In the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning we heard about King David’s desire to build a Temple of cedar for the Ark of the Covenant, and then Yahweh’s instructions to David to leave that task to King David’s son Solomon. In Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus he reminds them that “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” And then, in Mark’s gospel, we are told that the people followed Jesus and his disciples even as he crosses the Sea of Galilee … and he looked upon them with compassion. These are the lessons from Holy Scripture for this week. This sermon is about “no longer strangers and aliens,” and about compassion.
8 Pentecost
July 19, 2015
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.
July 19, 2015
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.
In the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning we heard about King David’s desire to build a Temple of cedar for the Ark of the Covenant, and then Yahweh’s instructions to David to leave that task to King David’s son Solomon. In Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus he reminds them that “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” And then, in Mark’s gospel, we are told that the people followed Jesus and his disciples even as he crosses the Sea of Galilee … and he looked upon them with compassion. These are the lessons from Holy Scripture for this week. This sermon is about “no longer strangers and aliens,” and about compassion.
Maria Said is a journalist who spent time doing international development in the African desert. A number of years ago she wrote this story which appeared in the Christian magazine Re:generation Quarterly.
"For two years, I shared my home with more than 30 children, four freedom fighters, a government bureaucrat, a wife-beater, a Red Cross worker with a taste for liquor, a number of prostitutes, a madman, and all the customers of the tea shop next door." Maria admits that sharing her home with such a complex crowd was not her original intention, "but rather the unexpected circumstance of living in a room with only half-walls."
I wonder if you can you imagine living in such a house, separated from your neighbors by nothing but half-walls? If any of you have watched Orange is the New Black you have seen the inmates in half-wall dormitories. There would be physical difficulties living in such an environment … but there would also be some possible hidden spiritual benefits, because such a situation reminds us what Paul wrote to the Christian community at Ephesus: Jesus came to “break down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us". Paul was saying that Jesus came to lower the barrier that had existed between Gentiles and Jews, and to "reconcile both groups to God … thus putting to death that hostility." In so doing, Jesus introduced not only a new relationship between God and people, but between human beings, one to another.
Maria Said reports that in her half-wall world, one of the women who lived next door became her best friend. When the dust storms came and the lights blew out, the woman would place her candles on top of the wall so that the two of them could share the light. On nights when she worked late, Maria passed bowls of American-style food over the wall and listened as the woman and the tea shop customers tried to identify and swallow the strange meals. The woman called Maria "sister" and made her a part of her family. The very same thing happens to those who become brothers and sisters in our faith: "you are no longer strangers and aliens," writes Paul, "but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”
You’ve heard me use this quote before. I always attributed it to a friend and colleague Loren Meade who headed the Alban Institute in Washington, DC for many years. It turns out that Groucho Marx is named as a source as well. “The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” I think Paul was saying that there were no longer two kinds of people. And I don’t think God created two kinds of people … we are all children of God. We are all created in God’s image … in all God’s many expressions: different races, sizes, shapes, sexual orientation and sexual identity. But we are all one kind of people … all made in the image of the divine creator.
Yet the world all too often sees things differently. In Columbia, South Carolina this week they took down the Confederate Battle Flag to “break down the dividing walls.” But yesterday, there were two groups holding rallies on the South Carolina State House grounds … the KKK on the south side, and a New Black Panther group on the other. Talk about dividing the world into two kinds of people. If it were not so serious it would be funny … two anachronistic groups … old men with canes … yelling at each other.
But the events that spurred the protests in Columbia, South Carolina started with a racist young man who divided the world into two kinds of people, and shot and killed nine of the “other kind.” This week five United States Marines were shot and killed by another young man who divided the world into two kinds of people. Our prisons are filled with a hugely disproportionate population of young African Americans by a system that divides the world into two kinds of people … those who get justice and those that don’t. And around the world there continue to be those who not only divide the world into two kinds of people, but they try to eliminate those that are not like them. Just yesterday a car bomb outside Baghdad killed at least 130 men, women and children in a crowded market as they prepared to celebrate the end of Ramadan.
