7-22-12 - Better than Cheers!

¹¹So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

            .  Perhaps one of the best examples of people living out our Ephesians readings happened this past week. This past week there were 35,000 ELCA Lutheran youth and adults down in New Orleans.  35,000 youth who “didn’t belong” or “weren’t from around there” but yet they were welcomed.  The community opened their arms to them and are excited to have them, fully knowing that they were coming to make changes.  And why were they so welcomed?  Because when the youth go there, they are going there to truly live out their lives as Christians.  They go to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed and to treat the people that they meet, no matter if it’s the mayor or the strangest homeless man on the street, as complete equals and to help out as much as they humanly can.  Knowing that they most likely will never see anyone that they meet there ever again, they go and be the most positive force possible in the community, because they are living as examples of today’s reading from Ephesians, which states that we are in citizens with the saints, and that we are all, ALL, members of the household of God. 

They had a once in a lifetime experience to gather together, from all over this country, across the divides of congregations and synods and economic and status levels, they came together to be the body of Christ, to be a part of his household and to welcome all people to see their place in it as well.  Not only the youth a testament to the fullness of the household of God, but so are the speakers.  Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber spoke at the assembly, and she is not one that looks like your typical Lutheran pastor, with her wide assortment of tattoos that put mine to shame, blue streaked hair.  And there were people who protested her speaking at the youth convention.  Why?  Because she is a recovering addict, and they feared that she should be a negative influence on the youth.  And is she a negative influence?  Absolutely not!  Instead she is a shining example of the love of God, who brings in all people and who embraces all into the household of God and gives strength to those who are in need that they may fight against the those things that are damaging His children. 

  “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.”  We are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, he who ate and drank with sinners and traitors, who hung out with prostitutes and spoke up for adulteresses, and who hung on the cross, dying dishonorably between two thieves.  We often want church to be like Cheers, where “everybody knows your name” and everyone is long time friends…. But guess what?    We are called not only our friends and our family, those whose names that we know and who know ours, but we are called to embrace the stranger and the alien, aka non-Americans to us, for they are citizens with the saints and members of our household.  Just as Christ ate with sinners, which by the way includes all of us here today, we are called to welcome all those who are strange to us, all those that we don’t understand, all those that we might think don’t fit in. 

Christ is our foundation, our rock, and he can be seen as firm and unmoving just like a rock.  How often is it that we hear someone say that somebody else is acting against the will of God with their lifestyle?  Maybe because they are living with their boyfriend or girlfriend before they get married, or because they have a boyfriend or girlfriend of the same gender, or because they have committed a crime or because we just don’t like them.  So of course Jesus is this rock that is going to crush them for some sin that some commentator or that WE have judged them on.  Or so we may like to imagine at times, but instead God offers forgiveness, God gives compassion to those we may not want to show compassion to. 

For many of the Jews, who were the first Christians since, after all, Jesus was a Jew and we are dealing with the God of the Jews, they wanted to say that only Jews, who had a special relationship with God, could be truly Christians.  Of course, this is forgetting the whole “God created the entire world and all people and while yes, God loves Israel and set it as an example and a light to all people, God is still in the business of loving the whole world” argument, but it is natural for people to assume that they are special and get to make the rules for God.  And part of being a Jew meant that men had to be circumcised, no questions asked, no if ands or buts.  As I’m sure every man here can understand, and probably most of the women at least begin to understand, the Gentiles, aka non-Jews, who heard this were not very keen to the idea of having a knife anywhere near their privates and did not feel it was necessary to do it anyway.  After all, they had been baptized, they had heard the teachings of Jesus and they wanted to follow Him.  Why should their foreskin matter that much?

Now to us, this might seem obvious, because the problem that they had back then is not a problem now.  The Jews vs. Gentile fight has been over for generations upon generations, we welcome all people into our congregations!  Or do we?  Do we not also set limits on who is acceptable and who is not in our country and in our congregations?  Our political culture almost forces us to continually take sides instead of finding peace and compromise.  It tell us that there are always enemies, instead of people with differing ideas, who must be defeated, and we buy into it, instead of seeing each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Who here hasn’t at least once considered other denominations and congregations as competition instead of fellow brothers and sisters in the body of Christ?  Who here hasn’t judged a single person and thought that they could not worship with them on a Sunday morning?  And when I say the word “Synod,” who here cringes a little bit, seeing the synod as some hierarchy or bureaucracy that sucks up money from congregations, instead of the resource and unifying regional force that it truly is?  Far too often we become stuck, we become stuck with traditions that we refuse to change, even to accommodate someone new who joins us.  We become stuck because we don’t want to trust other people or we get fixated on winning or we just want to be left alone instead of working alongside the larger family of God.

And I know that I have a tendency to fall at times.   I know that I judge our fellow denominations at times, as if I fully understand the mind and will of God.  I know that I can be inflexible at times with my thoughts and how I want things to be.  Yet I have hope, because I know that we are all family and that we have the opportunity to grow together and to keep one another accountable.  So when I become inflexible or I act in an unwelcoming way, I hope that you will help me by correcting me, and reminding me that sometimes sarcasm is not the best way to get a point across or to remind me that sometimes the Holy Spirit is active in ideas that are not my own or that even may be opposite of mine.  And I also hope and pray that we may all help one another to do the same, so that instead of being stuck separately, we may pull each other out of the muck and the mire so that we may grow together. 

We may not be Cheers, but you know what?  That’s ok, because we are better than Cheers!  When we are truly the citizens with the saints and truly the children of our God, it doesn’t matter what your name is or whose family you are a part of or what your life is like or how long you have lived here.  When we act as the children of God and with Christ as our foundation, we act like those youth who went to New Orleans and claim that all people, no matter what, are our brothers and our sisters and they are all welcome here as a member of our family, no questions asked.  So let us go out and meet our family and welcome them home and may we rejoice in the peace that God provides.

Amen