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The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 24,
2010 The Rev. William Van Oss, Rector
Readings
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
The eminent anthropologist Margaret Mead was once asked what she regarded as the earliest sign of civilization. Was it fire, writing, an axe blade, an arrowhead, a fishhook, or something more sophisticated, like language, a musical instrument, or a ceramic jug? Her answer might come as a surprise. “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” Mead answered, “A healed human femur.”
Not something made by a human, but something deeply human. Not an artifact, not a thing, but something that was part of someone who walked the earth, someone who was hurt, but healed. Dr. Mead explained that where the law of survival of the fittest reigns, a broken leg means death. If you cannot make it on your own, you’re doomed. But a healed leg bone is physical evidence that someone cared. Someone brought food for the injured person while the leg healed. Someone cared for them until they could once again care for themselves. The first sign of civilization was compassion and it is still the best sign.
Jesus springs on the scene in today’s Gospel as God’s prophet of compassion. At this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has been baptized in the Jordan, led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days of prayer and being tempted by the devil, and today he launches into his public ministry, appearing in the temple for worship, saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the Lord’s favor.” The King James adds, “to heal the broken hearted.”
Jesus springs into his public ministry today with clear vision of who He is and what He is about. He is the prophet of compassion. Remember how the devil tempted Him in the wilderness? The devil said, “be the prophet of parlor tricks”, be the prophet of military might,” “be the prophet of earthly things,” and Jesus said no. Today Jesus makes it clear who He is, the prophet of compassion and what and who He is about: the poor, the captives, the blind and oppressed, the brokenhearted, and those on the margins.
Jesus invoked the vision of Isaiah the prophet in setting Himself up as the prophet who would cast a vision of a world transformed and reconciled in God’s peace and justice. Jesus casts a vision of relationship and interdependence, of love and, yes, care; the kind of vision that leads one to care for someone with a broken leg or for people who have just suffered an earthquake, a vision of healing and compassion. Interdependence and relationship, a community of humankind, bound together in care and compassion, especially for the weak and the vulnerable. This is the prophetic voice of Jesus we hear today, this is the voice that stands opposed to the survival of the fittest.
Last week, I saw the movie, “Up in the Air”. George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert. Clooney’s character flies around the country firing people. It seems his only goal in life is to become one of the handful of people who has flown 10 million miles on American Airlines. But the film is really a commentary on Ryan Bingham’s life, a life devoid of meaningful relationships. For as successful as Bingham is, and as much as he tells himself that he enjoys his life of airports, airplanes and hotel rooms, his life lacks meaningful relationships. He is alienated from his family, his encounters with woman are purely recreational and he proclaims a message of going through life with an empty backpack, with nothing and no one to “weigh you down” as he says. Alone and safely tucked in his airplane seat, he flies above all that, above the messiness of relationships, above caring for someone beside himself, above helping to make the world a better place, but what Ryan Bingham really has is a life without meaning.
And this is sometimes that message we receive in the world in which we live and move, “be free and independent,” we hear “don’t let the cares and concerns of others weigh you down.” The goal is for you to be carefree, isn’t that an interesting word? Carefree. Free of care, unburdened by caring for anyone else, let the man with the broken leg take care of himself.
Our temptation is that voice, the voice that says, “You can fly above it all.” As long as you have clean water, enough food, a warm place to live, good healthcare, good schools, perhaps some savings, that’s all that matters, because it’s all about you. No, we are called to heed the voice of Christ, the prophet of compassion, to reach out and respond to human need and suffering wherever it exists, whether in Haiti or in our own backyard.
Christ’s voice reminds us that we are connected, woven into a single garment called humanity, so that when one suffers we all suffer because all are loved and cherished by God. If the earliest sign of civilization was a healed human femur, then I believe the greatest sign of civilization in the year 2010 is whether we can see beyond our own self-interest and respond with compassion to needs in our community, in our country, in places like Haiti and anywhere where there’s human suffering. Today the voice of the prophet of compassion calls us to do this work. Amen