Shrove Tuesday

(Cued up to amazing music ministry before sermon)

Isaiah 25:1-10; Luke 5:29-37 (Gafney)

Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the good times roll!

In the Name of God who is Life, Liberation and Love.

Jesus was posted up with the party people. They were getting their eat and their drink on. And everybody was there. His man Levi was new to the game and wanted to put on for Jesus. And the people who said they would not be caught dead in that man’s house, eating from his table, because his money was dirty money, blood money, seem to have been there any way. And the Torah scholars and those who shared their hermeneutics, their interpretive perspectives, who watched Jesus stake out theological positions on their shared religious tradition and scriptures that frustrated, appalled and scandalized them, they had some questions.         

Why do you all eat and drink with tax-extortionists and sinners? Jesus said this is where the party is. This is where the work is. At this table where everyone’s shame and fame is public knowledge. At this table where we eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die. At this table where the guest list offends you. At this table we have reason to celebrate. Everything that has tried to kill us has failed. There will be a time for fasting, but it is not today.

They said Jesus your disciples party too much. They drink too much. They eat too well. They don’t even make all of their daily prayers. They’re not respectable, Jesus. They’re not properly religious, Jesus. They’re setting a bad example, Jesus. Religion should look a certain way, Jesus. You and your people are not doing it right. You’re not doing it the way that we do it, Jesus. You were brought up better than that Jesus; in spite of your mama and your daddy – whoever he was – you are one of us, Jesus. Don’t act like there’s no Pharisee or Sadducee in your family tree.

And Jesus said, I did not come for those who have it all together. These, right here, are my people. The ones who drink away the pain. The ones who dance away the hurt. The ones who laugh a little too loud at jokes that are not funny so no one will see the pain in their eyes. This is where I belong. With them. The broken and the bruised, the battered and the blessed. The heartbroken and the humiliated. The forsaken and the forgotten. The heartless and the hopeless. The iniquitous and the innocent. There will be a time for fasting, but it is not today. Today we eat drink and party with Mary. Today we get downright disrespectful in our joy. There will be a time for fasting, but it is not today.

But Jesus, haven’t you been watching the news. We are no longer in control of our own destiny. Ever since the ones who thought they knew what was best for the nation rejected the leadership of a good woman – I’m talking about Salome Alexandra not Kamalah but the parallel is there. Called Shelomzion, the Peace of Zion who was deposed by Cesar and replaced with Herod because some folk have always believed an unqualified man was better than a qualified woman. Jesus, our land and our lives are subject to the whims of folk who, well, they not like us. They take our money and treat us like dogs. Some of your friends in there work for the man and are part of the system. They are eating big on our tax dollars. Jesus you’re partying with the wrong people. The respectful folk are over here on the right.

And Jesus said, those who are whole don’t need a bone setter. I have come for those who are broken and bruised on the outside and on the inside. I have come for those with silent wounds. I have come for those with secret shame. I have come for those who dance like no one is looking. I have come for those who know the shadow of death is at the door. Matter of fact, I have come to dance my last dance because death is at the door for me as well. There will be a time for fasting, but it is not today.

Jesus understood what we are coming to terms with, the hard way. Empires rise and empires fall. Tyrants come and tyrants go. And in their collapse and ruin they take the righteous and the wicked down with them. There will come a time for fasting but it is not today. Today we celebrate that we are still alive in spite of the threats against us; we are still here. And we exercise our choice to celebrate. We exercise our choice to choose joy. Our choice to sparkle and shine. Our choice to wear the big earrings and the loud lipstick. We choose to be loud and ostentatious in this joy that we have at this moment, even knowing that there are wolves at the door. It’s time to party. Like Jesus. With Jesus. And maybe if we didn’t have to be somewhere in an hour, we could really throw down for a get down. But the pressures of life and our commitments don’t mean we have to cancel the party; we just have to party all the harder in the time we have left. The clock is ticking.

