Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our second reading for the morning comes from the Inclusive
Bible and is Luke Wish fourteen seven through fourteen. Jesus
went on to address a parable to the guests, noticing
how they were trying to get a place of honor
at the table. When you're invited to a wedding party,
(00:23):
don't sit in the place of honor in case someone
more distinguished has been invited. Otherwise, the hosts might come
and say to you, make room for this person, and
you would have to proceed shamefitedly to the lowest place.
What you should do is go and sit in the
lowest place, so that when your hosts approach you, they'll say,
(00:46):
my friend, come up higher. This will win you the
esteem of the other guests, for all who exalt themselves
will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Then Jesus said to the host whenever you give a
lunch or dinner, don't invite your friends or colleagues, or
(01:06):
relatives or wealthy neighbors. They might invite you in return
and thus repay you.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
When you have a reception, invite those who are poor,
or have physical infirmities, or are blind. You should be
pleased that they can't repay you, for you'll be repaid
at the resurrection of the just.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
In my family, there is the birthday plate. Now you see,
the birthday plate is really the odd plate. For when
my mother, my sister, and I would gather for dinner
or launch around the dining room table, my sister and
I would argue over who got the birthday plate. It's
(02:06):
much like we would say front seat. But when it
came to the birthday plate, even as we would argue,
proclaimed that we said it first. It seemed to me
as a child that the birthday plate always went to
my sister, for I had come to believe that she
had a different way of calculating the days between our birthdays.
(02:29):
If it was a few days before her birthday, certainly
it was hers. But after her birthday it seemed to
me that the plate should move to me, for my
birthday would be closer. But it appeared in my mind
that the day after she still had the plate because
it had only been one day since her birthday. It
(02:51):
seemed to me most often that the only time I
got the birthday plate was on my birth date. Now
you see, this plate was sort of our every day
eating dishes. For you know how children can be. We
can be rambunctious and a dish will go flying off
the table and it's broken. This plate, and as I believe,
(03:16):
was the last survivor of that series, so it was special.
But the thing is, the plate was never empty, for
no matter who had it, we had this. We had
food to eat. So it wasn't about who got the
(03:38):
best seat at the table, for all the seats were
the same, But it was about sharing it, even though
I think or thought it wasn't shared the right way.
For sometimes we as people think we should have the
best seat, the best table, it's the most comfortable. But
(04:01):
this plate the end of the day was like the
other plates. It all had the same food and we
had plenty to eat. So often when we hear today's
gospel reading about sitting at the lower plates, we often
say it's a text about humility, and it is. But
(04:25):
sometimes we people like us, we like humility where it
makes us appear to be humble. But sometimes humility, as
it is at the table, is more about being passive.
We moved down to the lower end of the table,
sitting down not necessarily expecting that we will get the
(04:47):
birthday plate, or called to a better seat. But we
think we've got it about humility and being humble. My friends,
I think the story is not addressed to us as
we put where we usually place ourselves. It is we are,
(05:08):
for the most part, capable of throwing perhaps not a
wedding banquet at every meal, but we can throw a
party of sorts, because we too can eat. Sometimes we
have to re examine scripture. Sometimes we must hear scripture
(05:28):
in a new ways. Sometimes we must hear readings we
have not heard before. For as the first reading was
one that was recommended for today's readings on this date
in the revised Common Electionary. When I sat down to
read it, I was moved. Part of me is I
want to go stand on the steps of our capital
(05:50):
and at the White House and read it aloud, for
it spoke to me in a way that I think
men in the world and here in the United States,
look at how our governments run, how decisions are made.
And sometimes we are those who assume we've got it all,
(06:18):
and really we have no bread, or perhaps we have bread,
and we silly assume that everybody has bread, and we're
all the same, and we all get to eat alike.
But sometimes the bread that some parents make is not
the bread or the quality we eat. For there are
(06:44):
stories that are being reported now about some people making
hay bread hey the stuff we feed animals, or straw
of parents and mothers, especially in Gaza, grind eating up
hay and straw to make a little bread. Now, hay
(07:14):
or straw is not poisonous. I assume it doesn't taste
very well. But the thing is our gastro intestinal process
for humans isn't designed to process such food. But when
you're hungry, you'll do anything. Gaza is starving. It's official now.
