The Rev. Sara Warfield
Scripture: Luke 5:1-11
Has anyone here read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents? They’re a work of speculative fiction that is set in a United States that has been ravaged by the effects of climate change and economic and social inequality. As water runs out in Southern California, violence takes over and people are forced to migrate north. The ideal destination is Oregon, actually. And it’s a dangerous journey. The story follows a band of strangers who find one another on the road. People who recognize that only by coming together and relying on one another’s gifts and strengths will they survive.
I read the first book, Parable of the Sower, probably about ten years ago. I tried to read the second book, Parable of the Talents, in 2017. But I couldn’t finish it. It felt too prescient. So close to the current reality that I didn’t want to know how it ended.
For example: both books are written as a diary. The main character lives outside of Los Angeles, and one of the first entries is dated for February 1st, 2025. It reads, “We had a fire today.”
I mention all this because Octavia Butler has come up in the news lately. Well, her legacy has. In 2023, a Black woman named Nikki High opened a bookstore in Pasadena, California. She wanted to lift up Black authors and create a space where people could feel seen and welcomed as they are. She called her bookstore Octavia’s Bookshelf.
But during the Eaton fire last month, Octavia’s Bookshelf became something else. The shop was close to the fires but still miraculously had electricity, so Nikki High invited people to the shop to charge their phones and laptops so they could connect with loved ones and let them know they were safe. But then folks started bringing stuff. She moved the books out, and the shelves were filled with cans of food and piles of toothbrushes, blankets and baby supplies. The store still had hot water, which she made available. The shop became a hub where volunteers collected needed items and delivered them to elderly folks and other vulnerable people who couldn’t make it to the store themselves.
She didn’t mean to, but Nikki High became a fisher of people. Just by doing what she could with what she had, she gave people the salvation they needed in that moment.
Salvation. Now that’s a tricky word. A loaded word. For those of us who grew up in more conservative evangelical settings, when we hear Jesus say: "from now on you will be catching people," the first thing that comes to mind is “saving souls.” This is what we were taught salvation is. Keeping people out of the eternal torment of hell after they die.
Usually, the vehicle of this salvation is revealed in the question, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ into your heart?” In the Pentecostal tradition I grew up in, this meant, “Have you confessed that Jesus is your lord and savior and do you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead?” Romans 10:9. Say some words, believe in resurrection, avoid eternal damnation.
Now I want to acknowledge the sincere and even compassionate intentions many people have when they want to save your soul. Many of them truly want you to avoid the eternal suffering of hell. Hell, for them, is the punishment in the after life for sins committed in this life.
But what if hell isn’t the punishment of sins in the afterlife? What if hell is right here in this world, the result of our sins against each other in this life?
What if accepting Jesus into our hearts means actually following the teachings and example of Jesus? Which is to create the kingdom of God right now, which is a kingdom, our new Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe describes as “upside down. It’s reverse,” he says, “It’s inverted. It’s countercultural. It’s another way of being and living in a world.
“In this world order,” he continues, “falling comes before rising. In God’s kingdom, immigrants and refugees, transgender people, the poor and the marginalized are not at the edges fearful and alone. They are at the center of the Gospel story.”
We are indeed called to be fishers of people. People who are suffering. People who are being oppressed. People whose homes have burned down. People whose jobs or healthcare are being taken from them. People who are deeply afraid.
I imagine all of us know at least a few of these people. And I know some of us are these people. So what if our salvation is accepting Jesus into our hearts—but not in the way my childhood church taught me, not in the way so many of us have been taught by popular evangelical Christianity, but in the way Octavia’s Bookshelf is teaching us.
In the way Jesus taught us when he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and proclaimed:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
He didn’t say, God has anointed me to make sure you’re following the correct rules, to teach you the right words to say and the right beliefs, to proclaim eternal suffering in the afterlife if you don’t follow these instructions to a t.
No, he talked about bringing good news to the poor now. Releasing the captives now. Recovering sight for the blind now. Letting the oppressed go free now. In this life. With this breath. With the gifts and strengths God has given us in these bodies.
Like Nikki High did at Octavia’s Bookshelf during the fire. She did what she could to bring salvation to those who were suffering right now.
Now I don’t want to dismiss that Jesus also preached parables about the wheat and the chaff, the sheep and the goats. Burning in unquenchable fires. I can suggest to you what I think those parables mean, and I have. I don’t know what happens in the afterlife. What I do know is what the first epistle of John tells us:
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as God is, so are we in this world.
We do not need to worry about the day of judgment if we have loved in this world, in this life.
So I’m not really worried about hell in the afterlife. I’m more concerned about the hell that is here in this world, all around us.
Which is why I think it’s so important that we go the way of Simon Peter, John, and James and catch people. Or in the more common translation, be fishers of people.
When you look around, who do you see suffering right now? If you are suffering, who do you need to reach out to for support right now? What gifts do you have to ease the suffering and within you right now?
Now I don’t mean you need to start a nonprofit or run for public office—unless that’s your thing. If it is, that’s awesome, let us know what kind of support you need.
What I mean is recognizing someone who is lonely and asking if they’d like to grab some coffee with you. What I mean is calling your elected officials when you see injustice in your community or your country.
What I mean is having someone tell you that they’re afraid of the cruelty they’re seeing in the world and inviting them to church. I could almost feel some of you clench up. But hear me out. I want you to think of three words that come to mind when you think about being part of the St. Luke’s community, what brings you back here Sunday after Sunday. I’ll give you a moment.
Now you don’t have to, but if you want to, shout one of your words out.
Congregation: Love, Welcome, Compassion, Family, Hopeful, Grounding, Music, Care
Those words sound like salvation to me. And I’m willing to bet those words that some of you are holding silently also reflect salvation. Your salvation, the easing of your suffering. The growing of your joy.
No one here needs to proclaim any particular words to be saved. No one here needs to declare their unchanging belief in certain rules or doctrines to be saved. All you have to do is be open to Love, Welcome, Compassion, Family, Hopeful, Grounding, Music.
Those things are all I want for the people in my life who are afraid, who are suffering. Honestly, that’s what I want for everyone! Not everyone we invite will want to come. People find what they need when they’re ready. But I want them to know we’re here, and the doors will be open if and when they’re ready. Not to be saved from anything, but to be saved into belonging.
Amen.
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