A Crowded Table

In a conversation for Orion Magazine, Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Hausdoerffer, and Gavin Van Horn, the coeditors of  five-volume series Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations, invite us to consider kinship as a verb. Robin Wall Kimmerer says; 

Using kin as a verb reminds us that kin is always alive. It’s a movement and it’s a flow and it’s a process, kind of like how wind and air flow. [Or water] So kin as a verb is permeable and it’s movable, and it requires [of us] some action or intention.

They expand on this in the introduction to their collection; 

“we are all born into kin in any number of ways, but kinning, kinship-in-action, is more than birthright claims, it is how we become kin. In this understanding, being kin is not so much a given as it is an intentional process. Kinning does not depend upon genetic codes. Rather, it is cultivated by humans, one expression of life among many, many, many others, it revolves around an ethical question: how to rightly relate? We are kinning as we (re)connect our bodies, minds, and spirits within a world that is not merely a collection of objects but, as Thomas Berry put it, “a communion of subjects.”

Today is a story told in three parts.

Each one an expression of kinning, of community.

Each of these stories are each invitations for us into the actions of kinning.

We begin with a protest, a public display of resistance

A dinner shared with friends who are more like family, creating embodied ritual, and we end today with a death at the hands of violent empire, a death that was and is entirely too normal.

We’re going to cover a lot of ground, like a lot, get ready. Narratively, the stories of the final days of Jesus’ life take place in about a week. Each story is rich with imagery and context and we could easily spend a whole evening on each story and in some churches they do. Holy Week can be a week of almost daily gatherings telling the story over the week.

We try to tell them together for the sake of accessibility, but I think it also allows us to carry threads of connections between each chapter that might be missed otherwise. But it is quite a vigorous romp, so take a breath.

Whenever we tell a story from the Bible, I remind us that they are stories of metaphor. They aren’t first-hand historical accounts, they aren’t fact, but they aren’t exactly fiction either. They are something in-between. They are stories of meaning, and meaning-making, they are stories about stories, stories about trying to make sense of life for people in a particular place and time. They are stories about God, faith, place, understanding, divine connection, and belonging. Stories that our faith ancestors thought were important and have been passed to future generations.They are stories that take place in the area roughly between the Mediterranean sea and the Dead Sea, during the first century, though they were written down much later.

All the Biblical stories are written with a specific purpose and to communicate a specific narrative.

The stories of Jesus were written with the purpose of demonstrating, proving, that Jesus is the one who would liberate the Jewish people from a long legacy of oppressive forces. The moment that would become Christianity was not a Jewish revival movement, it was not a “course correction.” They were, and are, one of many ever evolving faith movements. To think of “the Jews” and “the Christians” as opposites is extremely dangerous. To lump “the Jews” into a monolith identity, as has often been done within the these stories of Jesus’ death,  is used to craft an anti-Semitic narrative that blames “the Jews” for the death of Jesus, even to this day this ideology is used to incite violence against Jewish communities. 

The Jesus movement was not unique. It was one of many prophetic movements struggling for the liberation of Israel. Has it has a staying power? Yes. Is that in part because it was adopted by the same colonial system, Jesus sought to overturn? Also, yes. But, I still believe in Jesus‘s vision, the Commonwealth of God, a world, free of hunger, poverty and domination and inclusive table community comprise primarily of those who were considered poor, ill, possessed, outcast and marginalized.

The Commonwealth of God envisions a kinship community that centers women; widowed, slave, free, virgin, sex workers, cat ladies, and single moms, people who have had abortions, queer people, trans women, trans men, drag queens, and non-binary people, immigrants, the green card holder, the student on a visa, refugees, and those who do not have “adequate documentation."

And even though Jesus taught no violence, no revolution, and lifted up no arms, it was entirely irrelevant to the institutions of power, the Roman empire, and the movement was deemed a threat simply because of the subversive collective, the unorthodox beliefs and practice. It’s existence was, and is, political not because the believers made it political, but because the vision was deemed a threat to the empire.

