October 8, 2006
Isaiah 54:1-3
Romans 12:9-21
Toward a
Theology of Mission:
The Jesus Who Knows No Boundaries
Last week I
opened up my e-mail to find a rather startling communication from a friend in
South Africa. She was writing to be sure I had heard about a conference to be
held in Storrs, East Haddam and Old Lyme dealing with the life and history of an
East Haddam resident, Venture Smith. This conference sought to explore the
“bigger-than-life” story of a man who was first an African prince in Ghana,
then a slave and finally a free man renowned for his independence and courage.
Given our
church’s interest in racism, and given the fact that the conference would take
place somewhere in Connecticut, she just wanted to be sure I didn’t miss the
event. And she mentioned that the conference would conclude at a place called
the Florence Griswold Museum with a reading by a Connecticut poet by the name of
Marilyn Nelson.
The world has
become a very small place, indeed. My friend had no way of knowing that Marilyn
Nelson attends church right here with us – and in fact will participate in our
upcoming Tree of Life Conference in December. Nor did she know that we are less
than a mile from the Florence Griswold Museum.
Just his past
Sunday, when Nurit Elhanin and Hanan Abu Gousch stood together in this pulpit to
celebrate World Communion Sunday, I found myself thinking, again, about what a
small place the world is. Here are two women who live, actually, a ten-mile
distance from one another – a distance most of us could ride by bicycle. And
yet, tragically, they are prevented by law from
spending time together. Hanan, as a Palestinian Muslim does not have free egress
in and out of the West Bank town of Ramallah. Nurit, an Israeli Jew, cannot
legally travel into the West Bank, by Israeli law.
But they were
able to enjoy a week here in Old Lyme, talking and laughing and going on walks
together – living together through the generous hospitality of Joan and Jerry
Silberberg. These two women, who care deeply for each other, were able to find a
safe place where they could share their common humanity. No government can
build an apartheid wall high enough to keep two people from being friends.
There is a
great deal about this modern world that confuses me. Truthfully, I would have
made a better 19th century pioneer than 21st century
web-surfer or jet-setter. I waste precious time wondering just how
someone in South Africa could stumble upon information about a conference in
Connecticut. And I am fascinated by the fact that two women who are barred from
connecting across a ten-mile divide can cement a deep and lasting friendship
built upon the ashes of their mutual suffering and commitment to justice and
truth.
Hear again the
words of Isaiah, “Enlarge the place of your dwelling. Extend the curtains of
your tent to the full…”
Isaiah, it turns
out, was more than a prophet – he was a visionary. In Isaiah’s time, people
could live in a small, contained habitat. But some 25 centuries later, that
time no longer exists. Turn on the news and you are eye-witness to the suffering
on the streets of Baghdad. Open Newsweek Magazine and you are
right there in the midst of the scorched earth of Darfur. Turn on your computer
and you will access information from half-way across the globe. Get on an
airplane and someone on the far side of the ocean will become your friend and
neighbor. And their plight will take up residence in your consciousness.
The world has
become a very small place, indeed. And the question implicit in this sermon is
this: How does the ever-shrinking modern world change our mandate about what it
means to live as a Christian in the 21st century? If Jesus were right
here, right now, (and by the way, I believe He is) what would he have us do
and say amidst the challenges of this modern world?
In two weeks
time, seven members of our congregation will make the journey to our partner
church in Johannesburg, South Africa. There we will spend time with the people
who are our friends there. We will participate in their ministries and share in
their worship. As a part of their “Paballo” ministry, we’ll help to carry soup
and bread and medical supplies out into the streets, to the homeless. And we
will spend time right there at Central Methodist with the ever-growing refugee
population that is sheltered in their big, old rambling church building. At last
count there were over 700 refugees living at Central Methodist – men and women
and children who have fled from political persecution or economic hardship in
the bordering countries of southern Africa.
The plight of
refugees in the 21st century is perhaps one of the most dynamic
phenomena shaping the world at this time. On mission trips with this church we
have walked through refugee camps in the occupied territories of the West Bank –
camps established by the United Nations in 1948 – where, now, the
great-great-grandchildren of the initial refugees are attempting to eek out an
existence. Life in a refugee camp is hard. But the hardest part of all, I would
think, is living the struggle with so little hope for the future.
We will surely
have more to say about life within the refugee community when we return.
For some people
within this church community, I suspect our church’s mission program is
something of a curiosity. I know that people find it puzzling, because it is not
unusual for me to be asked this kind of question: “What, exactly, will you
accomplish in Johannesburg?”
The very
practical New England Yankee who resides within my very DNA would like to be
able to say, in response to that question: “We will successfully relocate and
find employment for 123 refugees. And we’ll lay the groundwork for the
successful resolution of the crisis. All in two-week’s time. And we will be home
on schedule.”
In truth, what
we will actually accomplish in Johannesburg is the work set before us by Isaiah.
“We will enlarge the place of our dwelling and extend the curtains of the tent
to the full.” We will try to “be not afraid” in the words of the angels who
announced Jesus’ birth. We will try to “be not afraid” to see the pain of the
world and to help carry, if only for a time, the burdens of our
fellow-humankind.