(07:45):
Organizations that U and others have been predicting that famine
would come, famine has arrived. There are parents and grandparents
who eat every other day or every third day so
(08:07):
that the children can eat perhaps a little each day.
Now we live in a world where we think we
have systems that will figure it all out. We create
organizations where we think it will be the best process
of feeding. When you hear the words on the surface,
(08:32):
the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sounds like thank goodness, there is
someone doing something well. It's not all that it seems
to be. It's actually one of the few organizations who
can get in food, but people who live in Gaza
(08:54):
have found that this foundation, with the support of both
the US and Israel, is often one of the deadliest
places to go is As they stand in line, scavenge
and waiting for a little bit of food, it appears
that they are being summarily shot. Sometimes in the words
(09:16):
that well, they're unruly. Well, I believe most of us
would be unruly if we were starving to death. Some
leaders in some places say, well, the Gozans are just
on a diet, that they have been counting their calories,
and that being on a diet is to know that
(09:40):
you're a little bit hungry. But maybe if you're hungry enough,
you will make change in the government that you can
force those who are making you hungry. Sometimes we say
the combatants are the ones making those hungry, those who
perhaps are hiding in tunnels. But the thing is, they're
all starving alike, so are we. The ones who think, well,
(10:12):
there's plenty of bread, say there's bread, but there is
no bread. In the couple of weeks that famine has
been officially declared, three hundred and thirty three people as
of today have starved in Gaza. It's not counting before
(10:37):
the predictions of famine, and of those three hundred and
thirty three, one hundred and twenty five children have starved
to death. There are days that I feel very convicted
(10:57):
about this because I feel that I have been convicted
because this is being done in my name, being done
in my name because I haven't done enough work, enough research,
(11:18):
or haven't talked to enough to realize that party, politic
governments and how we view others. It's not so much
about humility, but it's that plate that we offer saying
this is good news, and the plate is absolutely empty.
(11:46):
In Prospect magazine, a British magazine, the headline four weeks
ago was you'll eat in heaven. What God's of parents
are telling their children. It's stories of parents, mothers and fathers, grandparents,
(12:07):
aunts and uncles who while their children become more bony,
more gaunt, and they themselves to sing in heaven, there'll
be bread, You'll eat in heaven. But I believe it
(12:30):
is our job not to think about bread and the
bye and bye. It's about bread right now. It's not
enough to say you'll eat in heaven. It's about eating
right now, hunger is something we can do something about.
(12:54):
We can engender hope and in hunger in Gaza by
being in touch with our political leaders, speaking up and
speaking loud. We can make a difference. By changing the
narrative of the story. We can find ways to get
food to those who are starving. It doesn't have to
(13:17):
be our method, but any method. It can be our
leaders asking and working with Israel's leaders and world leaders
saying it's not about putting people on a diet, it's
about making people full. Perhaps if they're not being starved
(13:39):
to death, perhaps the battle and human understanding would emerge.
In the middle of July, the un I New Church
of Christ gathered for its for its syned in Kansas City.
(14:03):
I was one of those delegates from New York. Among
the resolutions, there was one resolution coming from the United
Church of Christ that was about ending the genocide in Gaza.
It wasn't only about bullets. It was about starving humanitarian
(14:28):
sources that people around the world who have come to
believe in, such as doctors without borders. My friends have said,
Israel is starving. It's a genocide, it is a famine.
We live in a world or at least we here
(14:48):
tend not to have to worry about eating for anything,
we might have to worry about eating too much. Yet
I know it's not the simple solution. And sometimes where
children have been reprimanded, you have to eat everything on
your plate because some child somewhere is not. It's starving. Well,
(15:09):
the food we're eating right now probably wouldn't last that long,
even though there's plenty preservative in it. But we can
be those who feed the hungry. We can be the
ones who would say heaven is about right now, that
(15:32):
we are called as disciples of Jesus to create heaven
in and on this earth, but not letting naysayers have
the day, or governments who are foolish to say there
is plenty of bread. You just have to do what
we say to eat it. It is about every human
(15:55):
being eating. And then Church of Christ we have global
mission partners that we don't do the work on our own.