Jesus wasn’t killed for his theology, or even the acts of teaching or healing, he was killed because of the subversive nature, character, and practice of the community. It was assumed to be a threat not because it proclaimed liberation for the Jewish people, it was a threat because the Roman Emperor and his instruments of power would not reign over it. It was a threat because it was ungovernable.

(Some other time we can dig into the ways that it became governable, but that’s another rant.)

So we begin with a protest.

Matthew 21:1-11 adapted by Wilda Gafney, A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church Now they had come near Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village…, and immediately you will find  a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Rabbi needs them.’ And they will send them immediately.”  …. The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and Jesus road towards the city of Jerusalem. A very large crowd spread their own cloaks on the road, others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that that went ahead of him and following behind, were shouting, saying: “Hosanna to the who will liberate! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Holy One! Hosanna in the highest!”

Matthew 26:17-19, adapted by Wilda Gafney While they were still in Jerusalem, on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover, the community of followers came to Jesus, asking, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover meal?” He said, “Go into the city, to a certain person, say, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my followers.’ So the disciples did just as Jesus instructed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

Feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza describes the culture of the Jesus movement as the commonwealth of God. The people, men and women, who were his early followers, sought to bring about the commonwealth of God, an alternative world free of hunger, poverty, and domination. A vision of healing and liberating practices that were already present in the inclusive table community of the Jesus movement. 

They practiced what they preached, and even though we don’t have direct evidence in the written-down religious texts, given the context of the reading, the broader teachings, and the role of women in relation to the larger culture, we know that the table community, the people around the table for that meal were not just 12 guys. It was a collective of people living into an alternate vision of the world. 

Return to the "kinship as a verb" conversation; Robbin Wall Kimmerer says we become kin when we share gifts and can help each other.

Kinship makes us feel part of this collective “we,” and many of the social—and certainly economic—institutions in which we are embedded depend on alienation. They depend on isolation. If we are alienated from the living world, then we can commodify the heck out of it. We can extract everything and make it all into property, make it into natural resources, not the gifts of our relatives. So kinning is a very real antidote to saying that the world is just stuff and all this stuff belongs to us.

Communion, Love Feast, and Feetwashing are ritual invitations to the inclusive table community, the Commonwealth of God. It is a place to practice an alternate economic model and a collective resistance to isolation and alienation.

John 13 adapted by me “[He] rose from the table, took off his robe and wrapped a towel around his waist. He poured water into a basin, kneeling before the ones he loved began to wash their feet, and dry them with the towel around his waist. When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him,  “Teacher, you are not going to wash my feet, are you?” Jesus replied, “You don’t understand what I’m doing, but later you will understand.” “No!” Peter said.  "You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “If I do not wash your feet, you won’t have a place with me. It is this act of love that binds us all together” Simon Peter said, “Not only my feet but also my hands and my head!” Jesus responded, “Those who have bathed are clean and only need to have their feet washed. You friends are clean, but not every one of you.”  He knew who would betray him.  That’s why he said, “Not every one of you is clean.” After he washed the disciples’ feet, he put on his robes and returned to his place at the table.  He said to them, “Do you understand what I have done? You call me ‘Teacher’, and you are right, I am. If I, your Teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do.”

Jesus models the “commonwealth of God,”transgressing social and religious norms with an act of love. 

He transgresses both class and gender roles, by taking on the menial task of a woman or a slave. Not only an act of service, but an act of servitude. The use of the word slave is a more accurate translation than the “servant” which is often used, and I think it's an important distinction because it does recall our not-so-distant history of slavery in the United States. His action would have been seen as degrading and shameful for a free man. And then he goes and instructs that those whose feet he just washed so go and do likewise. That they too should wash each other’s feet. He models that leadership within the commonwealth of God is one that is egalitarian, not hierarchical; he models what it is to be in community. I come from a tradition that takes the directive to wash feet literally and as part of our Holy Week ritual on Maundy Thursday we would kneel and wash each other’s feet. It was orderly and clean, hardly a sock fuzz to be seen, and the women would often have a pedicure in preparation. Even still, it can be more uncomfortable to have your feet washed then to wash someone else's. There is some real vulnerability in having your feet washed, as Simon Peter experienced too. But it is the act of washing another's feet and having your own feet washed that is reflective of the egalitatian commonwealth of God.

