In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; * let me never be ashamed.
In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free; * incline your ear to me and save me. (Psalm 71: 1-2)
As a teacher at an Episcopal School I taught a course to sixth graders on world religions. I had a wonderful textbook and some experience with interfaith work. But I knew that in order for my students to truly learn about other religions that I needed to invite people who practiced the religions we would discuss. I was so fortunate to know a young man and woman who served as Chaplains at Georgetown University. I had met them in seminary when I took a course on Interfaith Partnership. Zayneb is from Turkey and her husband Salih is from Germany. Both are devout Muslims. They were eager to share their faith and their faith practices with my students. They were willing to answer any question, no matter how naïve.
Through their kindness and openness we learned that prayer was essential for them and so making time and space to pray is important. We learned that when Zayneb wears the hijab she does not feel oppressed, but rather wears it with pride as a symbol of her faith in the world. And we learned that they know a great deal about our Bible and the people who serve as spiritual guides throughout our scriptures. But most importantly we learned that Muslims are generous people. They are people who love God, whom they call “Allah” and faithfully try to live lives that are examples of the love and mercy that they have received from God.
We live in very anxious times. The world as we know it is changing faster than at any other time in history. As columnist David Brooks describes it, some members of our community are in the middle of “a tidal wave of trauma.”[1] Labor force participation is dropping, wages are declining, suicide rates are rising, addiction is rising, faith in American institutions is dissolving. The middle of our society no longer expects long-term employment or steady progress. People have to move great distances for education and work, leaving behind a supportive fabric of extended family and friend networks.
And added to this economic stress is the rising belief that we are more vulnerable to the threat of violence. The Internet, with all its blessings, can make this idea contagious. One violent act anywhere in the world sends shockwaves that erode the very foundation of our ability to see each other through eyes of peace. Never has fear and even paranoia been easier to create and communicate. A provocation somewhere can lead to anger everywhere. And anger is at an all time high.
Right now we are a world awash with hate and suspicion. Forces in our world are moving at such a rate and the causes of our distress are so complicated that we are growing into a place where perfectly innocent and decent, (honorable) people are being targeted for hate as a result of their race, their religion or their ethnic background. It has never been so easy, and in some ways so popular, to demonize whole populations. We may believe that we are experiencing a one time aberration from a group of people running for leadership in our country who are effectively managing to benefit from this sense of powerlessness and fear. But we would be wrong. In reality this is a worldwide movement. Many Western countries are experiencing this wave of hatred and marginalization. And the more we fear, the more we love the idea of walls—setting apart whole groups of people to blame for our troubles. Setting aside and outside our sphere of acquaintance whole groups of people of whom we know little and assume much.
It has never been so important in my lifetime for those of us who follow Jesus Christ to be out in the world, learning about people whom we do not know, opening ourselves to the possibility of not only meeting, but being willing to learn from the experiences of others, truly seeing that God is not only present amongst us—in our demographic group—in our country—but God is present with and working through people far beyond the boundaries that we may set.
Jesus had been teaching and healing in the area of the Galilee when he comes home. It is said that he is “filled with the power of the Spirit” and it is with this Holy Spirit as his comforter and guide that he enters the synagogue on the Sabbath, “as was his custom.” There he reads from a scroll from the Prophet Isaiah.
In the beginning his “gracious” words are accepted with awe by those who know him as “Joseph’s son.” But then they turn on him and are so angry with his message that they chase him out of the synagogue with the intention of stoning him to death on “the brow of a hill” near the edge of their town. What happened? What made them so angry? Jesus knows that this familiar group has missed the radical truth of his message. So he wastes no time making it more plain. Prophets are always rejected at home and those whom we see as outsiders or “the other” are often more understanding and faithful than the people of God.
The people in the temple in Jesus’ hometown were very familiar with the reading from Isaiah. They were looking for the words that would affirm their belief in their own righteousness and they were listening for the confirmation that God’s wrath would rain down on those they saw as the enemy, the ones they blamed for their troubles, the ones they saw as unworthy of God’s grace.
