Preaching texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:53-56
It’s no secret how divided human society is. We cut ourselves off one from another, often out of fear or envy. We are afraid they desire what we have or we desire what they have, and so resentment builds. We declare others enemies, threats, and often use what power and resources we have to keep them contained, distant, and perhaps even destroyed.
And while many today lament that nativism, bigotry, and other forms of human divisiveness are on the rise in many societies, including our own, this is hardly a new phenomena. Fifty years ago, it was Western democracy vs. Soviet Communism. Or black vs. white in the civil rights movement. Seventy years ago, it was freedom vs. fascism. Nazi Germany vs. the world. One hundred years ago, it was democracy vs. imperial monarchy. Or perhaps imperial monarchy vs. itself. Or revolutionaries vs. the monarchy. Or Germany vs. Britain and Russia and France. And so and so forth. That’s just the past 100 years and the major historical events of that timeframe: The World Wars, the Cold War, and the social changes within our own nation, events some of us remember and lived through. Creep further back in time and example after example continue to rise up of the jealousy and hostility of humankind towards itself. It doesn’t seem to end.
Contrast that with the vision of God’s kingdom given us in these three lessons today. God as a shepherd gathering his people from all the lands of the Earth. Paul speaking of the Church uniting Jew and Gentile together under the cross of Jesus Christ. And Jesus himself journeying across the sea into previously hostile pagan land (ref. Mark 5:14-20 to see how his last visit went.), only to receive as warm a welcome as he ever has.
If I were to go back over my cadre of sermon manuscripts, all those I’ve preached here at Grace and Canadochly, or those at St. John’s in Davis, or those during seminary, or even those from when I was a lay preacher filling in for vacationing pastors, I am certain that this vision of the world that we see in these texts would dominate as my most popular topic. I’m not all that surprised by that. I know where my bias comes from; I know what it’s like to be on the other side of that dividing line and it isn’t fun.
I spoke a few weeks ago about how my chronic illnesses often put me there. I’ve spoken in the past about how being the bullied child often put me there. As someone who struggles with an ADHD mind and all its million distractions, I find that can put me there. As someone with an often awkward personality, with oddball interests and difficulty relating to “ordinary folk”, that can put me there (and perhaps, more distressing, can inadvertently make others feel they are there.)
Now, I’m not going to say I know what it’s like to be black or gay or a woman or an immigrant in our society, because their experiences are only like mine as they are taken to the Nth degree by the hostility we often display towards such people. I have it a lot easier than they do. But knowing how I feel when I’m across that dividing line, I can say this. No one should feel like this. No one should feel unwelcome or ashamed of who and what they are. No one should feel afraid because they are different from how society defines the norm. No one.
I made brief mention of A Wrinkle in Time last week and I find myself coming back to it again this week. The lead character, Meg Murry, is one of those awkward kids like I was, doesn’t fit in, bullied, etc. But as she’s galavanting across the universe, the angelic Mrs. characters who are guiding her and her friends note how much difficulty Meg has in “tessering” from planet to planet. “It’s like you don’t want to come out the other side.” They exclaim. Meg replies “It’s because I don’t want to be me.”
For most of my childhood, I said the same thing. Heck, there are times as a middle aged adult when I feel that way. What an awful thing. To be someone fearfully and wonderfully made by our Almighty Father and yet ashamed of who they are. But that’s what the evil of this world wants people to feel. And the lines we draw between ourselves and others are the means by which it happens.
You are mighty. You are beautiful. You are wondrous. You are precious. You are a child of God and you are exactly as he made you to be. That doesn’t mean you aren’t flawed, because life works to break us down. That doesn’t mean that sin hasn’t scarred or damaged you. Those things are true too, but even with them, God loves the you that you are and he loves you enough to send his son into this world to die for you.
And now envision your worst enemy or the one you fear the most. They too are mighty. They too are beautiful. They too are wondrous. They too are precious. They are a child of God and they are exactly as he made them to be. That doesn’t mean they aren’t flawed, because life has battered and beaten them too. That doesn’t mean that sin hasn’t scarred them, and perhaps that’s why you fear and hate them. But God does not. God loves the them that they are and he loves them enough to send Jesus for them too.
At the ELCA National Youth Gathering last month, Nadia Bolz-Weber got up and preached. She talked about God’s grace being a “double-edged sword,” it’s “a place where grace and mercy are true for me (us)...but are also true for those I can’t stand.” “The salvation of my enemy is so completely wrapped up in my own salvation. This is why grace isn’t the central message of most Christian churches. Because Jesus Christ lifted up and draws ALL people to himself.”
That’s the kingdom of God. That’s God’s dream for his world and his people. All of us together, recognizing how truly valuable we are to the one who made us and all things. You, and your neighbor, and your worst enemy, and the other that you fear, all precious and wondrous and beloved. We are all in this together. You and me, our friends, our family, our enemies, those we hate and those who hate us. They too belong because God LOVES them as he loves you. Christ DIED for them as he did for you. Christ ROSE AGAIN for them as he did for you.
It’s God’s dream that all his precious people come together as one. A blessed cacophony of languages, ideas, experiences, cultures, physical differences, each of us unique and yet one family under our Almighty Father. To divide ourselves from one another is anathema to God and it is our calling and duty as Christians to oppose and reject such divisions.
This isn’t easy. To love the alien, the stranger, the enemy, the fearsome, the threatening. But being a Christian isn’t supposed to be easy. We follow a savior who went to the other side of the lake, who brought Jew and Gentile together, and went to die on a cross for the sake of ALL people, all in order to model for us God’s dream of a different world. Can you help him create that world? Can you love your enemy and bless those who hate you? Can you embrace the one you fear, the one you resent? Or the one that hates and fears you? Christ did and he calls us to do likewise. Amen.
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