EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Psalm 25:1-9

Philippians 2:1-13

Matthew 21:23-32

Prayer of the Day: God of love, giver of life, you know our frailties and failings. Give us your grace to overcome them, keep us from those things that harm us, and guide us in the way of salvation, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins who shall die.” Ezekiel 18:1-4.

Actually, there is more than a little truth to the proverb to which the Lord takes exception in our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures. We know that many children of abusive, neglectful and inept parents carry for the rest of their lives scars from wounds inflicted by their dysfunctional families. We who live today in the United States have never owned slaves and, unless a good deal older than me (and I’m no spring chicken), have not played any part in implementing or enforcing Jim Crow legislation. Nevertheless, we live with the consequences of these sins which perpetuate themselves systemically in our government, workplaces and educational institutions. Moreover, our children stand to inherit the world we have made for them: a world irreparably ecologically damaged, less prosperous and threatened by the resurgence of fascism. We have eaten the sour grapes of greed, racial hate and violence; their teeth are set on edge by the sorry legacy we have bequeathed to them.

Yet the prophet condemns this saying because, while undoubtedly true, it is not the whole truth. While we may have been born into circumstances created by our ancestors, unlike our ancestors, we are still living and breathing. We are moral agents capable of making moral decisions. We may not be able to erase the scars inflicted upon us in the past. But we can choose whether our past will define our future, or whether our future will bring redemptive meaning to our past. We cannot change our nation’s shameful history of racism. But that does not free us from our obligation to dismantle its continuing presence in our churches, schools, workplaces and government. We say in our confessional liturgy that “we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” That much is true. But the greater truth comes in the absolution which states: “God, who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.” So, yes, you are stuck with a past, much of which you did not make and none of which you can change. But you have been liberated to live in a present governed not by your past, but by God’s future reign. So what are you going to do about it?

I think our biggest problem, and when I say “our” I am speaking principally to my fellow Lutherans, is that, like Ezekiel’s audience, we fixate too much on the confessional liturgy and too little on the implications of the absolution. My childhood religious education emphasized the pervasiveness and power of sin in our individual lives and in society leading to a kind of pious fatalism. I am old enough to remember the days before Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights icon. I can remember my pastor criticizing King and the civil rights movement on grounds that disobeying the government God had established was rebellion against God. Yes, he conceded, racism is a sin and segregation is unjust. But because we live in a sinful world, the justice meted out by human authorities will always be less than perfect. Ours is not the prerogative to resist or overthrow the authority God has instituted. Because we are sinners, we cannot expect anything better from any improvement to or replacement of the authority that already exists. To the contrary, we will likely end up making matters worse.

Thankfully, you are not likely to hear preaching like that in any American Lutheran church today, though I suppose if you were to turn over enough rocks among some of the more reactionary break off Lutheran bodies you might find a specimen or two. Nevertheless, I think the same pious fatalism still infects much of our ministry today. It is just more difficult to recognize because very often it is hidden under activist rhetoric. In a recent article in the Christian Century,[1] Gerardo Marti, professor of sociology at Davidson College observes that “the word inclusive is everywhere….” Yet while usually sincere and rooted in scripture, “over time it has become a moral framework centered on affective warmth rather than structural change.” As a result, the “theology of inclusivity leads to an impasse for the White progressive church: It wants to be prophetic without being disruptive, just without being divisive, welcoming without ever being uncomfortable.”

The paucity of substance in my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s commitment to dismantling white supremacy became clear in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. At that time many of us, including yours truly, urged the bishops of the ELCA to call upon the church to make a substantial commitment to reparations to African American victims of racism. See Open Letter to the ELCA Presiding Bishop and Synodical Bishops: A Modest Proposal for Reparational Tithe. I cannot speak for everyone who issued this call, but I received a half page response from the then presiding bishop thanking for me for my interest and informing me that the issue of reparations was being referred to a committee for study. Ah, the committee, that cul-de-sac down which ideas are sent to die! The rationale, I was told, was to develop a program to educate the whole church so that the move for reparations and other more direct actions to address white supremacy would have “buy in” from all members. But again, as Marti observes, the emphasis on analysis, discussion, education, all designed to “get everyone on board,” leads finally to institutional paralysis. The study and consideration of racism gets confused with actually confronting and combating it. The process becomes an end in itself. More than that, it practically ensures that no meaningful action involving risk or sacrifice will ever be taken.

There is little risk in issuing public statements condemning white supremacy and urging justice for its victims. There is no risk involved in synodical conventions breaking its delegates up into little groups to share experiences and feelings about racial issues. It costs nothing to post a “Black Lives Matter” sign on your front lawn. But pledging substantial financial support and making church property and resources available to Black churches and/or Black organizations fighting for equal housing, education and opportunities will surely prove disruptive and very possibly divisive. Some bishops with whom I have communicated tell me that they are pastors to the whole church and that it is their job to build consensus, not dictate. We need to take whatever time that requires.  

To any bishop who might give a tinker’s dam for what a retired small steeple pastor thinks, I respectfully disagree. Bishops are not group facilitators. The ELCA presiding bishop is to “be a teacher of the faith of this church and shall provide leadership for the life and witness of this church.” So says the ELCA constitution at chapter 13, subsection 21. According to the model synodical constitution, bishops are to “[i]nterpret and advocate the mission and theology of the whole church.” Model Synodical Constitution, chapter 8, section 12, subsection g1. No, you cannot dictate what the rest of the church must do. But you can and, if the above cited constitutional provisions mean anything, you must call the church to do concretely what is right and what is just. The church may not listen to you. It might well turn on you and reject you. You may seem to have failed. You might not be reelected. That’s called taking up the cross. Deal with it. Stop acting like the CEO of a failing corporation trembling before the wrath of angry shareholders. You are bishops. You stand in the shoes of the apostles. Speaking hard but redemptive truth is your job. So put on your grown up pants and do it.

Ezekiel’s message is clear. There is no room for resignation. Repentance is a refusal to let the past shape the future. You play the hand you are dealt, however unpromising it might be. You do not throw your cards into the air and walk away from the table. You do not complain that the challenges are too big, that you are too small and the consequences of obedience are too risky. Even in the ashes of defeat and the hostile environment of exile, God is present working a new thing. You can choose to be part of “that number when the saints come marching in, or you can just sit on the curb and let the parade pass you by.

Here is a poem by Langston Hughes arguing for the recognition of the present time as the day of liberation for people of color. Hughes’ holy impatience reflects that of Ezekiel’s zeal for the future of his people.

Freedom

Source: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (c. 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, pub. by Random House, LLC, 1990). Langston Hughes was an important African American voice in the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s. Though well-educated and widely traveled, Hughes’ poetry never strayed far from his roots in the African American community. Early in his career, Hughes’ work was criticized by some African American intellectuals for portraying what they viewed as an unflattering representation of back life. In a response to these critics, Hughes replied, “I didn’t know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them. I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach. But they seemed to me good people, too.”  Today Langston Hughes is recognized globally as a towering literary figure of the 20^th Century. You can read more about Hughes and discover more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website (from which the above quote is taken).

[1] “The Inclusivity Trap,” by Gerardo Marti, The Christian Century, (October 2026), pp. 62-66.