No Longer Strangers

Proper 11B; Jer. 23:1-6; Eph. 2:11-22; Mk 6:30-34, 53-56; 

St. Paul’s Smithfield, 7/22/2018 

Jim Melnyk: “No longer Strangers”

 Last Friday night Lorraine and I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a biopic film about Fred Rogers, who was the heart and soul of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.  Fred Rogers, who was an ordained Presbyterian Minister, spent his life encouraging, affirming, and honoring children.  In part his mission was to help both children and adults learn to love our neighbor and love ourselves.  His goal was to teach children that they are beloved as they are – not because of how they looked, or what they wore, or what they did.  He taught us to love one another in the midst of pain and fear – first welcoming us into his neighborhood in 1968 with all the tensions of the day.  And he found ways to help break down the many walls that often separate us from one another – without having to tell us what he was doing.

One of the regulars in the neighborhood was François Clemmons, who played a police officer on the show.  In a 1969 episode Rogers invites Clemmons to sit down and rest his feet with him in a small plastic pool.  This was a time when people of color were routinely chased from neighborhood pools – something that seems to be back in vogue these days.  Clemmons tells us, "The icon Fred Rogers not only was showing my brown skin in the tub with his white skin as two friends, but as I was getting out of that tub, he was helping me dry my feet."  They repeated the same scene 24 years later in their last episode.  Love your neighbor – and love yourself.

That said, if I had to pick a theme for today’s lessons – something to put out on one of those flashing church signs to inform everyone going by what happens to be on the preacher’s mind at the moment it would read, “No longer strangers or aliens,” a quote from today’s reading from the letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 2:19).  Or perhaps, a little tongue-in-cheek, I’d call it, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

The theologian that was Fred Rogers wanted us to understand what it means to be neighbor.  We are no longer strangers or an aliens – we have a home in the heart of God – we have a home in the Body of Christ.  There was an incredible depth to Rogers’ message – just as there is an incredible depth to the message of today’s lessons.  At the heart of it all is a message that conveys the deep compassion God has for all of creation.         

Yet throughout the centuries the Church has struggled to agree on just how the compassion and love of God in Christ Jesus is made known and experienced – and the Rogers movie shows that as well – giving us a glimpse into the so-called Christians of Westboro Baptist Church who picketed his funeral in 2013. 

And so it becomes the witness of Jesus, himself, and those who followed after him, that offers to us some insight on what it means to no longer be strangers or aliens before God, but rather “citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).  It is the witness of Jesus that challenges us to recognize how we all belong to the household of God – even those who are different from me – or different from each of you.

As the author of Ephesians (most likely an admirer and follower of Paul) tells us, Jesus is one who came among us to “break down the dividing wall” that separated people of faith – most notably Gentile and Jewish Jesus Followers toward the end of the first century – as well as the many and varied walls which separated human beings from God.  That said, along with the witness from Mark’s Gospel, we have a picture of Jesus who envisions and who embodies the compassion of God in all its glory.  Rather than building walls, Jesus breaks them down.  Rather than drawing lines in the sand that separate and exclude, Jesus draws ever-widening circles that embrace and include.  And it seems he does so with an intense inner fire – what we might call a fire in the belly – a fire in the gut – a feeling of deep connection to a people who have lost their way or who have been pushed aside by wayward shepherds who, like those from today’s lesson in Jeremiah (23:1-6), have lost their own sense of God’s call.

And after all, that sense of fire in the gut – that fire in the belly – that deep connection – well, that’s what compassion is all about.  It’s a word that gets bandied about a lot these days, and too often we just think it means to care about something or someone.  But actually, compassion is a “feeling of distress” on behalf of others.  Compassion means to “suffer with” the other (Dictionary.com).  In other words, to have compassion for others is to journey with them – it is to feel with them – it is to companion with them – and it is to carry deeply within us a desire to eliminate the suffering those others are experiencing.  One might say compassion is empathy toward another tied to action.

For Jesus, that means breaking down walls that separate people from each other.  It means breaking down walls that separate people from God.  It means inviting those who take the time to listen to his teaching to then become participants with him in the coming reign of God; and it means inviting others – others who have been cast aside as well as those in the inner most circles of the faith – inviting everyone who takes the time to listen, and to then become a part of the in-breaking kingdom of God: no longer strangers or aliens, but friends of God!          

Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that we live in a world – we live in a culture – that has more to do with separating folks rather than including them – that has to do with pushing folks away, rather than inviting their participation in community – a mindset that is more about identifying and avoiding strangers, than acknowledging their worthiness to be with us in all their wondrous diversity.  It seems to be a significant aspect of the human condition these days – though on our better days we fight the pulling apart of our world.

Disagreement, it seems now-a-days, is a sign of not belonging.  You disagree with me, you don't belong with me.  Diversity of opinion – diversity of theological or philosophical thought, it seems, is a sign of disrespect.  You don't believe as I believe – what I believe – you don't respect me.  But we’re still neighbors – and remembering that is part of the challenge today in the midst of this age of Social Media and instant dissemination of news and opinions – where tempers flare and fears are so easily fed. We’ve lost, as a society – as a nation – the ability to feel with one another – the ability to journey with one another – the willingness to suffer with one another – and the desire to celebrate with one another. 

I believe that we at St. Paul’s have a gift to share with a fractured society – the gift of compassion – the gift of community in the midst of diversity.  We are not a homogenous community.  We at St. Paul’s are politically, socially, and theologically diverse – and yet we find ways of being community together.  We work together.  We play together.  We serve this community together.  We break bread together at this Holy Table, and with one another at meals in Lawrence Hall.  And we can even chuckle with one another about our differences – well, most of the time, anyway.  That’s a gift we can share.   

This Jesus stuff isn’t easy!  If it was, the kingdom of heaven would already be realized.  The Jesus we meet in the Gospels challenges us to take a closer look at our own lives.  What does it mean to truly follow Jesus?  Living out the compassion and love of God in Christ might even feel overwhelming at times.  That’s the reason why I have on occasion used a Franciscan prayer as our closing blessing: “May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, at half-truths, and at superficial relationships, so that we will each live more deeply within our hearts.”

So, how do we get to a place where the Other is no longer stranger or alien – a place where the Other is known to us as he or she is known to God – as God’s beloved?  Perhaps by recognizing we’re all in this wonderful and terrible mess of a world together – perhaps by recognizing we have more in common than in opposition – perhaps by recognizing that our job is to love one another – or, if baby steps are needed in some instances, by just trying to remember the person with whom we disagree is still our neighbor. 

Recalling that through Christ we are no longer strangers and aliens, but [that together, we are] citizens with the saints, and [that we are all] members of the household of God.