The shooting in Charleston, South Carolina was horrifically tragic … and so are the casualties in Chattanooga. The present judicial system … from police training, to the laws legislated by our state and federal government, to the courts, to our prisons … is unsustainable. The terrorist violence around the world is beyond understanding. So what does our faith have to say … if anything at all … about events like these? And what do people of faith … people like you and me … do … if anything at all … in the face of such tragedies?
These are hard questions, and, to be honest, I don’t have many of the answers. Even if I knew what Dylann Roof was thinking while he sat for an hour in that Bible Study before opening fire it would not take away the pain and grief of those who lost loved ones, or the anguish of those holding vigil in the hospital waiting rooms. One has only to see a mother wailing over an innocent child maimed in an attack by Boko Haram in Nigeria to know that no objective answer could reduce her agony. And there is no comfort to a parent, or spouse, or brother or sister, or child in an answer to why a Marine in a recruiting station was shot and killed by someone they didn’t know.
I have had my own share of tragedies in my life. And I have spent too much time, and emotional and spiritual energy, being present to people in their own tragedies to know that answers don’t help a whole lot. But I have learned a few things that do help. I learned them because in my own pain and grief these few things worked when friends and family acted with compassion. I learned that just being present to the one in pain helps. Being present physically, emotionally, and spiritually brings at least some comfort in a horribly painful situation. On the other hand, being told that “everything is going to be OK” doesn’t help … the fact is that things are not OK, and it is going to be a long time, and with a lot of tears, before things will even approach being OK again … if ever. I’ve also learned that prayer helps. But being told that tragic events are part of God’s plan doesn’t help. Just who do you think you are that you might know the mind of God?
Most of us in this congregation have known tragedies pretty close to our lives. Auto accidents, sudden illnesses, drownings, heart attacks, strokes, even suicides in our own families or to people very close to us. Many of us have sat in hospital waiting rooms waiting for some word of hope from a doctor. In those situations we may ask the question “Why?” However, what is really being expressed is our painful impotency.
There is a bumper sticker that reads, “Think globally. Act locally.” I think this is true for our prayers as well. My heart goes out to the people of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the people of Charleston … to all those who lost loved ones in the shooting … to all the families and friends in the waiting rooms of the. And our prayers today go out for the families of those five Marines in Chattanooga … and all the people across this nation that share their pain and grief. We will pray for the violence in Nigeria, and Iraq, and Syria and ask for “peace wherever there is conflict in the world.” And we will pray for all those who are victims of those who divide the world into two kinds of people … and think they are justified in killing those that are not like them. This is what I mean by “Think … and pray … globally.”
And yet I am reminded to “Act locally.” To tell those around me how much I love them. To reach out to comfort the people I know and love in their pain. The word “compassion” literally means to “suffer with.” None of us likes to suffer, but giving of ourselves … putting ourselves in awkward and painful situations so we can comfort someone who is hurting even more is the true meaning of compassion. If I can’t hold the hand of a family member of one of those shot in Charleston or Chattanooga then maybe, just maybe, I can find someone in my backyard that needs to have their hand held.
I can’t do much about Boko Haram in Nigeria, or ISIS in the Middle East, but I can fight for justice in my own community. Remember, our Baptismal Covenant calls us to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” If I can’t stop the brutality in Iraq and Syria, I can at least support the work to end domestic abuse in my own neighborhood.
Finally, we are all beloved and blessed children of God’s creation. There are not two kinds of people in God’s eyes … we are all one. We are all created in God’s image … just with many expressions of that divine presence. When anyone of us … regardless of when and where … is in pain I believe that God is there enveloping us with loving and healing arms. That is the story of Jesus this morning … “he saw the large crowd, and he had compassion for them.”
