understatement of what she got to hear. 

Demons like when I taught Sunday school and told the story of the Good Samaritan with little figures. In search of a figure that looked different from the others, like a foreigner like the Samaritan, I automatically grabbed the black one and continued to tell the story. When I looked up, I saw in the eyes of 2 of my Sunday school kids, they were dark-skinned, their father was black. And I felt ashamed to have trapped into the narrative of black and white. Even though in this story the black guy now was the good one. But also “the other”, the one, that didn’t belong. Back then, I was ashamed, but I didn’t name it, I didn’t apologize. I guess I hoped that nobody had noticed. But I know, that these 2 kids and their mom did. Rightly so.

It’s those demons we are called to cast out. In ourselves and others. The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few.

At first, Jesus sent his friends to work among their own people, the Jews. To work where they can have the most impact, where they are culturally aware and likely to be heard. That’s where we are supposed to make allies. Among our own people, our congregation, our family, our friends. We need to recruit laborers for the kingdom of God. For justice for all.  

To avoid a misunderstanding. We are not the ones who will heal people suffering from racism. We are among those who need to be healed. We are the ones who need to listen and to learn. We have to be compassionate with people suffering. We have to see their pain, feel their pain, cry our tears over our shared pain. And then, we can change and maybe change the world. 

The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefor ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. As quickly as possible. Amen.