[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to the Collective Table, where we celebrate the intersections of Jesus, justice, and joy.
This podcast is brought to you by Oceanside Sanctuary Church. Each week, we bring our listeners a recording of our weekly Sunday teaching at Oceanside Sanctuary, which ties scripture into the larger conversations happening in our community, congregation.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: And even the podcast.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: So we're glad you're here, and thanks for listening.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: So we are in the midst, I guess, more towards the end of our fall teaching series, which is titled Setting Collective Tables. And so during this time, we're exploring what it means to reckon with diversity and difference in the world and within ourselves.
And at the heart of this journey is a commitment to resisting certain types of isolation and cultivating intentional community, which we talk a lot about here.
And as it has already been mentioned this morning, it's not lost on me or really anyone who you hear from up here that we're doing this against the backdrop of a really difficult election season in our country. And I don't know about you, but I'm kind of exhausted.
It's kind of hard to escape.
But last week, Jason brought us some ideas that centered on the importance of knowing who we are, where we stand, and the importance of kind of getting away in order to listen to God and listen to ourselves in order to do the work of listening to one another. And I found that really comforting and hopeful. And so in light of a lot of the despair and fear that people are feeling, I think the reason why I found it so comforting was because it's more important than ever to know how to listen to God and how to stand in who we are. And so I'm going to share a little bit of what is on my heart today and what I have been hearing from scripture and from Jesus. And I am hoping that it can provide us with a Now that we have sat with ourselves, what do we do next? Where do we go from here?
And before we get into it, I would invite you guys to center yourselves and pray with me.
Loving God, as we gather in your presence, quiet our minds and open our hearts.
Help us to release our worries and our need to go at it alone.
Prepare us to hear your word with fresh ears that we can receive the wisdom you have for us today.
Draw us closer to you and to each other, and let your spirit of peace and unity guide everything that we do.
It's in your holy name that we pray.
Amen.
So just a few short years ago, my very sweet husband who was in the Marine Corps, he was sent on a deployment.
And of course, I was not particularly Thrilled that he was going to be gone for months on end with minimal communication.
But at that point, I felt seasoned enough as a military spouse. And so I really set out to make this time a time of growth. And so, as he set out on his own journey, I set out to be a strong, independent woman.
I didn't need a man to help me open a pickle jar. I mean, I really never did in the first place, but it's always nice to have someone else around to do it for you. You know, I thought, I can rearrange the furniture on my own, I can cut the grass, I can do everything and more.
Until one day I got a call from our landlord at the end of our lease. We had been renting this house in Oceanside. My landlord said, we are planning to sell your house at the end of your lease. You're going to need to find a new place to live.
And of course, the lease was set to renew before he got back from his deployment.
I was stressed. I thought, okay, I guess my husband is going to come home to a different home. I can do this. I've moved myself before, all by myself, before we were married. But as I started to pack up and look at new leases and tour houses all by myself, the woman who was set out to be strong and independent at the beginning of this deployment, the one who had rolled up her sleeves and was ready to get to work, she was further and further and further in my rearview mirror. It did not feel like her at all anymore.
And then I got another call. I got a call from one of Chris coworkers. And his unit had of course heard what was going on and they had committed to help us move.
So when moving day came, I had someone take me to the U haul and pick up the moving truck. And when I got back to our house, everyone who had showed up to help us move, they had packed up our three bedroom home in two hours flat.
I barely had to lift a finger. And when I got to our new house, which happened to be on base at Camp Pendleton, our neighbor was there ready with water bottles and extra toilet paper. Which sounds random, but if you have moved, you know that that is super helpful when you are walking into a new empty house and another neighbor was kind enough to stop by and bring dinner that evening.
Me, this woman who was determined to prove how great she was at being independent. I was really humbled during that time. My world kind of turned upside down because that was one of the most profound experiences of not just community showing up, but it was One of the first times in my adult life that I had been truly cared for, this community of people had truly showed up for me without me even asking. And it profoundly changed the way that I think about independence.