Jesus, Yeshua, sharing a form of his name with Yeshayahu, Isaiah, knew his Torah and his Nevi’im, his Prophets – the rest of it was still coming together. Jesus knew that in 713 BCE Judah was in the clutches of what some may call an evil empire with a bloodthirsty warlord at its helm who was, in truth, no more blood thirsty than any of his peers, predecessors or progeny. But, he was better at it. Judah chafed under imperial subjugation, wanting to be free. And some thought they saw an opportunity when a Greek usurper took the throne of one of the coastal Philistine cities. Nobody appointed him. And nobody elected him. He just helped himself. I’m talking about the United States, of Philistia, that is.

Judah chose that moment to turn back to a previous administration, I mean subjugation. Judah decided that Egypt, Egypt, would be a trustworthy partner this time around in spite of everything they had done before. That same Egypt from which they had prayed for freedom. The Egypt of their enslavement. They decided to trust in Egypt. In spite of the financial ruin, in spite of the national treasury being pilfered by somebody nobody appointed or anointed to lead the nation. In spite of the extermination campaign waged against boys from the minority community. In spite of police brutality. In spite of it all, Judah went back to its oppressor expecting a different result this time. Judah decided to trust in Egypt. Judah thought that Egypt would have their back as they rebelled against Assyria while Assyria was busy putting out fires in the greater Gaza area.

We are in the mess that we are in right now because too many folk decided to trust in Egypt. Too many folk decided that they wanted not just to go back to Egypt but send the rest of us back to the enslavement of Egypt. Turns out they were never really interested in liberation. They were only interested in their own freedom, freedom to re-enslave, erase or eradicate the rest of us.

One day Isaiah stepped to the mic and prophesied that the nearly almighty Egypt was not invincible. He showed the people what was going to happen to Egypt. And in Isaiah chapter 20, setting the stage for our lesson today, God tells Isaiah to strip down, barefoot and buck naked and walk around for three years in a prophetic performance using his own body to demonstrate how bad things were going to get and how bad worse was going to be. Isaiah tried to tell them that their very bodies were on the line. Their ability to dress and present themselves was on the line. The privacy of their medical records was on the line. Their sexuality was on the line. Their ability to choose their pregnancies was on the line. Their ability to choose their sexual partners was on the line. They were headed into a colonizing yoke of bondage that would make The Handmaid’s Tale look like a fairytale.

Isaiah spends the chapters between that lesson and today’s lesson preaching about and to all the nations and leaders who are on the wrong side of the struggle and thus on the wrong side of history. And then we get to our lesson and suddenly it’s a party. What has happened in the meantime? Did I miss the memo along with the invitation? Isaiah is throwing a praise party. He is dropping bars, shooting for the stars.

I will exalt you, I will praise your Name,
for you have worked wonders…
For you have turned a city into a pile of stones,
a fortified city into a ruin…

A city has fallen. An enemy has been toppled from its throne. And Isaiah doesn’t waste another breath on them. Not even to call their name. He just starts sending out party invitations. And he provides the soundtrack himself:

…the citadel of of foreigners is a city no longer,
it will never be rebuilt.

God has wiped their enemy off the face of the Earth and left nothing but rubble behind. Isaiah’s lyrics are getting petty. Some of you know something about petty praise. Yet there are those who would say that Isaiah’s praise was premature. After all, Judah was not free. She was passed hand to hand like a sack of groceries, from the Assyrians to the Babylonians; Assyrian annihilation did not lead to Judean liberation. But Isaiah praised anyway. There would be a time for fasting but it was not today.

For you are a refuge to the poor,
a refuge to the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. (God is shady y’all.)