In the gospel of
Luke, a lawyer approached Jesus and asked “What must I do to inherit eternal
life?” Jesus responded this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; and your
neighbour as yourself.” And the lawyer asks, “But, who is my neighbor?”
(There’s the Biblical mandate to be wary of lawyers.)
Jesus then
tells the lawyer the well-known story of the “Good Samaritan.” Anyone you meet
along the road, who needs your help – that is your neighbor. Carry that answer
with you into the 21st century!
Just this week,
as I wrestled with this sermon, I discovered a wonderful gem of truth in the
story of the “Good Samaritan.” – a truth which has up until now had remained
hidden from me. Jesus said we should stop and help anyone
who needs help along life’s road. He did not say that he expected us to succeed
in fixing everything that caused the man to fall.
Now please don’t
misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying Jesus would want us to walk away
from the hard work of kingdom building on this earth – the hard work of seeking
equity and justice for all God’s people. We are called to help those who
struggle. It’s so easy to turn away when problems are too big for us to solve –
and what Jesus is saying is that turning away is completely unacceptable.
There is a
wonderful concept in African culture about which I have spoken to you before.
UBUNTU. Ubuntu is an awareness, deeply felt in African
culture, that we are all connected, one to another. And that that connectedness
is at the very essence of what it means to be a human being. So that anything
that diminishes my fellow human-being, ultimately, diminishes me.
I think, on
some level, each and every one of us knows that to be true. That’s why we find
it painful to look at pictures of Darfur. That’s why we sometimes resist
watching the nightly news. That’s why we avert our eyes from someone else’s
suffering. Because we know, somewhere deep within our bones, that their
suffering diminishes us.
The mission work
of this church seeks, intentionally, to live out what theologians call “the
theology of accompaniment.” Meaning that there is a redemptive value in
accompanying someone else in their pain and suffering: redemptive not just for
“the other,” but for you and me, as well.
Whether or not
our mission work affects change out there in the world, well, that should be the
subject of the last sermon I ever preach. But this I do know – our work out
there, in the world, changes me. And if you were to ask any of the several
hundred parishoners who have made a journey with us to Green Grass, South
Dakota, or Harlem, New York, or Johannesburg, South Africa, or the occupied
territory of Palestine or, for that matter, to the soup kitchen on Montauk
Avenue in New London or here in Old Lyme, I think they would give you the same
answer. I think they would say, “I’m not sure just how much I helped the people
I visited, but I came home a far richer human being. I lived inside the “Good
Samaritan” story if only for a brief time. I enlarged the place of my dwelling.
I now live in a bigger tent.”
I don’t expect
that the seven people who make the journey to South Africa will change the
painful reality of the refugees living in Central Methodist Mission. But in the
spirit of UBUNTU, we will walk with them for a time. Their faces and their
stories will take up residence in our consciousness. And hopefully the brief
time we spend with them will enable them to know that there are people on the
other side of the ocean who think about them every day – and care.
At the beginning
of the church year, I’d like to take this chance to say to the young parents of
our Spirit Quest children, “I hope you’ll make this “theology of accompaniment”
a part of the life of your own family. I hope you’ll come with us someday on a
mission journey –whether as close by as New London or as far away as South
Africa. If you do, I feel sure that you and your children will reap rich
rewards.
I’d like to
close this sermon with one last story. And the story is about a wonderful,
spritely, older woman who lives in Beit Sahour, in the occupied territory of
Palestine. She always invites us into her home when we visit the community. And
she radiates hospitality and warmth. There’s always a smile on her face, and
she always says “thank-you for coming.”
Her life – at
least when compared to mine – is severely challenging. There’s never enough
food or water. There’s never any assurance that she could get through the
check-point to a hospital if she needed one. Political instability and the
strangled economy have severely jeopardized the future for her children and
grand-children. But she radiates courage in the face of adversity.
Mrs. Qumsiyeh
raises song birds – hundreds of them. These delicate little birds live in cages
that are spread out all the way from the basement to the second story of her
tidy little house. And clearly she loves them. You may know that Palestine,
located on the curve of the eastern side of the Mediterranean, is in the flight
pattern of migrating song birds that travel to and from winter and summer homes
from northern Africa to Europe. The hills of Palestine, prior to the military
turmoil that now affects every aspect of life there, were alive with song birds.
Mrs. Qumsiyeh
cultivates and nurtures living symbols of freedom. The occupation may define
every reality of her daily life, but it will not imprison her mind. One day,
when the occupation ends, I like to think that Mrs. Qumsiyeh will carry her
little birds back out into the hills of Palestine. And when she releases them
back into the wild, there will be a big smile on her face. And on that day, she
and her birds will once again be free.
The Jesus of
the 21st century, calls us to the work of keeping alive the songbirds
of freedom in lands torn asunder by war and injustice and persecution. The Jesus
of the 21st century calls us to the work of connecting human beings
across all kinds of walls and divisions so that no one, no thing, no
circumstance of hardship, can imprison their minds. The Jesus of the 21st
century calls to us to “Be not afraid” of the pain and suffering in this world,
but to go forth and enlarge our hearts and places of dwelling. The Jesus of the
21st century calls us to live the spirit of UBUNTU every day, and on
every highway.
Amen
Carleen R. Gerber
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