There is a story about
two men who were born a world apart. One
was born on an old plantation in Red River Parish, Louisiana where his family
worked as sharecroppers—they were poorer than poor. The other was born into a middle class family
in Fort Worth, Texas. One went on to
lose everyone and everything he ever loved.
While the other went on to out kick the coverage and married up—he
married way up.
One ended up homeless and made a living by traveling
around the US to find odd jobs and beg on street corners. The other struck gold and become wealthy as
an art dealer and lived in the fancy part of town. The homeless man got into some trouble with
the law. The wealthy man got into some
trouble with his wife.
The poor homeless beggar started attending a Mission
in Fort Worth where he found a warm place and a hot meal. The repentant husband followed his wife to
the Mission where they served the homeless.
The Mission is where Denver Moore and Ron Hall first meet. The Mission is where the worlds of these two
men collide and this collision sends them on a journey that only God could
dream up.
Some of you probably already know this story is
documented in a bestselling book entitled TheSame Kind of Different as Me which is slated to hit the big screen sometime
in 2016. The story goes on to talk about
how the lives of these men were changed forever because they committed to
remain friends forever. It is a
remarkable story that is soaked in grace—one that we can all can learn from and
be inspired by.
(Ron Hall and Denver Moore)
In today’s gospel lesson from Mark, we see two worlds
collide when Jesus visits the region of Tyre.
The region of Tyre is populated by mostly Gentiles or non-Jews. However, there is a small Jewish population
that resides in Tyre, and Jesus drops by for a visit.
It is believed that the Jewish people in this town
were poor and often taken advantage of by the wealthy Gentiles. This little nugget of insight might give us a
better understanding as to why Jesus insults this Gentile woman who comes to
ask that his daughter be healed. Jesus
responds to this woman by saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not
fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
While the insult might be a place from righteous
anger, there is no sugar coating calling someone else a dog. To call someone a dog is to severely insult
another. Dogs were considered unclean and
unwanted. The woman does not back down
to this insult and fires back, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the
children’s crumbs.” And this was
enough—Jesus says, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your
daughter.”
I could spend a lot of time dissecting the theology of
this lesson with all the many problems it presents. However, I want to focus on how this
conversation between Jesus and the Gentile woman re-defines and re-directs the
mission of God through Christ.
Essentially, God is saying his work is not only entrusted to the
children (i.e. the nation of Israel) but also to the dogs (i.e. the ritually
unclean, the Gentiles, everyone else).
In order for this to happen, the dividing wall between the Israelites
and the Gentiles must be broken down.
Before these two groups can work together in unity for
the spread of the kingdom, their worlds must first collide. And as we read on in scripture we see a story
filled with grace, a story of how two worlds colliding transforms the people of
God into one human family, a story that only God could dream up.
In theory, the church is supposed to be God’s body on
earth that carries on the story of Jesus, the story of how the grace of God breaks
down barriers and unites people of all kinds—rich and poor, Jew and Gentile,
black and white, republican and democrat, clean and unclean, and all other
barriers that threaten our common life.
However, as highlighted in today’s letter from James,
the church often falls short of its mission.
In his letter, James basically calls out a church community that honors
the Lord with their lips and not in their lives, a church community that prays
for the poor but doesn’t do a thing to live differently. And this ultimately leads James to pen some
of the most controversial words in scripture, “faith without works is dead.”
I am not going to spend time unpacking these often
misunderstood words of scripture.
Rather, I do believe it is helpful consider the fruit of our faith. What is the result of believing in a God who
has the same posture toward all people—Jew or Gentile, slave or free, sinner or
saint? What are the consequences of
trusting a God who calls us into a new community where we are all—rich and poor
alike—are given the same title in the kingdom of God—beloved sons and
daughters?
The consequence of believing in this kind of God
transforms how we live in this world that is so often shaped by social
conventions. The impact of believing in
a God who unites Gentile and Jew, Denver and Ron is a world that works because
of grace—not because of social structure, not politics, not class structure,
not even government or law enforcement.
