Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
I wasn’t introduced to artichokes until I was in my 20’s. They were too expensive and too exotic a food for my family table growing up. So, the first time I was served one at a social function, I was totally at sea. Why were these nice people who had invited me to dinner serving me a very large thistle head? I waited until everyone else was served to see what I supposed to do. I watched as each person peeled away a piece, dip it in sauce and then nibble the end. After all the pieces were gone, my dining companions then went to work on the heart.
It seemed to me at the time that someone had had to be very hungry to discover the edible portions of an artichoke. Even the ancient Romans and Greeks who lived in the region where the artichoke originated debated whether it was a useful food or not. But, despite the debate, the artichoke continues to grace many tables these days – rarely mine.
Today’s gospel reading is, from my perspective, a bit of an artichoke. On the surface it’s a tale of Jesus healing two women, one older, one younger. But as we peel away the layers of the two stories, one embedded in the heart of the other, we find the solid gospel food we need in these days. Both healing stories point us towards the path of becoming free from the bondage of privilege.
Let’s look at Jairus for a moment. He is wealthy; he has social prestige; he occupies a public role as a man of substance. Yet all these privileges that allow him to act freely in the community and to expect defence cannot save his daughter. Her illness brings Jairus literally to his knees before Jesus, an itinerant Jewish teacher who is not wealthy, whose social prestige is a bit iffy, who occupies a public role as a wonder worker, a religious gadfly and a potential political threat. Jairus’ daughter’s crisis brings Jairus a moment of liberation from the bondage of privilege. We can only imagine what his life was like after this encounter with Jesus.
Then there is the older woman who has lost everything due to her condition. She is destitute. She has no social prestige due to her constant ritual impurity. She has does not occupy any public role, whether as a wife, a widow or a woman of substance. She has nothing to lose by trying literally to reach out to Jesus in her search for healing. Jairus is brought to his knees, but she is brought to boldness, unseemly to some in the crowd, but honoured by Jesus. This woman is already liberated by the bondage of what is understood as privilege to her contemporaries. But she gains a new privilege by her faith in Jesus; she becomes a ‘daughter’, a member of the new family of God begun in the life and ministry of Jesus.
As I pondered these stories of liberation from the bondage of privilege, I found myself thinking about some occasions in my life where the privilege of being a Euro-Canadian male with advanced degrees and social status as a member of the Christian clergy.
* Watching a Melanesian woman and her children being told to disembark from a plane because it was overloaded with the luggage of Taiwanese lumber workers and two white Anglican priests, John Blyth and me.
* Arriving in the airport in Singapore on a flight from Yangon and being pulled along with Bishop Jim Cowan from the long line of arriving Burmese passengers to an expedited customs and immigration station reserved for diplomats and air crews.
* Being sent off with a warning rather than a ticket for speeding on the south side of the Patullo Bridge perhaps because I was wearing a clerical collar and was so Canadian-like in my politeness with the police officer.
* Receiving two doses of the Moderna vaccine while others still wait for their first dose, both here in Canada and elsewhere in the world.
Let me be very clear. I am not telling these stories to lay blame on or shame anyone. I am telling these stories so that we can all ponder the reality of the privilege that many of us possess, often a consequence of our birth or other factors beyond our immediate control or the way our society is structured. But privilege can be a form of bondage. It is bondage when our reaction to any challenge to our privilege evokes in us any sense of outrage or anger, both of which are simply forms of fear.
When we face the possibility of being liberated from the bondage of privilege, fundamental questions bubble up from the core of our being: Who will I be without this privilege? What will I have if I yield this privilege? What shape will my future take if this privilege is distributed to others? These questions are ones which Paul speaks of in today’s reading from his second letter to the Christians in Corinth as he pleads with them to contribute to the needs of the Christian community in Jerusalem.
. . . I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something— now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.
As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.”
Our faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and who continues to guide and empower us by the Holy Spirit gives us the confidence to risk yielding privilege in order that there ‘may be a fair balance’. While there are voices that plead a scarcity of resources, whether physical, social or spiritual, we, the disciples of Jesus, know that we dwell in the midst of an abundance of resources. To yield privilege is not to be impoverished or diminished; it is a step on the journey to discover the living heart of the good news of God in Jesus.
In that journey of discipleship we peel away the armour of privilege, just as a hungry person peels away the outer armour of an artichoke, in order to reach the heart that awaits us. We discover that as we peel away the exterior, the good news does not become less but grows, just as last week’s mustard seed grows into hardy bush that shelters the birds. In this yielding we learn the truth and the truth shall set us free.
