Annoying
Second Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 10a) + June 11, 2023 + Pr. Craig Mueller
Who annoys you? Sure, the people we live with, work with, and worship with can annoy is at times. That is perfectly normal. But what kind of people cause you to roll your eyes or inwardly diss?
Today’s gospel is a microcosm of why Jesus annoyed people. And eventually got killed. Jesus calls Matthew to come out from behind the toll booth where he collects fees that aid the Roman government. Matthew is seen as an undesirable. A deplorable—using a term a certain politician probably wished she hadn’t. To the rule-following, socially respectable types, tax collectors and sinners were more than merely annoying. You wanted to stand clear of them.
So why would Jesus hang with losers? Is that the way to build a movement? Get out the message? Draw people to your mission?
If your view of Jesus and Christianity is sanitized, you’re missing its edge.
Jesus annoys people. Then and now. You can hear them sneer, why does your teacher eat with those people?
And the people who annoy you? Think of them. Where they live. How they vote. How they think. Would you want to sit down with them over a drink, and share a conversation?
One political scientist states that the divide in our country isn’t just over the issues. It is about our feelings about each other. We are angry and deeply annoyed by each other. Democrats and Republicans don’t trust one another. We often dehumanize people on the other side of issues. We think they are a threat to our country. And we have little appetite to compromise our deep feelings.
Of those who study such things, one thing that helped people get over their partisan hate was watching a Heineken add from 2017 called “Worlds Apart.” Surprisingly, beer is barely referenced.
Three pairs of ideological opposites meet: an antifeminist white guy and a lefty, feminist woman of color; a climate-change denier and an environmental activist; and a trans woman and a man who thinks being trans is “not right.”
Each pair is left alone. They have some tasks to complete. They get to know each other while not knowing the purpose of the experiment—which is to see whether there is more that unites than divides.
During their brief time together the pairs bond and realize things they have in common. Then the participants are invited to grab a bottle of Heineken, sit at the bar and watch a previously recorded video of their new friend sharing their annoying, opposing, often strident views on political issues. They are then offered a chance to sit down and discuss their differences over a beer. Or they can walk away.
To our surprise, the transphobe in the experiment realizes the military veteran he just complimented is a transgender woman! He starts walking way, but then comes back, saying it was a joke. The two end up sitting down to talk. It’s a goosebump moment. It doesn’t solve all the problems in our country. But it is a sign of hope!
Jesus’ so-called table fellowship with outcasts annoys the folks who follow the rules. The religious people. The good people. People like many of us. After Matthew comes out behind his toll booth to follow Jesus, he leaves his former way of life. But look what happens! Matthew invites other questionable, disreputable folks to eat with Jesus, too. In our lingo, to share a beer with Jesus. Matthew doesn’t abandon the other oppressive people. He invites them to meet the one so compelling to him.
And that is annoying. As one commentator (Matt Skinner) puts it, to the religious folk, it feels like Jesus is dragging God through the mud.
I have not come to call the righteous, is Jesus’ response. This is a clinic. If you’re well, if you’re together, I’ve got nothing for you. But just maybe you have something to learn about genuine wholeness. If just being good and just being pious is more important than mercy for others, you may actually be the sick one, in need of help.2
Jesus’ mission is to gather the ones who know their need. Who know what it is like to beg or out of desperation run to Jesus when a child is dying. Or reach out and touch the fringe of his garment when their body is wracked in pain or disease.
It’s the age-old irony. We think the problem is the other person who annoys us. The other person is the one out of bounds, the self-righteous one, the sinner, the one who is messed up. And then we find that our hate, our disdain, our indifference makes us the one in need of healing.
Speaking of being annoyed, God is annoyed in today’s reading from Hosea. As long as the people fulfill their ritual obligations, they expect God to shower goodness on them like the springtime rains. But God mutters, annoyed and exasperated: your love is fake, fickle as mist. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
You get three words to describe God. What do you choose? If we had an app and a screen, we could project the answers and turn them into a word cloud. Think a moment. Really. What words for God comes to mind?
I wonder if some of your words might be: Love. Unity. Peace. Welcome. Unknowable. Just. Merciful. Kind. Forgiving. Mystery.
How many of you had at least one of those words? I would add my favorite: energy.
I wonder what words atheists and agnostics and those estranged from religion might name. Judgmental. Patriarchal. Warrior. Unfair.
Did anyone have the word “annoying?” for God?
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy. God’s love is so expansive, so inclusive, so unimaginable, so full of grace, that we can barely take it in. In fact, to our rational minds it is so indiscriminate, it is downright annoying.
Until. Until we realize that we too are the sinner in need. We too are the ones so annoyed by others we fail to look at honestly at ourselves. And then. And then, we are happy to be in that motley group that Jesus calls to follow him.
And to be invited to sit at table with him. To share some wine, to share some bread. With a slew of people more like us than we could ever know.
1https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/whats-driving-americas-partisan-divide-and-what-might-be-done-to-reverse-it
2Frederick Niedner, Sundays and Seasons for Preaching, 11 June 2023