You know, we often receive this message of being an independent person, that being independent is the pinnacle of the human experience. The ultimate goal is not needing help from anyone or not having to even ask for help, having enough money, power, or knowledge to do what you need to do and to get what you need to get all on your own.
And according to this message, to even ask for help or accept help or to be on the receiving end of care can often be seen as a failure.
And for those of us who are maybe in the position to care for others, oftentimes the people who are on the receiving end of that care, it's easy to understand them, is lesser to be the less powerful people who need our money or our help or our fixing.
And although this idea of independence has really taken root in the west, you know, we're considered to be an individualistic society versus a collectivist society. So our starting point for understanding ourselves and identifying ourselves is often this isolated self rather than being informed by our family, our group, our community.
This isn't necessarily a new idea, and I'm not suggesting that individualism is all bad, but, you know, too much of one thing can be harmful.
So I thought we would look at Luke 12, 1321 together to see what Jesus says about. About an excess of independence and individualism and where it comes from.
So Jesus was speaking to a crowd of people, as he often did. And it seems like when he's speaking to people, there's always that one person who speaks up and says something and asks a crazy question.
And so this guy spoke up and said, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.
And Jesus said to him, friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?
And then Jesus turned to the rest of the crowd and said, take care. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
And then he told them a parable or a story.
He said, the land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought for himself, what should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? And then he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones. And there I will store my grain and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.
Relax Eat, drink, and be merry.
But then God said to him, you fool, this very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich towards God.
All right, I think there's so much here. But first of all, I cannot go without saying I find it really funny that this guy finally got his chance to ask Jesus a question, and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, can you tell my brother to do this?
And what is Jesus response? Jesus says, don't put words in my mouth. And then, as he often does, Jesus tells him a story, a story about a man who worked really, really hard. He had a great year, and he made a lot. In fact, he made so much that he had to build new storehouses to store up all of his harvest. He was set for life.
So amongst all of these storehouses filled to the brim, he sat back and just set out to enjoy his life, not a care in the world.
But there was a catch.
Not only did he die, but Jesus points out that he was all alone.
What did all of his wealth resultant?
The same thing that inevitably awaits us all, Immortality.
And what I see in this picture that Jesus paints in this story is a man who was very alone when he died.
And let me just say he. This wasn't because he did anything particularly wrong or bad and not because any of his family or friends had reasons to leave him alone.
He was really alone because he built these very full storehouses that just served as walls that separated him from everything and everyone around him. He built up this empire of wealth around himself to the point that he was under the impression that he didn't need anyone else.
I have a picture I'd like to share that I think just provides such a beautiful image of this.
So when Jesus says that people who store up treasures for themselves are not rich towards God, he's using this story as an example of the ways that wealth and privilege can separate us from the real stuff, from where Jesus says that God dwells.
If you go back earlier in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus identifies the poor. He says, the poor in spirit, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the hungry, blessed are those who weep. Jesus says, that is who God dwells with.
And then he turns and he exclaims, how sad. How far from God. It seems those who are seemingly full, the wealthy and the powerful. Jesus says, woe to you.
This word woe, w o e that Jesus uses, it's often found in texts when someone is expressing a deep spiritual sadness or grievance. Jesus is saying, I'm grieved over the ways that the rich are continuing to choose to separate themselves from me, from this beautifully mutually independent world that I have created.
And by blessing the poor in spirit, Jesus is saying that people who may not be afforded all of this privilege, they're the only ones that seem to get it, even though often they're not the ones who even have a choice.
I also think of Luke 18, when Jesus is talking to another rich man and he exclaims how hard it is for the wealthy to enter into the kingdom of God. He says that it's harder for a camel. Think a giant camel thinning through the eye of a needle, so, so small. Which is really a creative way to say that it's basically impossible.
Yikes, right?
So what does that mean for those of us who are in that wealth privileged category? Jesus could have just left it at that, saying it's impossible. But his next turn is so filled with grace, I think, and it's crucial for our understanding of what we're supposed to do with that.
He says it's impossible. But then he says, but nothing is impossible with God.