We come together week by week to rejoice together in our successes and blessings, and to open our hearts to each other in true compassion. We are fed at this table so that we might be empowered to live compassionate lives, to seek justice in all the world, to respect the dignity … and life … of every human being. To see each and every other human being on this planet as a brother or sister … a blessed child of God just as we are a blessed child of God.
Today we pray for those killed and injured … physically and psychically … in Charleston and Chattanooga, and for their families. We pray for the people around the world who are suffering from the systemic political, economic and military violence that pits one group against another as if we are two kinds of people. And we pray for all of us in this community of faith as we seek to serve God by living compassionate lives.
Amen.
Maria Said is a journalist who spent time doing international development in the African desert. A number of years ago she wrote this story which appeared in the Christian magazine Re:generation Quarterly.
"For two years, I shared my home with more than 30 children, four freedom fighters, a government bureaucrat, a wife-beater, a Red Cross worker with a taste for liquor, a number of prostitutes, a madman, and all the customers of the tea shop next door." Maria admits that sharing her home with such a complex crowd was not her original intention, "but rather the unexpected circumstance of living in a room with only half-walls."
I wonder if you can you imagine living in such a house, separated from your neighbors by nothing but half-walls? If any of you have watched Orange is the New Black you have seen the inmates in half-wall dormitories. There would be physical difficulties living in such an environment … but there would also be some possible hidden spiritual benefits, because such a situation reminds us what Paul wrote to the Christian community at Ephesus: Jesus came to “break down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us". Paul was saying that Jesus came to lower the barrier that had existed between Gentiles and Jews, and to "reconcile both groups to God … thus putting to death that hostility." In so doing, Jesus introduced not only a new relationship between God and people, but between human beings, one to another.
Maria Said reports that in her half-wall world, one of the women who lived next door became her best friend. When the dust storms came and the lights blew out, the woman would place her candles on top of the wall so that the two of them could share the light. On nights when she worked late, Maria passed bowls of American-style food over the wall and listened as the woman and the tea shop customers tried to identify and swallow the strange meals. The woman called Maria "sister" and made her a part of her family. The very same thing happens to those who become brothers and sisters in our faith: "you are no longer strangers and aliens," writes Paul, "but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”
You’ve heard me use this quote before. I always attributed it to a friend and colleague Loren Meade who headed the Alban Institute in Washington, DC for many years. It turns out that Groucho Marx is named as a source as well. “The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” I think Paul was saying that there were no longer two kinds of people. And I don’t think God created two kinds of people … we are all children of God. We are all created in God’s image … in all God’s many expressions: different races, sizes, shapes, sexual orientation and sexual identity. But we are all one kind of people … all made in the image of the divine creator.
Yet the world all too often sees things differently. In Columbia, South Carolina this week they took down the Confederate Battle Flag to “break down the dividing walls.” But yesterday, there were two groups holding rallies on the South Carolina State House grounds … the KKK on the south side, and a New Black Panther group on the other. Talk about dividing the world into two kinds of people. If it were not so serious it would be funny … two anachronistic groups … old men with canes … yelling at each other.
But the events that spurred the protests in Columbia, South Carolina started with a racist young man who divided the world into two kinds of people, and shot and killed nine of the “other kind.” This week five United States Marines were shot and killed by another young man who divided the world into two kinds of people. Our prisons are filled with a hugely disproportionate population of young African Americans by a system that divides the world into two kinds of people … those who get justice and those that don’t. And around the world there continue to be those who not only divide the world into two kinds of people, but they try to eliminate those that are not like them. Just yesterday a car bomb outside Baghdad killed at least 130 men, women and children in a crowded market as they prepared to celebrate the end of Ramadan.
The shooting in Charleston, South Carolina was horrifically tragic … and so are the casualties in Chattanooga. The present judicial system … from police training, to the laws legislated by our state and federal government, to the courts, to our prisons … is unsustainable. The terrorist violence around the world is beyond understanding. So what does our faith have to say … if anything at all … about events like these? And what do people of faith … people like you and me … do … if anything at all … in the face of such tragedies?
