From the time human beings first walked the earth, they grouped themselves into tribes. Your tribe tells you who you are, what you believe, what your responsibilities are in life, as well as who you are not. Families can function as tribes, as do friends, schools and workplaces. Ethnic identity often becomes tribal and we know the same is true of nations and religions.
Families, friends, nations, churches, races are all wonderful blessings and help shape us, making us who we are, giving us identity. Yet humans are tempted to divide the world into black and white, us and them, especially when we get afraid. Tribes will often tell you to worry about ‘them’ - the liberals or conservatives, the gays or the Evangelicals, the Arabs or the Jews. When tribes make us afraid of those who are different they become dangerous - tribes blame the mythical ‘other’ for problems and fret that they are taking something from us.
The disciples find themselves in that position in our text from Mark. After a failed attempt on their part to cast out a demon mere verses earlier, the disciple John seems to be simultaneously boasting and tattling to Jesus about the man they found working in God’s name. You see, He was not one of them; he didn’t know the password, wasn’t wearing the right clothes, wasn’t a member of their club. So the disciples did what they could to put him in his proper place - they rebuked him - making it clear to everyone that he was an outsider.
Imagine for a minute coming to church one Sunday morning only to discover that you are not allowed inside. You don’t know the handshake. Something sets you apart, perhaps not even anything you can control. You are left standing at the door questioning people as they come out - what did you sing? What was the scripture? Did you laugh? Did you cry? Was God there? Unable to be part of the worshipping community - clearly marked as ‘other’ – odds are very few would have answered your questions.
The disciples came to Jesus looking for approval of their group cleansing; perhaps hoping Jesus would march back to this pretender and give him what for. But Jesus again confounds the disciples - attempting to explain why this persons action speak louder than their words, why good deeds always outweigh proper dress and correct code words. Jesus goes on to implore the disciples to cast out their own eyes, if that eye were to get in the way of others experiencing and witnessing to the power of God. It would be better that they died than to refuse someone a place at Jesus’ table.
Instead of focusing on being servants of one another the disciples spent their time trying to set themselves apart from others.[1] Jesus is saying to them, “You don’t understand me if you think of God only as your savior or even our savior. God is also the savior for them.” The disciples had a hard time grasping this. We have a hard time with it as well.
Like the disciples, we often get in our own way, giving foolish pride and incomplete knowledge free reign, leaving our ‘better angels’ behind and losing sight of God’s call to action. What are our primary distractions? In what ways are we focusing on setting ourselves apart rather than serving others? What are the things that get in our way and cause us to be a stumbling block for others? If our primary distraction is grasping after material wealth, we need to exercise discipline over our hands, encouraging them to give. If it’s wanting only to walk with the ‘in-crowd’, we need to exercise discipline over our feet, following where God’ leads. If it’s coveting every cool, desirable thing we see, then we need to exercise discipline over our eyes so we can focus on the things of God[2].
Jesus’ words are a call to remember that God’s vision is not our vision. As we’ve prayed and talked about FPC’s vision for the future we’ve talked openly about this dichotomy. At our church retreat yesterday, Peg Livingood pointed out that our primary goal, our first mission, is to love and serve God and engage people in faithful discipleship. All our other goals - stability, programs, growth - must be built upon that call from God. God’s vision is always broader and deeper, simultaneously more complex and more simple than we can imagine. When our vision is dim, God’s is clear. When like the author of Lamentations, we feel at the end of our ropes, God sees beyond that struggle. We are called to open ourselves without condition into the joy of life in God’s presence. The path of least resistance for human beings is to stay in our groups and cling to the illusion that we can live in isolation. God has something else in mind. You can hear it in 1 Corinthians – in God there are no more divisions, we are one[3]. Faithful living begins when we leave our groups and move toward the table. Only then will peace break forth among us.
On this Sunday, while most of us here in Kansas were sleeping, Christians in Haiti left their homes and braved walking the streets to their place of worship, to hear the words ‘this is my body’. Across the ocean, Christians gathered in the Church of the Holy Resurrection in Jerusalem and heard the words, “this is my body”. In Saint Paul’s in London a hush fell across the congregation as the celebrant declared ‘this is my body’. In churches and cathedrals across the US today, pastors and congregation, no matter race, denomination, or worship style will gather together and take bread into their hands and declare ‘this is my body’. There is not a corner of the earth that on this day will not hear the worlds’ this is my body’ echo in a place of worship.
And yet, there are those who would argue that this day - World Communion Sunday - really only underscores how like the disciples we are, how far apart we are. In almost any city here in the US there will be many congregations that don’t even celebrate World Communion Sunday. And among those that do, there are many things that divide us, many things that keep us from celebrating this meal WITH our diverse brothers and sisters. Yes, the church is the body of Christ - but it sure looks like a broken and bruised body.
During Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign he noticed a 13 year old girl, Vicky Lynne Cole, holding at a rally in Ohio. Vicky Lynne picked a random sign up from the floor after dropping hers in the crush of people[4]. That sign said- Bring Us Together. He, in typical nixonian fashion, grasped the beauty and simplicity in that statement and co-opted it as his theme for a divided nation. Now I don’t endorse Nixon as a model citizen, but that one phrase - Bring Us Together - encapsulates this whole Sunday.
Today we are holding up a sign before the church universal which reads: bring us together. Yes there are differences, between denominations, within denominations, right here in our very pews. Yes, we often attempt to ‘fence’ ourselves, to put walls between us because we feel safer that way. But what this table represents transcends those differences; it calls us out of our comfort zones into God’s hands. This is what brings us together - if anything can. Today we are living into God’s vision for the future, celebrating a promised reality. Let the bread and the cup be the cement that holds us together.
It is something so simple, yet we have made it so complex. We come this morning as a united people - united in purpose, united in mission, united in aspirations, and perhaps most importantly, united by our faith in God. Let us recognize our distractions and commit ourselves to witnessing to this promise – God’s world in communion. May it be so.
[1] Karen Baker-Fletcher, Theological Themes: Mark 9:38-50, Lectionary Homiletics: Back Issues Plus, http://www.goodpreacher.com/journalread.php?id=1122.
[2] Ibid.
[3] I Corinthians 12:12-13.
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