“Threading That Needle”

Posted By Beckie Sweet on Oct 13, 2024 | 0 comments


October 13, 2024 ~ 21st Sunday after Pentecost and Indigenous People’s Sunday

Rev. Beckie Sweet

 

What a blessing it is to hear today’s gospel text from the First Nations Version of the New Testament.  Each time I turn to this offering of our Sacred Scriptures from the perspectives of our Indigenous siblings, I wonder why I don’t use it more often.  The terminology, particularly, speaks deeply to my soul.  Calling Jesus, the Christ, “Creator Sets Free,” and “Good Wisdomkeeper,” gives language to a relationship which goes beyond a common name.  And then the teachings of the Good Wisdomkeeper take on enhanced meaning.

This passage from Mark, immediately follows the text we shared last week about Jesus welcoming and blessing the little children, despite societal class designations and the advice of Jesus’ own disciples.  Here, Jesus, Creator Sets Free, recognizes that the man with many possessions, and honorable intentions, is wrestling with the complicated relationship humans have with wealth.  The man, while honoring Jesus as the Wisdomkeeper, is clearly not open to Jesus’ prescription for a meaningful way of journeying the “good path,” which leads to the “world to come that never fades away.”  You see, the deep desire for possessions, or GREED, and the weight of those possessions inhibits the owner of living with the freedom of spirit that God intends for us.  And possessions are not the only cause of swelling to the point of not being able to pass through the needle’s eye in the passageway to that world to come that never fades away.  There are also burdens of ego, wealth, guilt, and self-importance.

Wanting to address the GUILT segment that inhibits our progress on the good path, we held a Service of Repentance last year on Indigenous People’s Sunday.  We remembered and repented of our complicity in harming Indigenous People through the continuation of attitudes of Manifest Destiny, racism, and cultural genocide.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about Indigenous People, especially related to this particular weekend, I usually only consider Indigenous People who have lived within the contiguous United States.  Those are all good thoughts and considerations.

But, at General Conference this past Spring, it was the Indigenous People of Hawaii that were brought to my attention.  Once again, I was exposed to history which I never learned in my public school education or at the UM Seminary that I attended.  This was history for which the UMC issued a formal apology just this year.  Let me paint the picture for you drawing on parts of a UM News article by Sam Hodges.  Sam writes,

Hawaiian United Methodists are cheering the decision by General Conference to approve a formal apology for the denomination’s role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.  …

            In approving the legislation, delegates acknowledged a “history of racism and imposed colonial rule” that continues to hold back Native Hawaiians.  “This is a great way of expressing repentance for our sins and brokenness.  This gives us a chance to make right what we’ve done wrong in the past,” said the Rev. Won-Seok Yuh, pastor of First UMC of Honolulu.

            In 1993, Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed legislation acknowledging that the overthrow of the kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the participation of agents of the United States and that the Native Hawaiians never relinquished their claim to sovereignty. …

            How does that connect with us?  You see, Joyce Warner, late historian of First United Methodist Church of Honolulu discovered in her research for the church’s 150th anniversary celebration, that one of its early pastors, the Rev. Harcourt W. Peck, had played a role in the overthrow of the monarch of the Hawaiian islands on Jan. 17, 1893.  The overthrow was led by independent sugar cane plantation owners (who were children of former missionaries).  Those plantation owners were backed by U.S. Marines.  Peck … served as a sharpshooter and aide to the commander of the overthrow.  This was an illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and it’s Queen.

            A year later, Peck would become pastor of First Methodist Episcopal Church in Honolulu, rejoining a sharpshooter company and serving as chaplain to the new forcibly established Republic of Hawaii. 

The Resolution adopted at General Conference indicated several long-term effects of that overthrow which continue to this day:

  • Lower than average education, higher unemployment, and lower incomes than the non-Hawaiian population;
  • Native Hawaiians are less likely to be enrolled in college, compared with Hawaii’s other major ethnic groups;
  • Native Hawaiian’s have higher rates of heart attack, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and asthma than the state average;
  • They have twice the proportion of teenage mothers, the lowest rate of prenatal care, and the highest rate of infant mortality among major ethnic groups in Hawaii;
  • Native Hawaiians make up 24% of the general population, but 27% of all arrests, 39% of the incarcerated population, and 41% of parole revocations.
  • Native Hawaiians are more likely to get a prison sentence, receive longer prison sentences, make up the highest percentage of people incarcerated in out-of-state facilities, and has the larges proportion of its population of women in prison, compared to other ethnic groups; and,
  • Have a higher rate of dissatisfaction with life, are more likely to be depressed, and are more likely to commit suicide compared with non-Hawaiians.

 

GREED, and the unquenchable desire for possessions and wealth can have such a devastating effect, not only in the moment, but long into the future.  So, when the “Good Wisdomkeeper” prescribes to the rich man seeking eternal life that he give away his possessions and wealth, there was great sadness at the man’s inability to do what would set him free.  Jesus, Creator Sets Free, presents a verbal image of the good path to eternity going through the eye of a needle.  If one’s wealth and possessions are like a hump on a camel or the rack of a moose, that one will never thread that proverbial needle.

Like the General Conference, we need to repent of our complicity, apologize to those who are harmed, and commit to reconciling relationships based on the love of the Good Wisdomkeeper, that all might be set free.  Amen.

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