Thursday, June 23, 2016

No More Lines

Fifth Sunday of Pentecost – Proper 7 - Year C
June 19, 2016
Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Over the last week I have been dwelling on a knife's edge between sorrow and anger. The horrific shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning has affected all of us in some way, and is the subject of many news stories and much conversation.

I am grieving the senseless loss of life. So many people killed in an act of hatred, so many young lives ended by the hail of bullets. I grieve the fact that someone can hate a group of people so much the only route they see is to wipe them off the face of the earth. I feel for the families, the friends, the partners, the husbands and wives, the parents and children that are now having to bury their loved ones. I grieve for a nation that can't seem to escape the brutal killing of men and women each and every day.

I am angry, I am furious. Why? Why is it that the story is about the killer rather than the victims? Why do we want to ignore the fact that these people were killed because of who they are? Why is it that we are the only church in the area that felt moved to have a vigil, to talk about it on social media? I’m tired of the all the talk about gun violence in our country, and the lack of action. How many bodies will it take? When did America become the country where “others” are somehow no longer as important as “self.” Are these men and women not our sisters and our brothers? Are there lives somehow worth less because of who they love? Because of who they are?

Last Tuesday evening we held a candlelight vigil in front of the church. It was an event thrown together quickly, in less than 2 days it was planned and advertised. 72 people showed up. 72 people who had been affected in various ways by the shooting. Perhaps they had known someone. Maybe they were part of the LGBTQ community themselves. Maybe they had a son or daughter, a brother or sister who was part of the community, and the horror in Orlando had touched them. The senseless killing of anyone should affect all of us, we should all be grieving.

Why is it that we are so divided? Why is it that after the killing there were people speaking from pulpits in churches around this country, not mourning the loss of life but declaring it was God's vengeance? Why? Why do we hate each other so much? Why do we again and again draw lines in the sand between us and them, between who is in, who I out? Why is it that hate and fear, bigotry an intolerance are allowed the power they have?

Yes, I am angry. Yes, I have shed many tears over the last week. Do we, or do we not worship a God that declared love for all creation? Do we or do we not serve a God that sent Jesus to us, and died on the cross, not for just some of us, but for each and everyone of us? Am I wrong in that? Have I somehow been led astray, bamboozled by a good sounding story? Are we or are we not all children of God?

I wish that the tendency to draw lines between us and them was just something new, a new development, but it is trait we have been dealing with, likely since humans first walked on this planet. The church has had to deal with it in many ways in the nearly 2000 years since Jesus walked among us. Drawing lines, wanting to define who is part of the inner circle, trying to control access and rights in the church was what Paul is addressing in his letter to the Galatians, a portion of which we heard this morning.

The situation in Galatia was that some in the church were arguing about the new people in their midst. They weren't like them. They hadn't been coming for their entire lives. These weren't people who had begun their lives as Jews within the church, these were Gentiles. These were outsiders. They had to be controlled. They had to be informed that they couldn't just become part of the church, they couldn't just be accepted the way they were. First, they had to convert to Judaism, they had to follow the Jewish law, they had to be circumcised. A line had to be drawn. So they reach out to Paul for advise, what are they to do? How can they convince these new people that they need to change, that they need to become like those already in the church?

And Paul responds. Why? Why do they need to change? What is it that is not enough, what makes them somehow second-class Christians? He lays out his argument: the Galatians were declaring faith in Jesus, faith in the saving power of God, yet were trusting in the ways things had been – the rules that Judaism demanded they follow. Yet, had following those rules ever saved anyone? Had anyone ever been able to follow them all? Even he, Paul, a Pharisee, someone obsessed with following each and every minutiae of law had not been saved by following the rules. He had only been saved by faith. Faith that tore down those walls that had been built, wiped out those lines that had been drawn between the “them's” and the “us's.”

Do you believe Jesus saves, or do you believe that following the rules saves? Which is it? You can't serve two masters. Is it God, or you? And if it is God, if you choose faith, then, as Paul says, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Do you see any lines? Do you see any division between who is part of God's family, and who is not? Do you see a ranking? Do you see that one person or group is better or has more power than another? I don't.

Paul wants the Galatians to see that living in Christ was different. Jesus was by all accounts a good and faithful Jew, but he began questioning those laws that didn't match what his heart was telling him. All those lines that had been drawn to separate one people from another. The law said no healing on the Sabbath; so he was supposed to let someone suffer until the law said he could end that suffering? Seeing the suffering on the faces of the mothers looking for their sons in the hours following the massacre in Orlando, I would have done anything to alleviate it. Anything. The law or the love, which matters more? The law saw people based on their infractions. Love sees people differently.

How do we see people? How do you see a person who lives on the street, for instance? Those who work with the homeless population cringe at the label of homelessness, because it reduces the entirety of someone's being to one adjective that seems to overrule all others. A homeless person could be an artist, a cancer survivor, commissioned officer, or a comedian, but the label of homeless is all that they are all to often seen as. Almost certainly they are not seen as a child of God.

The person at the restaurant who can't get our order right might be labeled stupid or lazy, but what if they are grieving a death, struggling with an unexpected pregnancy, or tired from having been up all night studying, trying to make their kids lives better. Are you seeing them as a child of God, as you give them an angry, exasperated glare for bringing you green beans when you asked for broccoli?

To so many, those killed at the pulse gay club are just gay, with whatever preconceptions and judgments go along with that. Why is the label of their sexuality the predominate factor in how we look at them? When I watch the coverage, I see people who were taken advantage of at their most vulnerable, compassionate people helping others in the midst of their own suffering. I see fathers and sons, sisters and brothers. I see children of God. And my heart weeps.

In the last week, as a country we have also been mourning the death of an icon, a hero to many– Muhammad Ali. The boxer, the self-proclaimed ' Greatest'. In an interview, his daughter Hana shared with CNN these words of her father: "There is only one true religion, and that is the religion of the heart. God never named it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. Man gave the titles, and that's what separates and divides us. My dream is to one day see a world that comes together to fight for one cause -- the human cause..."


The human cause. Isn't that what the message of Jesus is all about? The human cause. Ensuring that the hungry are fed and the lonely are visited and all people are able to live in peace and justice and love. Because the labels that we put on one another, the lines we draw, the walls we build, mean nothing compared to the label of child of God that surpasses all else. Love one another, do not pass judgment. Look at every person you meet first as a child of God, and then wonder if all those other label really matter. Maybe, if, with God's help, we can move past all the labels and all the lines, we will never again have to live through another tragedy like this. With God's help, no more lines. Amen.

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