Replaceable People (mark 2: 1-22)

Chautauqua NY was the first place to get electric street lights.  In fact, the Athenaeum Hotel in Chautauqua was one of the first hotels in the world to use light bulbs.  One might wonder why a little, out of the way town an hour south of Buffalo would be the place for that to happen.  I would have thought New York City or Chicago or Paris but it was Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua NY.  My suspicion as to why they were the first is that it’s probably due to the fact that Thomas Edison was married to one of the founders’ daughters and had a summer cottage there.   

In fact, on the second floor of the library in Chautauqua they have a little museum dedicated to Edison with some of his original inventions that he donated.  They even have one of the original lightbulbs that he made.  You ready to be angry?  It STILL works! And I’ve found myself joining the ranks of Crabby old men everywhere lately who complain that things just aren’t built to last anymore.

Things aren’t made to last anymore and they aren’t made to be fixed either.  My dad used to change his own oil.  I used to change my own oil!  Now my car needs a special tool for the oil filter and my dad’s oil filter is tucked in some obscure, inaccessible part of his car that makes it almost impossible to get to.  Even shoes are disposable now.  I remember my dad going to the shoe repair kiosk in our mall.  The guy would replace the heal of the shoe or the sole.  He could repair holes, fix damaged leather and re-dye the shoe.  It was awesome.  You don’t see shoe repairmen anymore.  But there are more discount shoe stores than I can count.

Things aren’t meant to last anymore.  They’re meant to be replaced.  Shoes, lightbulbs, cellphones, computers, appliances, cars…  I guess we shoot for convenience over quality or at least companies bank on us just rather picking up a new one rather than fixing the old one.  Fast food, corporate packaged food that is quick, easy, and a known quantity has replaced mom and pops restaurants.  One stop box stores with cheaper products and prices are replacing main-street local businesses.  Cheaper is better and easy to replace anymore these days.  Told you I’m turning into a crabby old man…

The problem is if we’re conditioned now to just go out and replace things instead of fixing them, if we are becoming a society that disposability and convenience are the dominant qualities we look for in things, what’s stopping us from doing that with people too?

Do we look at people and relationships as something that’s disposable or as objects of convenience? Do we find it just easier to replace some people in our lives rather than trying to understand them?  Has someone done that to us?  Have you ever had someone just dismiss you from their lives for something small or for nothing?  I know I have.  I’ve had people who just absolutely hate me and to this day I have no idea why.  Now, there are some people who hate me with good reason.  I’ve wronged them or neglected them or have done some terribly hurtful things.

But I’ve had people who’ve just dismissed me or decided they hated me without ever getting to know me at all.  Even worse than that are people who DID know me and I really liked and respected them and they just walked away from me.  They disposed of me… Has that happened to you?  I think at some point it happens to everyone. And it hurts, doesn’t it? It hurts to this day.  I can’t think of many pains that can permeate right into the core of who we are as that pain when someone makes us feel worthless or disposable. Or like we don’t REALLY matter…

When I hear about all these shootings like the one that happened last night and the excuses given for why they happen, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a symptom of our creating a society of disposability.  If I don’t like the slant on the news I’m given, I can change the channel until I find someone to agree with me. I can even go to the church of my choice from the comfort of my couch if I want to.  And if that preacher says something I don’t like, I can attend a different church with just the click of a button. I do it sometimes on Sunday evenings.  I’ve couch surfed church services!

If you post something that I don’t like on Facebook there are buttons that Block people from your life or you can “unfriend” them.  With just a click of a button, you can dispose of someone.  If it’s so easy to dispose of people we don’t like or who challenge us or who we don’t agree with, with a click of a button, how big of a leap is it to make to then disposing of people we don’t like or are angry at with the click of a trigger?  If we begin to see people as objects of convenience or as broken and not worth fixing or as disposable, how far does it go before we begin to devalue human life all together?

What troubles me is that this idea that there are some people who just don’t matter or that people are disposable-  it isn’t a new idea. People have treated others that way since the beginning of time almost.

And if we think about what we talked about last week - about Mark starting his gospel off with the baptism of Jesus as an act of restoration - we see Mark almost immediately developing this theme.  In God’s eyes, there are no disposable people.  Mark ends chapter one with Jesus healing a man with a horrible skin disease. He would have been considered untouchable and would have been ostracized and separated from the community because of this disease.  So Jesus not only restores the man’s health, Jesus restores him into the life of the community.

Then Jesus is teaching and some friends lower a paralyzed man through through roof and Jesus restores his mobility.  Then Jesus goes and eats at a man named Levi’s house.  He’s a tax collector. Jesus is questioned as to why he would hang out with tax collectors and sinners.  Notice tax collectors are put right next to sinners?  They’re hated.  They were considered traitors who ripped off their own people to get rich.  They would be shunned by their communities and families generally and not even allowed to attend worship or go to the synagogue.  And what does Jesus say about this? When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.” It’s all about restoration.

Jesus works to restore these people. To heal them.  To fix them. Jesus doesn’t replace broken people with different people.  He makes them new again and invites them to participate in something new and different - a new kingdom- a new way of looking at the world and of being in it. He shows people that with God, you aren’t disposable and you don’t have to stay broken but you can be made new again.  He shows them that when it comes to God it doesn’t matter where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, or how awful and messed up life is at any given moment, everyone is given a place at the table and everyone is welcomed into the new kingdom.  For Jesus there isn’t such a thing as disposable people.  For Jesus there’s worth, there’s value, there’s a place for every single person.

You know, the first two steps in Alcoholics Anonymous are 1. Admitting that you’re powerless over Alcohol and that your life is unmanageable.  And 2:  Coming to believe a power greater than us can restore us to sanity. And what happens then is that one alcoholic helping another with the grace of God actually can restore that person to sanity. One alcoholic can help another put down the drink and totally transform their lives.  In fact, it gets to the point where if person in recovery is really working the steps and the program, they’ll be told by friends and family that it’s like their a new person.  They’ll be restored when they could have just as easily been discarded, cast aside, and disposed of out of people’s lives.  One alcoholic helping another to be restored to sanity - showing someone that they have worth and meaning when they feel discarded, worthless, and tossed away.  It’s really similar to what Jesus is doing here in Mark.

And my question then is, shouldn’t the church be a kind of AA for sinners?  One sinner helping another be restored through Jesus christ?  If we believe Jesus more than anything else in this world, shouldn’t the church then be a community that doesn’t believe that there’s such a thing as a disposable person?  If we all know how it feels to be disposed of by someone, or written off so easily, if we all know the pain of feeling worthless and not worthwhile and yet we’ve found restoration through Jesus Christ, If we’ve found his love and grace, If that love and grace has shown us that we are worth something, that we aren’t disposable, that God doesn’t create junk, then wouldn’t we want to help others who live in a society that views people as disposable to find the same thing we have?  ESPECIALLY if they’re people that no one want’s to deal with or accept?   

If we really believe the Gospel’s claim this morning, If we really believe Christ’s claim on our lives over anything else, If we truly affirm the Bible’s message over that of society’s, shouldn’t the church rejoice when anyone wants to be a part of our community? Is there anyone who doesn’t belong here?  Are we doing enough to make sure that the church is AA for sinners where one sinner helps another to be restored?

So may you know that you are worth so much more than you may even know not only to God, but to other people.

May you know that you aren’t disposable but you are God’s precious child.

And may you know that through God’s grace and even though it may not always feel like it, you are being restored.

And may you help others to be restored as well.