We work with experts in the fields like Doctors Without
Borders and other organizations. We work with them. Shari Pressman
(16:17):
was recently elected as our Associate General Minister for the
Love of Neighbor. The Love of Neighbor portfolio is a
Gospel imperative of we talk about in both Gospel and
in Hebrew stories about loving your neighbor. It is a
(16:38):
lot about humanitarian work. It's the work about wildfires and
money that goes there. It's a work about what's happening
in Israel and around the globe. Shari has been to
Gaza numerous times, sometimes against what her family wishes she
(17:00):
would do. And when she goes, she says, she listens
a lot. She hears those stories, she responds, but over
and over again, those who are starving say thank you
(17:24):
for what you're doing. Now. She confesses that she's not
necessarily bringing buckets and barrels and baskets of food, but
that she sits there in solidarity, hearing that the work
we do can make a change, or at least bring
that word that there is at least someone, some group
(17:48):
somewhere that really cares, and they come to sit with
us and work with us. For you, see, my friends,
you'll eat in heaven. It's not enough eating right now.
(18:12):
Is so the next time you gather up around the table,
and whether you argue over the birthday plate or not,
or you argue who gets to sit down to eat,
remember that somewhere there's not even a table, not even
a chair, and there's a mother grinding hay or straw
(18:40):
or a bit of seed of unknown origin to make
a morsel to eat. We can invest our lives, We
can invest our money, we can invest everything we have,
(19:02):
not just to offer the words of wisdom, but to
offer our lives, not just how our mind understands it,
but what our heart is compelling us to do. I
am convinced that in this life there is food to eat,
(19:26):
and we should share it and get it there. However,
it is possible for where one starves, we all starve.
Amen
Our second reading for the morning comes from the Inclusive
Bible and is Luke Wish fourteen seven through fourteen. Jesus
went on to address a parable to the guests, noticing
how they were trying to get a place of honor
at the table. When you're invited to a wedding party,
(00:23):
don't sit in the place of honor in case someone
more distinguished has been invited. Otherwise, the hosts might come
and say to you, make room for this person, and
you would have to proceed shamefitedly to the lowest place.
What you should do is go and sit in the
lowest place, so that when your hosts approach you, they'll say,
(00:46):
my friend, come up higher. This will win you the
esteem of the other guests, for all who exalt themselves
will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Then Jesus said to the host whenever you give a
lunch or dinner, don't invite your friends or colleagues, or
(01:06):
relatives or wealthy neighbors. They might invite you in return
and thus repay you.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
When you have a reception, invite those who are poor,
or have physical infirmities, or are blind. You should be
pleased that they can't repay you, for you'll be repaid
at the resurrection of the just.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
In my family, there is the birthday plate. Now you see,
the birthday plate is really the odd plate. For when
my mother, my sister, and I would gather for dinner
or launch around the dining room table, my sister and
I would argue over who got the birthday plate. It's
(02:06):
much like we would say front seat. But when it
came to the birthday plate, even as we would argue,
proclaimed that we said it first. It seemed to me
as a child that the birthday plate always went to
my sister, for I had come to believe that she
had a different way of calculating the days between our birthdays.
(02:29):
If it was a few days before her birthday, certainly
it was hers. But after her birthday it seemed to
me that the plate should move to me, for my
birthday would be closer. But it appeared in my mind
that the day after she still had the plate because
it had only been one day since her birthday. It
(02:51):
seemed to me most often that the only time I
got the birthday plate was on my birth date. Now
you see, this plate was sort of our every day
eating dishes. For you know how children can be. We
can be rambunctious and a dish will go flying off
the table and it's broken. This plate, and as I believe,
(03:16):
was the last survivor of that series, so it was special.
