Readings: God’s
grace comes to us in unexpected ways.
It comes through the most unlikely of people.
And yet how difficult it is for us to remember that we do not
hold exclusive rights to God’s power and love.
We are not the only ones in relationship with our loving God.
So we are often taken aback – I might go so far as to say, even
outright indignant – when we see Christian values being carried out by
people we do not consider to be Christian.
In feeling this way, though, we are restricting God’s grace.
We are setting ourselves apart as being somehow better than the
rest of the world. But most
tragically, we are not opening ourselves to the possibilities of how God
is at work in the world. We
are not alone in our inability to see God at work in others.
Jesus’ disciples had a sense of their exclusive ownership of
Jesus. At least that is
what I see in today’s gospel reading.
John searched Jesus out one day to say to him, “Teacher,
someone was casting out demons in your name.
We tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”
I suspect the most important and telling word in that sentence is
the ‘us’. For John’s
response to the ones casting out the demons has nothing to do with their
ability to deal with the situation.
In fact, Jesus’ response seems to indicate that they were doing
all the right things. It
has to do with John’s claim to an exclusive relationship with Jesus.
Jesus’ response is not only liberal; it is all encompassing,
inclusive. “Whoever
is not against us is for us,” he says to the disciples.
How often we get that wrong!
Even backward! How
distrustful we are of other creeds and faiths!
How distrustful of different practices and traditions within our
own communion! How unwilling to let God work in other people! The
Church faces issues that could divide us irreparably.
At Synod this year a motion will be brought forward to bless gay
unions. If it is divisive on the political scene just think how much
more divisive it could be within the church where it takes on a whole
new dimension. Politically
the main issue is that people have rights that need to be respected. In terms of our faith we have concerns with human rights
issues, but added to that is our theological perspective. How is God calling us to live and act? That is not cut and dried, especially in our Anglican
denomination. We are bound
by Scripture, it is true, but it needs to be tempered by tradition and
reason. Many would like to
use Scripture alone. It is
easy to use Scripture as a proof text.
The problem is that Scripture is contextual.
Taken out of context it may seem to be a valid proof, but that is
not the purpose of Scripture. Anglicans
have always welcomed the challenge of living with ambiguity. Our faith changes, matures and grows. We listen to the prophetic voice. We listen to what God is saying to the Church.
We have dealt with difficult theological issues before.
I stand before you as proof of that.
The ordination of women was a deeply divisive issue that the
Church dealt with, and survived. We
need to trust the prophets of our age to deal with same sex issues.
When the issue comes before Synod, it will be tabled.
There will be wide-spread consultations with those in leadership
and with local parishes. It
will be a time of discernment in the Church.
Hopefully we will hear the voice of God and not be divided. Hopefully we will remember that ‘whoever is not against us
is for us.’ In fact, if
you’ll pardon my grammar, ‘they’ are ‘us’. Any
kind of distinction in our faith into camps-- into ‘them’ and
‘us’-- is unhealthy. I
speak from experience. Many
of you know my story how as a teenager I lived in community with a group
of people who became so caught up in their own belief system that we
became a cult. We literally
cut ourselves off from others refusing to see the validity of anyone
else’s viewpoint. Like
John, we thought that we were the only ones capable of truly following
Jesus. We stopped seeing
Christ in others. The
clearest way to know whether something is of God is to discern whether
the action behind it is one of love.
For Jesus’ call to inclusivity always includes a description of
loving action. We see it over and over again in the gospels; it is an
admonition to do as Jesus does. Isn’t
that the byword of our day? “WWJD” What would Jesus do?
It is there in today’s reading: “Whoever gives you a cup of
water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose
the reward,” Jesus says to them. How
could that be? Do you
actually mean to say, Jesus, that people who do not follow you, who are
not your disciples, are going to receive the same reward that I will by
helping me, by literally catching on to my coattails and coasting into
the kingdom? I suspect that
in our pluralistic society that is something that we need to learn.
Even though we do not necessarily agree theologically or
philosophically with people of other faiths, we are called to act out of
a sense of compassion toward all people. We
are called to live out God’s love in active participation in the
world. We are called to
remember that ‘whoever is not against us is for us’.
We are reminded that it is not for us to judge the merit of those
who do deeds in God’s name or even to decide who follows God.
There is a tendency in church communities to control and possess
the ways God works rather than considering that God may use those we
think are not good enough, or smart enough or holy enough or enough like
us. And
truth to tell, we never know how God may be using us to help someone who
crosses our path. In “Chicken Soup for the Soul” there is a story of a
young person, Mark who was walking home from school one day.
He noticed that the boy ahead of him had tripped and strewn his
belongings all over the place, books, running shoes, gym shorts,
clothing. He stopped,
helped him gather up his things, and when he found out that they were
going in the same direction, helped him carry his things home. Bill invited Mark in, and they spent a pleasant afternoon
together. It was the
beginning of a friendship that lasted all through high school. Later Bill reminded Mark of how they had met.
“Did you ever wonder why I was carrying so many things home
that day?” he asked. “I
cleaned out my locker because I didn’t want to leave a mess for anyone
else. I had stored away
some of my mother’s sleeping pills and I was going home to commit
suicide. But after we spent
some time together talking and laughing, I realized that if I killed
myself, I would have missed that time and so many others that might
follow. So you see, Mark, when you picked up my books that day, you
did a lot more. You saved
my life.” God
may not have anything as dramatic as that in store for us.
But the little things we do for others, the ways in which we
welcome people, our servant ministry, the things we do to help others in
their faith journey, are all things that bring us into a closer
relationship with God. They
bring about wholeness in our lives and in the lives of others.
They make us more fully alive.
They truly grace us in our lives.
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