But Jesus tells the story of the widow of Zerephath and Naaman the Syrian who received the graces of God in the time of Elijah and Elisha, Jesus implies that the kingdom unfolds in the least expected and often the most unacceptable places. What upset his listeners, it seems, is that he challenged their assumption that God’s anger is reserved only for those who are seen as outsiders and God’s mercy is reserved only for the elect of Israel. That inflamed the faithful to violence. They were unwilling to accept that God’s love would be shared with people outside the synagogue, outside the boundaries of Nazareth. That God’s love would not be contained, shut-in, or captured by their familiar and comforting stories. Jesus knew that the people listening to his words that day had missed the point. God does not come to only our kind of people. God’s love is limitless.
And this is central to Jesus’ teachings and to the entire body of scripture. God’s grace is available everywhere, totally given, and often to outsiders who receive this grace unprepared. God’s unaccountable love comes without notice and often through people and events we least expect. This is God at work, as God has been at work since the beginning. God is always bringing good news in all kinds of ways through all kinds of people, breaking through our assumptions and opening a way for us to experience life and love always new.
Jesus was speaking the hard truth to the congregation in the synagogue. God speaks through the faith of these Gentiles who were believed to be being outside God’s mercy. Jesus tells them that if they want to receive the full benefits of the Messiah, they must not only tolerate the Gentiles, but see them as their spiritual instructors that would lead them to an authentic faith. No wonder the people rose up in anger.
Kenneth Bailey[2] points out that it is a danger in every faith tradition to be compromised by our culture’s value system. Since the time of Constantine in the Fourth Century we have often been too closely allied with powers and principalities than with Jesus of Nazareth. Comfortable in our way of seeing the world, we can become blind to the needs of those who are marginalized and those who are without power. D. T. Niles quoting James Matthews writes, “Because we have come to terms with our own society, the total word of God has to be declared to us by another.” [3]
Perhaps in this time of alienation and fear, God is speaking to us in a profound way through those we do not yet know, and whose life experiences may be very different from ours. Perhaps God is teaching us, as Jesus taught those listeners in the synagogue that God is calling to us from the edges—from the very people God sent the early prophets to—the struggling widows, people living in poverty, people of a different or no faith, children without a home, refugees, immigrants—calling to us to follow God’s living and vibrant story out to the edges of the human family and the faith community.
Letty Russell, in her book, Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference, challenges her readers to consider what it means to welcome the stranger. Rather than an act of limited, charitable welcome, she maintains that true hospitality is a process that requires partnership with the “other” in our divided world.“With careful listening,” she writes, “we can build a network of hospitality that is truthful about our mistakes and inequities, yet determined to resist the differences that drive us apart.”This kind of genuine community requires us to cast off our ideas of superiority to truly welcome the stranger.[4]
Our strength, you see as Christ’s body, lies not in casting aside—but in welcoming in. Our wisdom comes not from discarding the truth of others—our hope lies in listening and learning from those whose stories we have not heard. There is no one outside God’s favor. Jesus’ ministry is about welcoming in all, setting a place at the table, reaching out, feeling compassion for those who are excluded. Jesus invites us into this experience, whether we want to or not. Jesus invites us to open our eyes to see as God does—no one excluded, not one outside of God’s love and mercy. Jesus wants us to see that we belong to each other and that in love, God is most present in the connection.
So on a most practical level, with the first of the presidential primaries beginning this week, I invite you to pray with me for the candidates and for their families that they may be safe. I invite you to pray that their hearts will be opened to justice, respecting the dignity of every human being. I invite you to pray for our country, that we will resist the impulse to respond in fear and anger, and instead listen with compassion to the voices on the edges, remembering that each of us were strangers in a strange land, offering generosity to all.
And in this time of anxiety, I invite you to respond by intentionally learning more about all with whom we share this precious earth. The more we know about each other—the more we let each other into our lives—the better able we are to follow the One who reminds us that God is at work in all of Creation, particularly in the lives of those at the edges. So read a book on Islam or immigrants. Attend a lecture on Black Lives Matter. Spend time visiting with someone who works for you or with whom you work to learn about their lives.
Paul reminds us, that each of us is essential in God’s kingdom and when we act in love, our gifts and our lives find their highest completion. We can encourage and cherish because we have been encouraged and cherished by the One who gives us limitless grace. In this way, all of us may join in life abundant.
[1] David Brooks, Time for a Republican Conspiracy. New York Times, January 19, 2016
[2] Kenneth E. Bailey. Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes. Downer Grove, IL, 165
[3] D.T. Niles, Upon the earth. London: Lutterworth, 1962, 166.
[4] Letty M. Russell. Just hospitality” God’s welcome in a world of difference. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.