He leaves it open here to say, there's room, there's grace. He's inviting the rich and powerful to do the work, to be a part of the kingdom of God again. Because it is harder to do that work than a camel fitting through the eye of a needle. It's not a simple checklist of things to do, it's not a list of books to read. But regardless, the invitation to do that work is there and the grace from God is there to do it.
And I think much of that work involves taking on something that this morning I'm going to call deep solidarity.
So deep solidarity is understanding Jesus pronouncements that the poor are the blessed ones.
Understanding that is an invitation not just to acknowledge and agree with it, but to perhaps protect these populations as sacred.
Because if God's spirit truly dwells with those we would consider to be the least valued in our world, the work of deep solidarity involves a flip in our understanding of power dynamics. But the least of these are actually the most empowered in God's economy.
That's what Jesus was talking about when he says, those who are first will be last, and, and those who are last will be first in the kingdom of God.
Deep solidarity swims against our inclination towards power, towards wealth, this power and wealth that can sometimes beget us in independence. That is the Very thing that separates us from the need from one another that God is so, so present in.
I think that this idea, sometimes we see it in forms like rugged individualism, pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps. Maybe you've heard every man, or you can say every woman for themselves.
Even survival of the fittest is a good example of this. The same line of thinking that had convinced me that I could do it on my own.
In fact, I would even argue that the originator of the idea of survival of the fittest, Charles Darwin himself, this was never even his intent with his scientific theories.
Charles had several children, but one of them, her name was Ann, she was the absolute apple of his eye.
He spent a lot of time caring for her until her unfortunate death when she was only 10 years old.
His time spent caring for her and the ultimate loss of hurt, it didn't just soften him, but it really deeply formed his scientific theory because he was wholly changed in his experience of caring for her and of coming alongside her in her suffering.
In his work on the Origin of Species, he claims that we didn't just evolve to learn how to work together to compete for goods, but we actually evolved as a species to be able to work together for the purpose of caring for one another.
In many ways, Darwin's ideas have been conflated with these ideas of competition, of individualism, every man for himself, this flavor of independence, when actually there is a deeper side to this process of even our evolution as a species.
So our survival does not depend just on building our own empire, our own wealth, but our survival as a species, according to these theories, actually depends on how we care for one another, how we learn and cultivate the skill of caring for one another.
And if you follow this line of logic, we would kill ourselves off if we don't continue to learn how to rely on and care for one another.
I love how author Alyssa Strauss, who writes about the theory and ethics of care, puts it.
She says, what is care but helping creation take one more step, one more breath. It's vital for the survival of our species.
And much like we have conflated Darwin's theories with this competition flavor of independence, I think Jesus entire message, it's easy to twist it and to of a similar idea that even our spirituality is about saving an isolated, independent self, gaining personal salvation or reaching individual enlightenment to get to a faraway heaven even, or rather than looking around and seeing that liberation or the opportunity for liberation is here in the ways that we can be with one another and mutual care and interdependence I think Jesus is inviting us to be a part of that through deep solidarity.
So our next turn on the path towards deep solidarity is to examine where our own wealth and privileges can be separating us from where God already is.
Where it may not just be separating us from our neighbor, who is less powerful and less privileged, but how our continual gaining of more power and privilege can even be pushing others further down as we climb higher and higher.
I think that even seemingly small things can go unnoticed because they've become such integral parts of our lives. For example, and hear me out. I think our reliance on cars is a great example of how our wealth affords us independence, but independence that ultimately separates us from opportunities for community solidarity and mutual care. And just to preface, I say all this as someone who owns a car, which just tells you how it's really, really hard to get away from this. It's systemic.
So we live in a culture where, by and large, if you can't get around by car, it's hard to keep up with the pace of life that's expected in this way. We've built these separating walls around us a lot like this guy who built up his storehouses in Luke 12. We've built a society where some of us can get around independently and fairly quickly, which is great, but what does that mean for someone who is beholden to the bus schedule? What would it look like for us to work for a society that values folks who rely on things like public transportation?
Well, one, public transit would be more reliable, accessible, and widespread. But that is another rant for another day. But also, what could we learn from a system like public transportation, which, when idealistically executed, it's equitable, it's cost effective, it improves the climate, it's safe. And it's just a system that requires a certain level of interdependence rather than independence among those who operate and use it.