John 13 adapted (cont.) “The truth of the matter is, no subordinate is greater than the superior; no messenger outranks the sender. Once you know all these things, you’ll be blessed if you put them into practice.  What I say is not said about you all—for I know the ones I chose—but so that scripture can be fulfilled: ‘One who partook of bread with me has raised a heel against me.’ I tell you this now, before it takes place, so that when it takes place you may believe. … As Judus leaves the gathering, Jesus says; "I give you a new commandment: Love one another.And you’re to love one another the way I have loved you. This is how all will know that you are my beloved, that you truly love one another.”

Later that week, Judus would betray Jesus, just as Jesus knew he would. While Jesus was with the disciples in a garden, Judas led the Roman cohort to him, armed and carrying lanterns and torches. Knowing what was taking place, Jesus stepped forward to them and asked; “Who are you looking for?” Are you Jesus of Nazareth? they asked, to which Jesus answered, “I am.”

One of the Disciples, Simon Peter, drew a sword and struck the high priest’s attendant, cutting off his right ear. 

Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back in its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup God has given me?” Then the cohort and its captain and the Temple guards seized and bound Jesus.

He was arrested, interrogated, and beaten. 

It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. The notice of the formal charge against him was written, 

“The king of the People.” They crucified two others with him, one on his right and one on his left.

From noon until three in the afternoon the whole sky was dark. Mary, Jesus’ mother, Mary of Magdala, the other women and the disciple that Jesus loved, stood near the cross.

At three, Jesus cried out with a loud shout, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani,” which means, “My God, my God, why have you left me?” Jesus let out a loud cry and died. The curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the Roman commander, who stood facing Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “This man was certainly God’s Son.”

Jesus was charged with a political crime. He was not killed because if his theological teachings, but rather because of their subversive nature and the political threat they posed to the imperial system. Jesus challenged the authority of religious and government leaders, broke laws around the sabbath, and interacted with those who were deemed “unclean,” he preached of a Kingdom of God that would replace the kingdom of Rome. Even though he didn’t teach violence or incite riotous behavior, the Commonwealth of God lived out in the community of Jesus’ followers was a threat to the kingdom of Rome. Jewish scholar, Ellis Rivkin, argues that Jesus was not killed by the Jewish people, nor was he killed by the Roman people, he was killed the imperial system, a system also that oppressed and victimized the Jewish people and the Roman people. It was the system and structure of imperialism that needed the crucifixion of Jesus for it’s own self-preservation.  

In an unconventional, though probably more common than not, trial he was charged with blasphemy, sedition, punishable of death by crucifixion. The placard attached to Jesus’ cross proclaimed he was killed because he was “the King of the Jews.” Crucifixion was a particularly excruciation form of death, suffered by men and women in the Roman empire who did not comply with imperial policies or were accused of treason. 

Theologian James Cone makes the irrefutable argument that crucifixion is the first century equivalent to lynching. He writes; 

In the “lynching era,” between 1880 to 1940, white Christians lynched nearly 5,000 black men and women in a manner with obvious echoes of the Roman crucifixion of Jesus. The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Both were public spectacles, shameful events, instruments of punishment reserved for the most despised people in society.  Jesus did not die a gentle death....Rather, he died like a [lynched black victim] or a common [black] criminal in torment, on the tree of shame.' The crowd's shout 'Crucify him!' (Mk 15:14) anticipated the white mob's shout 'Lynch him!’”

He was killed by an imperial empire that still thrives today. It’s an empire that boasts about tariffs, deportations, and cutting spending at the cost of human life.

I do not leave us with easy answers or empowering message today. I leave us with heartache and confusion, and I hope a little bit of anger too because just as the lynching tree is a cross, so is a fence post, and a gun, and…and…and… 

We will come back together next Sunday and though I do not believe there is anyway to make sense of it, I do believe we can continue to find meaning and metaphors and glimmers of the ongoing Commonwealth of God.