Instead, God is orchestrating the ultimate collision of two worlds, the
collision of heaven and earth, and this collision transforms our world and
reveals a new creation.
We say it every Sunday—your will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. In other words, God
help us live in your new creation. The
hard part of living into this prayer is seeing beyond the collision. Left to our own devices we humans might see
this collision as the end of the road and turn around—like the travelers who
left for Emmaus after Jesus died on the cross.
Take Denver and Ron for example. When they first met, it wasn’t friendship at
first sight. Both were skeptical as to
how this kind of relationship would work.
But through God’s grace they kept encountering one another until finally
the kingdom of heaven was at hand.
In today’s lesson, the collision is noticed when Jesus
insults this Gentile woman. Think about
how you respond to insult. There are two
common ways to go about it. The first is
to run away and retreat, and the other is to respond with more insult, neither
of which is going to get us very far.
However, the gentile woman sees past the collision and the kingdom of
heaven breaks through.
Chuck Yeager
said when he broke the sound barrier, “the moment before you break the sound
barrier is the moment when the cockpit shakes the most.”
Keeping this in mind, I am not so sure that we should
be so shocked that the church has been prone to failure and chaos. I am sure that the church needs to stop
making excuses. I am sure the church
needs to stop pretending to be something it is not—the church is not perfect
and neither are its people. The church
will never be perfect, and I don’t think God is waiting on us to be perfect
either.
Rather, the church can be that place where Jew and
Gentile crash into each other. The
church can be that place where people like Denver and Ron collide. The church can be that place where people who
aren’t used to showing up in the same room together sit next to each other in
the same pew. After all, church is that
place where heaven and earth collide, that place where catch a glimpse of how
God is taking two worlds and making the whole creation new.
Even more, the church has to be that place where
worlds collide because God has given the church the essential ingredient to be
transformed by this collision and that ingredient is grace. Keeping this collision image in mind, it
shouldn’t be a surprise that the church often looks so crazy from an outsider’s
perspective. The church is the primary
place where God is orchestrating the ultimate collision between heaven and
earth so that we all may live in a new creation.
And every once in a while God’s grace outshines our
failure—like we saw on Palm Sunday and again when Bishop Curry visited. God’s grace shines through when people who
might not normally greet one another in the name of the Lord shake hands and
say, “Peace be with you.” God’s grace
shines through when two and three year olds break every church rule and laugh
and run up and down the aisles of the church.
God’s grace shines through when volunteers and clients
at the Miller Childers’ Food Pantry exchange a smile and for that brief moment
there is no distinction between volunteer and client. God’s grace shines through on a holiday
weekend when many are on vacation or sleeping in. God’s grace shines through when we are given
the vision to see beyond the messiness of two worlds colliding.
(Palm Sunday at St. Paul's)
It is easy to miss God’s grace if we don’t train our
eyes to see beyond the collision. And by
now you might have gathered that the word collision is a nice way of saying
death. Before there is resurrection
there is death—death of the way things have always been, death to our
prejudices, death to our own sin, ultimately death to our pride.
All these things I just mentioned are necessary if we
are interested in living in a world where there is a dividing wall. However, if we are interested in living in a
world beyond the dividing wall, then there are some things that we are going to
have to lay to rest, there are some collisions that we need to prepare
ourselves for.
But there is good news, there is life beyond the
collision, there is resurrection, there is life in a world that had never
existed before now and we know this because Jesus is risen from the dead. God accomplished something in Jesus that was
never before possible—resurrection.
Because of this faith we have been given in the risen
Christ, the Church is in the business of death and resurrection. And the business of death and resurrection is
often messy and painful. But the gift of
Christianity is not a retreat from the messy and painful but rather a way to
endure and persevere. The gift of living
according to the story of God in Christ is living in a world surpassing human
understanding, the gift of living beyond the collision of heaven and earth is
something only God could dream up.
May you have the grace to see beyond the collision and
be transformed into living members of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Amen.
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