And if you look at places, there aren't that many in the U.S. but if you look at certain places where public transportation is most effective, the gap in people who use it are smaller. And that has required the people who are of privilege and do have choices to participate in that system.
So I'm not asking you to go sell or ditch your car. Maybe if Jesus was standing up here, he would say that. But that's not what I'm asking you to do today. But I'm inviting you to consider how deep solidarity is examining and really taking seriously the ways that our own wealth and privilege can separate us from one another, especially those of different backgrounds or means.
And again, it's so tempting to think that certain levels of independence are marks of success. But we have to consider at what cost is this? Because at the end of the day, it's only leading to this widening gap.
For those of us in positions of privilege. We have to go out of our way to swim against this current and choose different ways of living and being.
And that is the work of deep solidarity.
Though oftentimes this looks like choosing what might not be in your own interest.
And let me be clear, because it's really easy to understand this idea as a call for rich people just to co opt what it means to be poor. But I don't think that's what Jesus is calling us to. I think Jesus is calling us to commit to deep equitable practices and relationships. The things that dismantle our illusions of self sufficiency, things that cultivate mutual dependence. What helps us come alongside one another, especially those who are suffering by resisting the lure of wealth as social status or power over others. We are invited to practice solidarity that frees all, frees everyone to engage in the community as equals.
So it's not just about showing up to help others in need. And it's not necessarily just about being nice or kind. I think there's a place for kindness. It's very important. But sometimes kindness can make us feel really good. And in that ways kindness can be easy, which I think is Again, okay, but that's not my point. What I'm talking about is attending to the other, a type of care that is more than just charity.
It's about examining the ways that our particular wealth or privilege keeps us out of touch from the very places that God dwells. And that requires approaching yourself and others from a place of shared vulnerability.
And let me just say that is easier said than done because it requires that if we fall into that wealthy or privileged category that we have to sit with sides of ourself that Jesus could have been pronouncing those woes upon. Jesus weeps over what we might be missing out on.
And of course I think there's a time and a place for following Jesus to look like comfort. But there's also a time and a place, according to Jesus himself, for challenge and for hard work.
And the good news is that we're not alone in it and that it's not an invitation that's damning, it's an invitation of grace from Jesus.
Solidarity then looks like maybe not just volunteering in a place like our food pantry, but doing so from a place of genuine compassion, where you see each person not as a project, but as an equal neighbor worthy of dignity and care, deep solidarity is not just about throwing your money at an organization, but doing so that reflects a willingness to invest in someone else's future, even when it doesn't directly benefit you or align with your comforts of power and status.
And it's not just about befriending someone whose life experience is vastly different than yours, but being present enough to that relationship that you're truly open, that you're listening without an agenda, and that you recognize that they might have wisdom and insight for you too.
Deep solidarity often requires reaching beyond your usual circles, choosing discomfort over ease, or staying in relationships long enough to be transformed by them.
And today, as we celebrate our 149th year as a church, kicking off our big 150 year as a gathered community, I can think of no better way, no better challenge for us as a community of faith because we have committed ourselves to grow together in the love, peace and justice of Christ for the sake of our relationships and our cities and our world. And I think in order for that to continue to be made realized, we need that work of deep solidarity. And I'm so excited that we get to do that work together.
So as I invite our band back up to close us out in worship, I would invite you all to pray with me.
God of love, we come before you grateful for your boundless love that reminds us that we are not alone.
Open our hearts to receive both the.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: Gift of care and the call to care deeply for others.
Where we are tempted by self sufficiency, lead us to embrace interdependence and where we find comfort and wealth or independence, show us the richness of solidarity and shared life.
Teach us to see each other with compassion, to extend grace freely, and to build community that reflects your divine generosity.
God, would you bless us to encounter you in every act, giving and receiving, trusting that you are present in our midst, drawing us closer to one another and to you and the Spirit of Jesus who shows us the way.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us for this Sunday teaching, no matter when or where you're tuning in.
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