We know something about the heat and I’m not talking about the Texas heat. The heat that is on anyone who dares proclaim that diversity and inclusion lead to excellence. The heat that is on women and our doctors. The heat that is on universities and endowments. The heat that is on federal agencies and employees. The heat that is on Black history and Latine history and Native American history and queer studies. The heat is on immigrants and refugees. The heat is on anybody who looks Hispanic or Haitian. The heat is on trans folk and the parents of trans and non-binary kids. The heat is on our children, our kinfolk and our skin folk, neighbors and strangers. The heat is on anybody and everybody erased or threatened by executive orders. The heat is already here. And more is coming. More heat was coming for Isaiah and his people too. He too said there will be a time to fast, but it is not today.

And Isaiah raps on:

When the exhalation of tyrants – exhaling executive orders –
When the exhalation of tyrants was like a wall of storming rain,
like heat in a waterless place,
the roar of foreigners you subdued;
with the shadow of a cloud,
you silenced the heated-song of tyrants.

God shut the mouth of Judah’s tyrant. Dear God, shut the mouths of tyrants today. From his social location that was not yet liberation, Isaiah in the words of Deb Welch of blessed memory decided to two-step on his haters, on his people’s haters, on God’s haters, on all the hateration of the Babylonian nation. In my sanctified imagination it was a Nawlins-style first line: the professional performers who would have been the women with the hand-drums. Maybe even led by that sister-prophet who was his baby mama – but I’m not here to tell his all business. Just like at the moment of Exodus when another sister-prophet led the women in the first line and the men followed in the second line.

While this most recent tyrant was yet on the throne – are you having trouble keeping up, I am, because there is no end of tyrants. Yet with yet another tyrant on the throne, Isaiah looked back over his life and the lives of his ancestors like a Sankofa bird and broke into a whole new song:

There is a Divine Warrior who will make all wars to cease, who will shut the mouth of every hate-spewing tyrant. And Isaiah didn’t wait until the battle was over, he shouted now. Isaiah looked at the work of God, while speaking the word of God, trusting in the way of God. Because God had already made a way: A way in the water, a way in the wilderness, a way out of no way. The God who has already made a way will make a way today. This is the God who Isaiah knew as Immanuel, God with us. This is our God in whom we hope. That line from the second half is the hook, the vamp and the refrain all rolled in one.

Isaiah kept spitting:

The One who will make for all peoples a feast of rich food.
This is our God in whom we hope. (Say it with me.)
The One who will swallow up death forever.
This is our God in whom we hope.
The one who will wipe away tears from every face.
This is our God in whom we hope.

But Isaiah said one more thing: This is our God in whom we hope, and who saved us. God who saved us. God who saved us in the days of our ancestors. God who is saving us right now. God will save us. So Isaiah sang a new song. His B selection. The second half of the chapter is judged by some scholars to be a separate composition, I suggest they be read together. Even though there was still a tyrant on the throne breathing out executive orders and trampling the lives and rights of God’s people Isaiah could sing:

One of these days and it won’t be long,
God will swallow up death forever.
Then the Sovereign God
will wipe away tears from every face,
and will sweep aside the shame of God’s people
from the whole earth,
for God Whose Name is Holy has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
“Look! This is our God;
in whom we hope, and who saved us.
This is the Creator of All in whom we hope;
let us be glad and rejoice in God’s salvation.”
For the hand of the Ancient Of Days shall rest on this mountain.

On this mountain. On this place where we stand today. Here where we have been crushed but not destroyed. Here, the site of our resistance. Here where our survival is spiteful. Here, where our praise is petty. Here in this place, we praise. And we feast at the table with Jesus. There will be a time for fasting, but it is not today. Today Jesus invites us to the party and to the table with him. With him, for he is with us.

The time for fasting is coming. For many of us it will come tomorrow, but it is not today. And when we fast, remembering the absence of the Beloved, remembering the death of the Beloved we will not fast as those with endless sorrow who have no hope. We fast knowing that another feast is coming. We know God will get up early one Sunday morning and start rattling her pots and pans and the sound of that holy thunder will shake the Earth and crack open the cliffs and the graves and the dead will rise like biscuits in the oven of the holy God who bakes the Bread of Life. On that day, there will be a party like none other. There will be a time for fasting, but it is not today. Amen.