Loading...Jeff and I finally watched the film “Wicked” on Friday night. This is a film that I think is considered to be the first half of the origin stories of Glinda the Good Witch and The Wicked Witch of the West, the two witches many of us first met in the 1939 classic, yet terrifying, and nostalgic Judy Garland film “The Wizard of Oz.”
I do not recall ever hearing the name of the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz.” In “Wicked” we learn it is Elphaba. Rejected by her father immediately after her birth because of her green skin, Elphaba becomes an outcast, forced into both emotional and physical margins from day one. As she grows, she is accused of doing harm to children who tease and taunt her, when really, she is trying to protect her younger sister. Misunderstood, marginalized, and reprimanded, she seems unable to fit into the world she inhabits.
On the other hand, in “The Wizard of Oz” we all knew Glinda’s name. The beautiful, blonde, seemingly perfect good witch, sent to protect Dorothy and her trio of misfits from the Wicked Witch of the West. In “Wicked,” Ga-linda, as she pronounces her name, is a privileged, spoiled, snobby white girl who believes she should have anything or anyone her heart desires, simply because she is beautiful. She expects royal treatment, to be fawned over, and to always deserve the best of the best.
In some ways, “Wicked” is a unique way to understand both today’s readings from Proverbs and the Gospel. Jesus quotes the reading from Proverbs to set up a story that helps us recognize that some things never change. There will always be people who think they deserve more because of their status, and there will always be those who are neglected because they have been pushed to the margins. And as ever, Jesus strives to get people to understand that it doesn’t have to be this way.
Let me unpack this a little. Jesus is having a meal at the home of a Pharisee on the Sabbath. In attendance are men of means and status, perhaps religious or community leaders, wealthy merchants, bankers, lawyers all who likely know each other and might frequently dine together at one home or another.
Jesus has been invited into this community, perhaps because they want to rub elbows with the popular itinerant preacher and teacher. Or perhaps because they want to keep a close eye on him, watching to see what mischief he might get into on this Sabbath, since word has spread that he’s been misbehaving, breaking rules by healing people on the Sabbath.
Which he actually does on this Sabbath. Here’s what we missed in the verses that were not included in our story today:
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. Then he said to them, ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?’ And they could not reply to this.
And then it is time for dinner. If Glinda had been there, she would have boldly pranced in her perfectly tailored pink frock to the head of the table and taken a seat, oblivious to the needs or status of anyone else in the room. She’s exactly the type of person Jesus is talking about in his parable. Someone so full of herself, so condescending toward anyone else, someone so popular she obviously deserves a place of honor.
Jesus says, “Wait a minute. Don’t assume that you are better than anyone else.”
Then he sets up an absurd scenario where everyone who is in attendance should scramble for the lowest seat, hoping the host will invite them to sit in a place of honor.
Apparently, there were no place-cards used in Jesus’s time.
Then he tells the host, “You really need to rethink who you are inviting to sit around your table.”
Another absurd scenario describes how hosts are supposed to invite the sick, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner, the immigrant, the green skinned witch Elphaba—people they may not know—or even worse, people they fear—to share a meal they can never reciprocate.
Yet, it is these Jesus wants included in the daily life of the Jewish leaders, the congregants, the community. He reminds them that when they invite those who make them uncomfortable and who cannot repay their hospitality, it is then they are doing God’s work. And when they do, they will “be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Jesus challenges them to see the people on the margins of life with dignity, justice, and grace, rather than abuse them further, because, as we heard in our lesson from Hebrews, they just might entertain angels without knowing it.
Isn’t that the truth? Have you ever held a preconceived image of someone and been surprised that you had it all wrong?
In “Wicked,” Glinda pre-judged and marginalized Elphaba in her own mind, and even worse, fed into the communal peer pressure, ridiculing Elphaba in public, unwilling to know this person she feared.
It was easier for Glinda to see what she wanted to see, to expect what she wanted to expect, than to accept Elphaba, her gifts, her talents, her longings, or her unique (albeit green) beauty. And even when she begins to see Elphaba as a human, Glinda gives her an unwanted nickname because it’s easier for Glinda to say, sticks a pink flower in Elphaba’s hair saying how pink goes well with green, teaches her hair flipping tricks to flirt to get the boys, and without asking what she wants, Glinda tries to make Elphaba into something she never wants to be. Popular…
Truly knowing another person is risky in the best of, the easiest of situations. When we share the places where we live and breathe and have our being: our workplaces, our hobbies, our schools and our church, we find common ground. Having mutual respect for people whose lives are entwined with our own is so much easier than getting to know someone from unfamiliar places and life experiences.
It’s easier to dismiss someone who doesn’t fit a certain mold, or who society, or as in the case of Elphaba, the people in power, manipulate to make look dangerous because of health, immigration status, lack of housing, or who is simply differently made. It’s easy to categorize people who are poor or hungry, or who practice a different religion or have a different cultural identity—to categorize them as unwelcome to a Sabbath dinner at the home of a Pharisee.
It’s easy to fear a person born green. It’s easy to put them in a box and label them weird or unsafe or scary when we don’t know them or their stories.
But what happens when we do get to know them, and we begin to listen and understand their stories?
Magic. Well, maybe not magic, but we change, don’t we? And isn’t that kinda magical?
We need to invite those people to the table, we need to include them, we need to hear their stories and see them as beloved children of God, so we can break the barriers that divide us. We need to understand that we will only find peace when we unite in our humanity, when we learn that love is the ultimate law, the first law we are called to follow. To love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourself.
Jesus consistently challenged the people in his midst, from the high and mighty to the lowest of the low, to bind together in the common love that comes from God.
We are about to come to the table this morning, as invited guests of our Creator. Everyone, no matter their status, no matter their quirks, no matter their sins, their pain, their fears, their brokenness, mistakes or failures. No matter their successes, the amount of money in their bank account or what they put in the collection plate, whether their hair is blonde and their attitude entitled or their skin is green and their life has been spent so feared they are relegated to the margins, all are invited, not by me, but by Jesus, who promises us that we are all welcome.
Because that’s the moral of the story, isn’t it? When we open the doors, when we build bigger and bigger tables, when we sit with people we know and with people we do not, there is always room in the presence of God when we include all of God’s children to the banquet. Amen.
