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Epiphany Lutheran Church Sixth Sunday of Pentecost, July 20, 2003 Jer 23:1-6; Eph 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 A Place Where We Can Be at Home
In our Gospel lesson, we are told that when Jesus saw the crowd, he had compassion for them. We are told that he was tired, he noted that his disciples were tired and they badly needed rest. Instead of rest, the crowds descended upon Jesus and the disciples asking them to heal their ills, to cure their relatives. Mark says that Jesus felt compassion for them because they acted like sheep without a shepherd. Do you know what sheep are like without a shepherd? Well, not many of us have the occasion to watch sheep to see how the act. When Jeannine and I were raising our family, we lived on a farm. The neighbor farmer had many sheep and we learned some things from that experience. In fact, our oldest child's first word was "baaah" Sheep are well-known for their follow-the-leader behavior. We would watch the big rams in the field across the road; one at a time they would stand on a large bolder in the middle of field and survey their kingdom and flock of females. Then another ram would climb up behind the first one and butt it off the rock; then he would stand up picturesque and survey his kingdom, until another ram would come up behind him and knock him off. Well, you get the picture; those sheep sure seem like humans doing stupid things. One of the best examples of shepherd-less sheep was told by Andre Dubus who was a writer who thought he would spend a year in the mountains of New Hampshire. He found a gentleman farmer who would rent his house to him cheap if he would care for his eight sheep. How hard could that be? Only 8 sheep? So he writes about his adventures with those sheep. Dubus found himself chasing down sheep that found every way possible to get out of the fence and were impossible to lead back through the gate. After a few weeks of tackling them, sometimes not so gently, so that he could lug them back and hoist them over the fence. Dubus thought that these sheep reminded him of humans, and concluded: "We are stupid, helpless brutes, and without constant watching, we would foolishly destroy ourselves." Which reminds me of our country's highways and roads: without police out there monitoring the speed, you will find people foolishly driving 80 miles an hour in a 55 mph zone. It seems that some foolishly try to destroy themselves and others. Yet Jesus had compassion! How un-human like! You know how we react when we're under pressure. Like the preacher who was asked by his 4-year-old son to play catch with him. The preacher told him in angry tones that he didn't have time for such. Whereupon the son asked him what he was doing. The father said, "Son, I'm writing a sermon for Sunday; its about patience." Well, it is easier to write about patience than to practice it. You, know; we just don't get it. Jesus dealt with the needs of those people even though he and his disciples were tired. And, Jesus felt compassion for them. You know what we do: we cross over to the other side of the street if we see a difficult problem coming; we avoid it. Then we erect barriers so that we don't have to deal with these things. In Charlottesville, VA, on Rt 20 just north of Rt 250, you can see where a nice suburb of beautiful homes has erected razor wire fence to keep out poor people who live in adjacent public housing. Barriers, fences, walls, doors - they are all made to shut out the unwanted. At our house in a nice comfortable development, we erected fences because we did not like the dogs coming into our yard and doing their thing. So far, that has controlled the dogs - we try to control our little micro-world. We feed birds, so I have made squirrel-proof bird feeders. Now I am trying to control the cats from coming into our yard because they eat our birds who feed on the ground. Sometimes I feel like the man who tried to keep 8 sheep under control. In our second lesson, Paul addresses Christians who were Gentiles. Most of the early Christians were Jews, but Paul felt his call was to non-Jews. He talks about barriers that kept them from Israel's God. The Jews felt they were the chosen of God and they let everyone know it. Of course, when you are the chosen, the rest of the world is un-chosen. In fact, Jews had an immense contempt for the Gentile. Jews said that Gentiles were only created for "fuel for fires in Hell." A Jew could not even help a Gentile woman if she were giving birth. At the time of Jesus, if a Jew married a Gentile, they gave him a funeral! If a Jew went into a Gentile's house, he was considered unclean. In Acts 21:28,29 Paul is wrongly accused of bringing a Gentile into the area of the temple which was reserved for Jews only. I will say that this was the situation in which Jesus found himself. I grew up in the 30's and 40's when our movie houses in Springfield, Ohio were reserved for whites only. The "colored" had their own movie house on their side of town. Springfield even had separate YMCA's for blacks and whites. We did not learn the lesson that Jesus was trying to get across to us - even1900 years after Christ died and we had not learned the lesson! In WW II, soldiers wanted to bury their fallen comrade in a cemetery of a Roman Catholic Church in France. The priest asked if the dead man were a baptized adherent of RCC. They said that they didn't know. So the priest refused them to bury their comrade in the cemetery. The soldiers then buried their buddy just outside the fence of the cemetery. When they came back the next day to pay respects to their comrade, they couldn't find the grave. Try as they might, they could not find any freshly dug grave. As they were about to leave the priest came to them and told them that his conscience had hurt during the night, so he got up and with his own hands, moved the fence to include the soldier! This is what love can do. The rules and regulations put up the fences between us, but the love that Jesus preached moved the fence. Jesus removes the fences between all of us by giving us a faith founded on love. In Colossians 3:5 we are reminded that we must get rid of all these things: "anger, passion, and hateful feelings. No insults or obscene talk must ever come from your lips. Do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self. "This is the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of himself. As a result, there is no longer any distinction between Gentiles and Jews, circumcised and un-circumcised, barbarians, savages, slaves, and free men, but Christ is all, Christ is in all. "You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then you must clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you." Paul says to the Ephesians who were outcasts by Judaism's standard, "...you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God ..." It is through Jesus that we are at home with God. Have you ever been lonely and watched a loving family interact and you wished that you could be at home and feel the love of your family? Sometimes visitors come to our churches seeking to be "at home." We need to be aware of their needs, be compassionate, be open to them. Be open to whomever comes through the doors of this church. Jesus would be. We often unknowingly set up the barriers. Some churches may keep their communion table for their own members. God never does. It is a tragedy that we are more exclusive than God is! The purpose of the church is not to propagate the view point of any group; rather it is to offer a home where the Spirit of Christ can dwell and where all people who love Christ can meet in that Spirit and "be at home." Amen |