Second Sunday after Pentecost
(Proper 9C)
2 June 2013
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
About fifteen
years ago the Principal of Vancouver School of Theology asked me to be the
welcoming committee for a visiting bishop from the United States. On the day of the bishop’s visit I went out
of my way to dress more formally than I might.
I waited in my office, but no bishop came to my door nor did the front
desk call me to tell me that there was a bishop awaiting me in the lobby. I finally wandered down to the lobby.
In the lobby
there was a gentleman with a beard and a pony-tail who was wearing a red plaid
shirt and jeans. I smiled at him and he
smiled back. I went to the front desk
and said, “I waiting for Bishop X who hasn’t shown up yet. Would you please call me when he
arrives?” From behind me a voice said,
“Oh, I’m Bishop X.” I turned and found myself looking at the lumberjack on
the couch in the lobby. I suppose that I
wasn’t able to put my poker face on quickly enough, because Bishop X then said,
“I guess I’m not what you were expecting.”
Despite all the
efforts of my parents and my teachers, I do have a habit of judging books by
their covers. As a professor at the
School of Theology I was very conscious that it was difficult for me to change
my perspective on a student once I had made my initial judgement. It was not nor has it been easy for me to
change my mind about someone. I do not
say this with any sense of pride; it is a shortcoming that I still struggle
with as a priest.
So it is with a
degree of caution that I approach the readings that we have just heard. All three readings deal, in one way or
another, with first impressions and with dealing with someone who does not meet
one’s expectations.
In our first
reading from 1 Kings we hear Solomon’s prayer as he celebrates the completion
of the First Temple in Jerusalem. This
temple represented the sovereignty of Israel’s God and the election of the
people of Israel as the people of God.
It was a moment of supreme national pride, yet the author of 1 Kings, as
he records Solomon’s prayer, dares to mention foreigners. The writer expects foreigners to come and to
worship in the Temple, something later generations will prevent by erecting
barriers to keep Gentiles from entering into the sacred space. ‘We may be God’s people,’ the writer is
saying, ‘but our God is the God of all peoples and will hear the prayers of any
who reach out with a pure heart and clean hands.’
When Paul
writes to the Christian community in Galatia, he is responding to reports that
Jewish Christians are troubling the Gentile Christians by suggesting that the
Gentile believers are not really Christians.
To be a real Christian, they argue, requires that one become a Jew first
and keep the Jewish law. For Paul this
is a direct assault on his understanding of the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Paul believes that, in
Christ, all peoples are called into a new covenant with the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. This new covenant does
not require any believer to become someone else. Jewish Christians live out the new covenant
as Jews, Gentile Christians as Gentiles.
From God’s perspective, a perspective Paul expects all believers to
adopt, there are no strangers only friends; there are no privileged communities
only the tapestry of God’s loving diversity.
When we turn to
the gospel, we hear a story that I once said to friends is one of my ‘desert
island’ texts. When the elders come to
Jesus, they say to him, ‘We know he is a Roman, a soldier, an agent of imperial
oppression. But just this once, treat
him like a Jew.’ Yet this Roman, this
soldier, this agent of imperial oppression shows the depth of faith and trust
in Jesus as God’s beloved that no one else has shown. This enemy of the Jewish people is actually
more deeply convinced and trustful of God’s compassion than anyone else Jesus
has met so far in Luke’s gospel.
We all know the
old saying: Looks can be deceiving. Certainly this is the view of the scriptures
we have heard today. The ‘other’, no
matter how we may describe the ‘other’, is as much a part of God’s saving
purpose as those we may think of as ‘us’.
It is in our diversity that we show the world the immensity of God’s
loving. It is in our celebration of our
distinctive gifts rather than in our concern to reduce differences that we show
the world our faithfulness to following the way of Jesus.
This is the
difference between tolerance and respect.
I, for one, believe that God calls us to respect others rather than
tolerate others. When I tolerate others,
I decide what I am willing to put up with before I put an end to my
tolerance. It’s a perfectly appropriate
attitude to noisy block parties, car alarms and people listening to loud music
on public transportation, with or without earphones!
Respect begins
with curiosity and imagination. When I
respect someone else, I am expecting that our relationship will be mutually
beneficial. The other person’s
distinctive character may help me grow into the person God intends me to
be. My distinctive character may show
the other person dimensions of life and faith that he or she has never seen
before. Respect does not require
uniformity of thought or constant agreement, but respect does require steadfast
love and humility.
Solomon, Paul
and Jesus tells us that the stranger is not necessarily our enemy. The stranger, the one who is not like ‘us’,
can actually be an agent of God who comes among us to lead us out of our narrow
ways of thinking into the broader paths of God’s wisdom. When we welcome the stranger and respect the
gifts that the stranger brings, we will find our lives enriched and our
insights into the mystery of God increased.
Sometimes we
are reluctant to invite others to be part of our community because, deep down,
we know that our community will be changed if our invitation is accepted. I know that this has been true for me. The many developments of the past three
decades in the Anglican communities in North America sometimes make me feel a
stranger in the religious tradition of my birth, my nurture and my
commitment. But then I have moments when
God challenges my first impressions and my natural conservatism.
Our
predecessors built this church as a sign of God’s presence in this part of the
city. Over the years each successive
generation of members have brought their gifts here and this community has been
enriched and transformed. Just as
Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem and offered it a place of prayer for all
nations, so we open our doors to all who would enter and seek to follow
God. Just as Paul called upon the
Christians in Galatia to celebrate their distinctive contribution to the
covenants God made with Noah, with Moses, with Abraham and with Jesus, so we
invite others to join us here so that we can celebrate God’s faithfulness with
all the voices of creation. Just as
Jesus discovered in an unlikely person more faith than in any of the ‘usual
suspects’, so we encounter every person who joins us, anticipating that they
will reveal God to us in ways we cannot ask or imagine.
Some day, you
know, God might even show up with a beard and a pony-tail, wearing a red plaid
shirt. Amen.
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