These are hard questions, and, to be honest, I don’t have many of the answers. Even if I knew what Dylann Roof was thinking while he sat for an hour in that Bible Study before opening fire it would not take away the pain and grief of those who lost loved ones, or the anguish of those holding vigil in the hospital waiting rooms. One has only to see a mother wailing over an innocent child maimed in an attack by Boko Haram in Nigeria to know that no objective answer could reduce her agony. And there is no comfort to a parent, or spouse, or brother or sister, or child in an answer to why a Marine in a recruiting station was shot and killed by someone they didn’t know.
I have had my own share of tragedies in my life. And I have spent too much time, and emotional and spiritual energy, being present to people in their own tragedies to know that answers don’t help a whole lot. But I have learned a few things that do help. I learned them because in my own pain and grief these few things worked when friends and family acted with compassion. I learned that just being present to the one in pain helps. Being present physically, emotionally, and spiritually brings at least some comfort in a horribly painful situation. On the other hand, being told that “everything is going to be OK” doesn’t help … the fact is that things are not OK, and it is going to be a long time, and with a lot of tears, before things will even approach being OK again … if ever. I’ve also learned that prayer helps. But being told that tragic events are part of God’s plan doesn’t help. Just who do you think you are that you might know the mind of God?
Most of us in this congregation have known tragedies pretty close to our lives. Auto accidents, sudden illnesses, drownings, heart attacks, strokes, even suicides in our own families or to people very close to us. Many of us have sat in hospital waiting rooms waiting for some word of hope from a doctor. In those situations we may ask the question “Why?” However, what is really being expressed is our painful impotency.
There is a bumper sticker that reads, “Think globally. Act locally.” I think this is true for our prayers as well. My heart goes out to the people of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the people of Charleston … to all those who lost loved ones in the shooting … to all the families and friends in the waiting rooms of the. And our prayers today go out for the families of those five Marines in Chattanooga … and all the people across this nation that share their pain and grief. We will pray for the violence in Nigeria, and Iraq, and Syria and ask for “peace wherever there is conflict in the world.” And we will pray for all those who are victims of those who divide the world into two kinds of people … and think they are justified in killing those that are not like them. This is what I mean by “Think … and pray … globally.”
And yet I am reminded to “Act locally.” To tell those around me how much I love them. To reach out to comfort the people I know and love in their pain. The word “compassion” literally means to “suffer with.” None of us likes to suffer, but giving of ourselves … putting ourselves in awkward and painful situations so we can comfort someone who is hurting even more is the true meaning of compassion. If I can’t hold the hand of a family member of one of those shot in Charleston or Chattanooga then maybe, just maybe, I can find someone in my backyard that needs to have their hand held.
I can’t do much about Boko Haram in Nigeria, or ISIS in the Middle East, but I can fight for justice in my own community. Remember, our Baptismal Covenant calls us to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” If I can’t stop the brutality in Iraq and Syria, I can at least support the work to end domestic abuse in my own neighborhood.
Finally, we are all beloved and blessed children of God’s creation. There are not two kinds of people in God’s eyes … we are all one. We are all created in God’s image … just with many expressions of that divine presence. When anyone of us … regardless of when and where … is in pain I believe that God is there enveloping us with loving and healing arms. That is the story of Jesus this morning … “he saw the large crowd, and he had compassion for them.”
We come together week by week to rejoice together in our successes and blessings, and to open our hearts to each other in true compassion. We are fed at this table so that we might be empowered to live compassionate lives, to seek justice in all the world, to respect the dignity … and life … of every human being. To see each and every other human being on this planet as a brother or sister … a blessed child of God just as we are a blessed child of God.
Today we pray for those killed and injured … physically and psychically … in Charleston and Chattanooga, and for their families. We pray for the people around the world who are suffering from the systemic political, economic and military violence that pits one group against another as if we are two kinds of people. And we pray for all of us in this community of faith as we seek to serve God by living compassionate lives.
Amen.
