Sunday, September 13, 2009
September 2 & 6 - Pentecost + 14
Boundaries
My 1st career working with teenagers in a group home
Seminary
any helping profession
emotional, relational, physical boundaries
Protect you, protect the other person
Good & right & helpful, but sometimes go too far
That's what we see in action in our readings from the gospel of Mark & James today
The gospel:
Jesus in beginning of gospel passage, making distinctions.
In Gentile country, in Tyre,
looking for a rest,
when a woman comes barging in looking for help
for her daughter who has an unclean spirit
But she's not the right religion,
too different for Jesus –
Not right to feed the kids' food to the dogs
(He calls her a dog! An insult, not pets or companions, but scavengers, like rats!)
Because even Jesus,
at least for that one moment,
held to a cultural, societal boundary;
his mission was to his own kind, not to Gentiles...
James
Human-created boundaries
between who is in, who's out;
who is acceptable, who is not;
who is welcome, who is not.
Gives a vivid example
– rich vs. poor & how they are welcomed in worship
Rich, w/ fine clothes & gold rings, the best seat in the house
Poor, with dirty clothes – stand, or sit at my feet
Making distinctions among themselves
And I get convicted when I read these stories,
esp. the one in James
– for how often are we guilty of the same thing?
Of making distinctions among people
& deciding who's good enough, who's not.
And we all do it, even we who call ourselves Christian,
who want to follow Jesus
– we fall down flat!
Story of Andy & homeless man at preaching conference last May
Gathering for worship, me in balcony,
Andy on floor, too crowded to get a seat, so leaning up against the back wall
Surrounded by 1000 clergy, religious types & in comes a homeless man.
Even I could see from way up in the balcony that he didn't fit in
Reeked of alcohol, raggedy clothes
And Andy, being Andy, welcomed him in
As worship continued, man started to cry
– not making a commotion, just overcome –
Traveling through w/ wife on their way to Michigan,
Attacked in park where they were trying to sleep
(in mid-May in MN, imagine that!)
Robbed, wife to hospital, man injured too
And as preacher began to preach,
Andy put his arm around the man,
sat down w/ him;
& "Security" - a member of the church (a Lutheran church!) -
came and said to Andy -
“Sir, we're gonna have to ask him to leave.”
(He didn't even speak to the man himself, as if he wasn't there!)
& I could see this happening.
I couldn't hear,
but I could guess,
and I was squirming,
b/c I don't like to make waves.
But Andy, defender of the underdog, said,
“He's with me. If anyone needs to hear the good news, he does.”
And I was so proud,
but I know that I probably wouldn't have done it.
I wouldn't have been able to cross that boundary
Because of my own discomfort,
my own uneasiness,
my uncertainty of what to do.
Because so many boundaries are there for a reason
& we want to keep ourselves safe -
It is hard to cross those boundaries.
But when we don't cross those boundaries,
We break God's heart!
But God uses our experiences and the people we meet
to speak to us.
God used the Syrophoenician woman to remind Jesus
that God's love is big enough to cross the boundaries people put up
Even a crumb would be enough for her
But God uses her to open Jesus' eyes
to see his mission in a new way
To see God's how broad and deep God's vision goes
God's vision for the world is
that all people will be saved,
that all people will be healed,
that all people will be welcomed.
And God uses the woman to open Jesus' eyes to that new vision,
to expand his boundaries to include even a Gentile woman from Tyre.
God used James to speak to the people of that church he wrote to too:
reminding them that God has chosen the poor,
that mercy triumphs over judgment.
And God speaks to us today in both of these readings
Saying to us as Jesus said to the man in the Decapolis
(also probably not a Jew, by the way):
“Be opened!”
Because while the boundaries we put up between us and other people
(“those” people
– the ones who aren't like us,
the ones who make us uncomfortable,
the ones who just don't fit)
Those boundaries may sometimes keep us safe,
but they also keep us separated.
They make us forget that God's love is for everyone!
God's love is for everyone!!
And God invites us into the miracle of that love,
the miracle of acceptance and healing and hope for everyone,
God invites us to be a part of God's vision
to save the whole world through Jesus:
by learning to love our neighbors as ourselves.
By welcoming others as we have been welcomed.
By being brave enough to move past the boundaries we put in place
To let God open our ears to these words
To let God open our eyes to see the people God loves
To let God open our mouths to share the truth
That God's love is for everyone
And to let God open our hearts to love
the way that God loves.
Be opened! And let Jesus set you free.
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