But the thing is, the plate was never empty, for
no matter who had it, we had this. We had
food to eat. So it wasn't about who got the
(03:38):
best seat at the table, for all the seats were
the same, But it was about sharing it, even though
I think or thought it wasn't shared the right way.
For sometimes we as people think we should have the
best seat, the best table, it's the most comfortable. But
(04:01):
this plate the end of the day was like the
other plates. It all had the same food and we
had plenty to eat. So often when we hear today's
gospel reading about sitting at the lower plates, we often
say it's a text about humility, and it is. But
(04:25):
sometimes we people like us, we like humility where it
makes us appear to be humble. But sometimes humility, as
it is at the table, is more about being passive.
We moved down to the lower end of the table,
sitting down not necessarily expecting that we will get the
(04:47):
birthday plate, or called to a better seat. But we
think we've got it about humility and being humble. My friends,
I think the story is not addressed to us as
we put where we usually place ourselves. It is we are,
(05:08):
for the most part, capable of throwing perhaps not a
wedding banquet at every meal, but we can throw a
party of sorts, because we too can eat. Sometimes we
have to re examine scripture. Sometimes we must hear scripture
(05:28):
in a new ways. Sometimes we must hear readings we
have not heard before. For as the first reading was
one that was recommended for today's readings on this date
in the revised Common Electionary. When I sat down to
read it, I was moved. Part of me is I
want to go stand on the steps of our capital
(05:50):
and at the White House and read it aloud, for
it spoke to me in a way that I think
men in the world and here in the United States,
look at how our governments run, how decisions are made.
And sometimes we are those who assume we've got it all,
(06:18):
and really we have no bread, or perhaps we have bread,
and we silly assume that everybody has bread, and we're
all the same, and we all get to eat alike.
But sometimes the bread that some parents make is not
the bread or the quality we eat. For there are
(06:44):
stories that are being reported now about some people making
hay bread hey the stuff we feed animals, or straw
of parents and mothers, especially in Gaza, grind eating up
hay and straw to make a little bread. Now, hay
(07:14):
or straw is not poisonous. I assume it doesn't taste
very well. But the thing is our gastro intestinal process
for humans isn't designed to process such food. But when
you're hungry, you'll do anything. Gaza is starving. It's official now.
(07:45):
Organizations that U and others have been predicting that famine
would come, famine has arrived. There are parents and grandparents
who eat every other day or every third day so
(08:07):
that the children can eat perhaps a little each day.
Now we live in a world where we think we
have systems that will figure it all out. We create
organizations where we think it will be the best process
of feeding. When you hear the words on the surface,
(08:32):
the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sounds like thank goodness, there is
someone doing something well. It's not all that it seems
to be. It's actually one of the few organizations who
can get in food, but people who live in Gaza
(08:54):
have found that this foundation, with the support of both
the US and Israel, is often one of the deadliest
places to go is As they stand in line, scavenge
and waiting for a little bit of food, it appears
that they are being summarily shot. Sometimes in the words
(09:16):
that well, they're unruly. Well, I believe most of us
would be unruly if we were starving to death. Some
leaders in some places say, well, the Gozans are just
on a diet, that they have been counting their calories,
and that being on a diet is to know that
(09:40):
you're a little bit hungry. But maybe if you're hungry enough,
you will make change in the government that you can
force those who are making you hungry. Sometimes we say
the combatants are the ones making those hungry, those who
perhaps are hiding in tunnels. But the thing is, they're
all starving alike, so are we. The ones who think, well,
(10:12):
there's plenty of bread, say there's bread, but there is
no bread. In the couple of weeks that famine has
been officially declared, three hundred and thirty three people as
of today have starved in Gaza. It's not counting before
(10:37):
the predictions of famine, and of those three hundred and
thirty three, one hundred and twenty five children have starved
to death. There are days that I feel very convicted
(10:57):
about this because I feel that I have been convicted
because this is being done in my name, being done
in my name because I haven't done enough work, enough research,
(11:18):
or haven't talked to enough to realize that party, politic
governments and how we view others. It's not so much
about humility, but it's that plate that we offer saying
this is good news, and the plate is absolutely empty.
