Who’s On First?

Sermon

Many of you know the classic comedy sketch routine from the comedians Abbott and Costello called “Who’s on First?” It dates back to the 1940s, but I watched it on Youtube this past week, and it’s still brilliant. Someone is trying to explain to a baseball player that the other players on the team have weird names, and the audience recognizes that the player on first base is named Who, on second base is named What, and on third base is named I don’t know. And it’s hilarious, ’cuz the player keeps asking, “Who’s on first?” and the other person says, “Yes! Who’s on first!” and the player says, “I don’t know” and the other person responds, “third base.”

I want us today to focus on the question, “Who’s on first?” because I am suggesting that one way to understand our Scripture passage on this seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost is to understand Jesus confronting us with that very question: Who’s on first? Or to make it more plain: Who do we put first?

The chief priests and elders, the religious leaders of that day, are shocked at seeing Jesus parade into the capital city Jerusalem as if he were some king, some authority. Jesus was turning over tables, allowing the blind and sick into the temple, and worse, curing them on a Sabbath day.

And so in our passage, they confront Jesus, saying, “By what authority are you doing these things?”

It’s like that scene in the action movie, where someone confronts the spy and yells dramatically, “Who are you working for? Who sent you?”

We, the modern reader, understand of course that Jesus is working for God, that God sent Jesus, but also Jesus is God, but also God’s Son? It’s almost as confusing as an Abbott and Costello routine, but anyway we know that it is under the authority of GOD that Jesus is doing these things.

Or do we? If you were confronted in your own Hollywood movie, which side note, in my movie I will be played by Henry Golding, the lead from Crazy Rich Asians, thank you… but if you were in a movie and someone asked you—Who are you working for? Who’s on first in your mind?—what would you say?

Who’s on first when you say you value family but then work endless hours because you want to get ahead or because you want more wealth? Who’s actually in charge of you? Who’s on first when you say you love your children but then entangle them in the larger family drama because of unspoken pressures or just plain hurt them in some way? Who’s on first when your beliefs are dictated by the whims of the people you surround yourself with, or celebrities or talking heads on TV, or posts on social media from people you agree with?

Who are you working for?

Jesus then flips the question of authority on them, Jedi-mind-trick style, with a parable.

If a parent asks a child, go and do this thing on the family farm, and one child says, “Yeah I’ll do it!” but then doesn’t, but then the other child says, “No, I won’t do it,” who is really listening to the parent?

With this story, Jesus serves these chief priests the ultimate insult for them, that those supposed sinners the leaders looked down on would actually be first in the kingdom, ahead of them.

Who’s on first? Not the religious leaders, apparently.

Jesus is saying the question of who is your first authority is deeply connected with the question, Which people are you putting first in your mind?

I am suggesting you make a regular habit of reflecting on your actions and beliefs and ask, “Who’s on first? Who am I putting first in my mind?”

And if Jesus is your authority, do you still act as if you still go into the Kingdom ahead of others? Are you still lining people up assuming you’re there first? Or maybe it’s not you personally, but are there certain people you think are first?

Let me make this plain: If you walk into your grandchild’s classroom and you see a white authority figure and a Black authority figure, who do you think is the teacher and who do you think is the assistant?

And just so this passage truly hits home, I’m gathering that a lot of folks in Westminster consider themselves progressive and open. That’s great, that’s partially why I felt called to this congregation. But in the arc of progress, do you fancy yourself automatically as the hero of the story, the one on first who leads the rest of the pack into the great pearly gates of history? Who’s on first?

Forget about being first, do you appreciate what it’s like to be forced to be last? I actually do believe that all of us do in some way, that all of us at some point in our lives know what it’s like to be kicked down, to be discounted.

But this past week we were confronted with a very particular way that America forces some people to be last. A grand jury decided that in the Breonna Taylor case, an officer could be indicted for recklessly endangering Taylor’s neighbors, but not for killing Breonna Taylor in her own home. Do you really appreciate what it’s like to be constantly reminded you are forced last because of your race?

I am not Black, but as a Brown person, I do remember my dad being told, “Go back to your third-world country,” a literal first to last ranking. I do know what it’s like to grow up with the constant weight of my brown skin and my accent making me different than my white suburban classmates, that the rice and Filipino bread my parents packed were somehow more shameful than the PB&J sandwiches in other kids’ lunchboxes.

Until you really empathize with what it’s like to be forced last, you won’t really be able to come into the Kingdom. And I mean really empathize with being forced last while still honoring people’s dignity, not pitying people. I don’t want your pity. I just want to be treated like a person. Breonna Taylor’s family, Black people in America, the Black folks I served at First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica: they don’t want your white progressive pity. They want justice.

Let me make this real. In America, who do you see as who’s on first in making progress? Is it the white progressive moderate on public radio, the prestigious politician painted in the history book? Or is it the slave who revolted against the master, the worker who organized against child labor laws, the woman who packed up the suitcases and cooked dinner for the “Great Man,” the immigrant who picked the food in the fields for the CEO, the custodian who cleaned the toilets for the genius entrepreneur? Who do you actually think is on first?

Until you truly confront that question for yourself, all you’ll be able to answer is, “I don’t know.” And like an Abbott and Costello routine, you’ll just be confused and hear “third base.” Amen.