An artistic rendering of the planet Proxima b orbiting Proxima Centauri. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image between the exoplanet and Proxima itself. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO. The image is featured here.
Let’s leave the planet Earth for a while.
Imagine: the apex predator species of Earth — that’s you and me, friends — has discovered intelligent life on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, a trio of stars about 4.3 light years away, our closest stellar neighbors. We learned of this extra-terrestrial intelligence when we monitored radio transmissions of their choral music. A consortium of business and religious organizations funded the acquisition of a mineral-rich asteroid, and drilled a cylindrical hole inside it, so that they could install decks for crew quarters, navigation, food, water, surface landers, and supplies. Our engines draw power from the raw materials of the asteroid and are propelling us inside this rock at an impressive percentage of the speed of light, getting us to Alpha Centauri in about 17 years. (The effects of relativity make it seem like mere months for us.)
We manage to find the planet, which is slightly smaller than Earth. It is flush with abundant life, a dazzling kaleidoscopic jewel of colors: aquamarine, vermillion, amethyst, emerald. And when we finally make landfall, we are overwhelmed with joy when we make first contact with sentient life.
By now, some of you may know I’m describing the opening plot of a pair of novels written by Mary Doria Russell, called “The Sparrow” and “Children of God.” If you haven’t read them, don’t worry, I won’t spoil them, and you won’t be left behind in today’s reflections on the Good News. But these novels raise many intriguing questions about human ambition, human folly, human frailty, and finally the immense capacity human beings have to feel hope, and find meaning in even the worst situations.
Okay, I’ll give you one spoiler. When the third ship from Earth arrives at the Alpha Centauri planet, one of the specialists on board cries out in despair: he surveys the surface of the planet and sees that the influence of the first human visitors had led to agriculture, with mile after square mile of tidy monocultural rows of plants, just like Earth. The kaleidoscopic jewel had been marred by human ecological shortsightedness.
But it was even worse than that.
The first human visitors had been outraged to discover that the intelligent species on the planet had prevented mass suffering and environmental damage by strictly controlling birth rates, and their methods were shocking. Mortifying. Individual lives did not matter. The rights of groups did not matter. Birth order determined whether you would be neutered or not. Elderly people were executed. Babies born with deformities were executed. The apex predator species on that planet held the masses in a vise-like grip, and there was no resistance, because everyone knew that resistance met certain death. Even the diets of the general population were strictly controlled, so that no one had a full enough belly to even contemplate rising up in protest. One of the humans resolved that her goal was to teach these people a word that they did not have in their language: that word was justice.
Oops.
The human push for justice, for reversal, for the raising up of the lowly and the throwing down of the mighty, tragically led to immense suffering by all, an attempt at genocide, environmental catastrophe, mass migration, fields of dead bodies on scorched battlefields. Once again, human intent and human impact were tragically far apart.
I love these novels. They raise so many good questions. (I haven’t even told you the main plot, which explores human despair with fearless, searing honesty and courage!) But this plot — of well-intentioned humans trying to establish justice — concerns us this morning.
Jesus offers a better way.
Like those idealistic space travelers, Jesus wants to teach us the meaning of the word justice. But he’s smarter about it. He knows that justice comes painfully, and one has to be careful. Today, he takes this tack: he says that the poor are “blessed,” and he preaches “woe” to the rich. Now, it would be easy to mishear Jesus, to misunderstand him, so please hear this: he is not saying that rich people are doomed to Hell. He is not preaching fire and brimstone. He is simply saying that if you’re a Have instead of a Have Not – if you are rich, full, happy, and popular – you are going to have a harder go in the kingdom of God. He still loves you (and me! I am all of these things). He still embraces us. But it’s harder for us to understand and participate in the community Jesus is creating.
In the Jesus Community, we all share. We do not hoard. We are not ranked according to the contributions we make or the skills we have. Physical abilities (and the lack of physical abilities) don’t determine our status. Gender doesn’t determine our status. Literacy in English doesn’t determine our status. White privilege (or its absence) doesn't determine our status. Birth order, or family lineage, or whose friends we are — none of that determines our status. In the Jesus Community, we are all equal, and we all share.
And so if I have abundant wealth in all its forms — wealth in money and property, or in physical ability, or in physical attractiveness, or in social connections, or in neurological normalcy, or in racialized power systems — then in the Jesus Community, I will struggle harder and longer than those who do not enjoy these things. They will enter a community where everyone has a blanket and a bed, but no one has two, and they will feel right at home. They will enter a community where women and non-binary persons are readily accepted and are not erased or assaulted or underpaid, and they will feel right at home. They will enter a community where education and fresh vegetables and clean drinking water are all made available to everyone, and they will understand immediately how unusual this is, and what kind of justice must exist for all of this to be true.
And so Jesus says to nearly all of us today, in one way or another, “Woe to you.” Not “Cursed are you!”. Not “You’re doomed!”. Not “Talk to the hand!”. After all, in another story, Mark the evangelist makes sure to tell us how Jesus looked upon a rich young man and loved him. Jesus says “Woe to you” in deep love for us. He knows that the Jesus Community is going to be hard for us to adjust to. He knows we are going to lose things we treasure. But he is here to help us, to help everyone.
Okay, one more little spoiler from those sci-fi novels about religion and human folly and human hope. At one point in the long saga, one of the humans — Sofia, whose name means ‘wisdom,’ the same one who said she wanted to teach that planet the word justice — Sofia imagines what a community of justice on that strange planet might look like, if the oppressors and the victims, the Haves and the Have Nots, finally come together in equality, friendship, and respect. A quotation from the book: “[Sofia thought of] well-run cities, of lively politics and burgeoning trade; of festivals and celebrations … of the fluorescence of theater and explosion of technology, the vigor of art that had sprung up when the dead hand of the [oppressor] had been lifted from [the people’s] lives.” But Sofia also made room in her heart for the oppressor, too. She finally began to see that a community of justice restores everyone, together.
“Woe to you,” Jesus says to the rich, to the well-fed, to those living lives of ease and contentment, to those who enjoy good reputations and high status. “Woe to you,” he says, with piercing prophecy but also loving kindness. The Jesus Community shines brightly, a kaleidoscopic jewel of colors, everyone well cared for, everyone serving everyone else, everyone working hard to fill the bellies and open the minds and gladden the hearts of every single beloved child of God. We see this community begin in the Acts of the Apostles (Luke’s second book), chapter two. Even now, we can see it forming here. This community of justice positively blazes with the shine of God’s glory.
But Jesus beckons to us in mercy, for he knows that we will find our way and feel right at home here, with him and with everyone else, but it will be painful for us at first to adjust our poor eyes to the light.
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Preached on the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, February 13, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26