(11:46):
In Prospect magazine, a British magazine, the headline four weeks
ago was you'll eat in heaven. What God's of parents
are telling their children. It's stories of parents, mothers and fathers, grandparents,
(12:07):
aunts and uncles who while their children become more bony,
more gaunt, and they themselves to sing in heaven, there'll
be bread, You'll eat in heaven. But I believe it
(12:30):
is our job not to think about bread and the
bye and bye. It's about bread right now. It's not
enough to say you'll eat in heaven. It's about eating
right now, hunger is something we can do something about.
(12:54):
We can engender hope and in hunger in Gaza by
being in touch with our political leaders, speaking up and
speaking loud. We can make a difference. By changing the
narrative of the story. We can find ways to get
food to those who are starving. It doesn't have to
(13:17):
be our method, but any method. It can be our
leaders asking and working with Israel's leaders and world leaders
saying it's not about putting people on a diet, it's
about making people full. Perhaps if they're not being starved
(13:39):
to death, perhaps the battle and human understanding would emerge.
In the middle of July, the un I New Church
of Christ gathered for its for its syned in Kansas City.
(14:03):
I was one of those delegates from New York. Among
the resolutions, there was one resolution coming from the United
Church of Christ that was about ending the genocide in Gaza.
It wasn't only about bullets. It was about starving humanitarian
(14:28):
sources that people around the world who have come to
believe in, such as doctors without borders. My friends have said,
Israel is starving. It's a genocide, it is a famine.
We live in a world or at least we here
(14:48):
tend not to have to worry about eating for anything,
we might have to worry about eating too much. Yet
I know it's not the simple solution. And sometimes where
children have been reprimanded, you have to eat everything on
your plate because some child somewhere is not. It's starving. Well,
(15:09):
the food we're eating right now probably wouldn't last that long,
even though there's plenty preservative in it. But we can
be those who feed the hungry. We can be the
ones who would say heaven is about right now, that
(15:32):
we are called as disciples of Jesus to create heaven
in and on this earth, but not letting naysayers have
the day, or governments who are foolish to say there
is plenty of bread. You just have to do what
we say to eat it. It is about every human
(15:55):
being eating. And then Church of Christ we have global
mission partners that we don't do the work on our own.
We work with experts in the fields like Doctors Without
Borders and other organizations. We work with them. Shari Pressman
(16:17):
was recently elected as our Associate General Minister for the
Love of Neighbor. The Love of Neighbor portfolio is a
Gospel imperative of we talk about in both Gospel and
in Hebrew stories about loving your neighbor. It is a
(16:38):
lot about humanitarian work. It's the work about wildfires and
money that goes there. It's a work about what's happening
in Israel and around the globe. Shari has been to
Gaza numerous times, sometimes against what her family wishes she
(17:00):
would do. And when she goes, she says, she listens
a lot. She hears those stories, she responds, but over
and over again, those who are starving say thank you
(17:24):
for what you're doing. Now. She confesses that she's not
necessarily bringing buckets and barrels and baskets of food, but
that she sits there in solidarity, hearing that the work
we do can make a change, or at least bring
that word that there is at least someone, some group
(17:48):
somewhere that really cares, and they come to sit with
us and work with us. For you, see, my friends,
you'll eat in heaven. It's not enough eating right now.
(18:12):
Is so the next time you gather up around the table,
and whether you argue over the birthday plate or not,
or you argue who gets to sit down to eat,
remember that somewhere there's not even a table, not even
a chair, and there's a mother grinding hay or straw
(18:40):
or a bit of seed of unknown origin to make
a morsel to eat. We can invest our lives, We
can invest our money, we can invest everything we have,
(19:02):
not just to offer the words of wisdom, but to
offer our lives, not just how our mind understands it,
but what our heart is compelling us to do. I
am convinced that in this life there is food to eat,
(19:26):
and we should share it and get it there. However,
it is possible for where one starves, we all starve.
Amen
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