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July 23, 2006
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: 2 Samuel
7:1-7, Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:30-34
“Inward/Outward
Journeys: Meeting Places and Peoples of God”
I cannot imagine a preacher in any church today addressing these texts on God’s
elemental compassion and solidarity without agonizing over what is happening in
the biblical lands – Israel, Palestine, Lebanon – and among the biblical peoples
– Jewish, Christian, Muslim. How can any Christian not acknowledge shared roots
and relations with Jews -- even as Muslims share roots and religions with
Christians and Jews? Every Christian is Jewish! Every Muslim is Jewish! The
“new world” truly as family, as household, to one another, is not an option “out
there somewhere” in the far-off future. The new world is at hand! It happened
-- God did it! -- while we were yet wrapped in self-interest and
self-investment. In today’s world so connected by opportunity to know and
relate to each other, everything is everything! Everybody is everybody! There
is no turning back.
That is the very reality of the gospel and of
the earliest church created by Spirit. We have been printing small sections of
The Discipline about “The Ministry of All Christians.” We didn’t print it
today, but here’s what it says next –
The people of God, who are the church made
visible in the world, must convince the world of the gospel or leave it
unconvinced. There can be no evasion or delegation of this responsibility; the
church is either faithful as a witnessing and serving community, or it loses its
vitality and its impact on an unbelieving world.
How do we convince the world of the gospel of
peace? The gospel of full human healing and wholeness? And what are we to
witness and serve today if not the essential union – coming together “as one,”
reconciling -- of all peoples? Not unity necessarily, certainly not uniformity,
but union of all peoples – and potential communion – sharing one meal at one
table? Potential to live and to love the diversity of us all, while respecting
the identity of us each -- and to live and to love the complexity of us all,
while respecting the integrity each? We simply are not going away from each
other. There is no way to escape, avoid, ignore, deny us all. Martha & the
Vandellas sing, “No place to run to, baby – no place to hide!”
Yet David seems to be trying to hide here. He has built himself a house of
cedar. He has “come in out of the cold,” so to speak, and traded his tent
for – perhaps not yet a “monster mansion” but a step in the upward direction!
And David wants to do the same for God, wants to build God a house of cedar,
too. Sisters and brothers, our God, whom we still share with shepherds and
nomads around the world, is an outdoor God of the open spaces. God
“becomes flesh and dwells among us,” as we say, by pitching God’s tent in our
lives. Those of us who grew up in the spacious West probably know tents as
second homes – is that right? Tents may even be home to us. While
those of us from crowded cities back east saw tents as lines of linkage with
vaster surroundings – of star, of sky, of space. God loves the tent, the booth,
the hut, the shack! God does not linger long in any one place, or get too
attached to any one people! God loves all directions, all seasons, all
elements of the earth – especially those rainbows and lightning shows God put on
for us, and took in with us, this week!
And that is as true for God of our human condition as it is for God of the world
around us. God knows there are ruptures and rainstorms, earthquakes,
tsunamis, hurricanes, floods -- within us, between us, among us -- as well as
there are all around us! In all of the new, unexplored, challenging,
threatening, deepening and demanding parts of our lives and of our
relationships, God is there! God is as much a part of the inward as the
outward journeys of our lives. God is in our tent, and at our side -- no
matter who or where we are! Nothing about us, nothing that happens to us.
nothing human is alien to God – any more than anything natural is. God is
not to be limited or contained, protected or controlled, defended or
domesticated. God who created it all -- and us all as well -- certainly
can surely take care of God’s self – with no house-help from us!
So as King David becomes more settled, more comfortable, fixed and predictable
in his own life – some of us know how that “property” and that “possession”
thing go! – Nathan has to remind him (and us) who God is and how we as a people
met God in the first place! God heard and saw our pain and our suffering
while we were still “no people” but slaves in Egypt. God is moved by the
same compassion, the same movement from the gut that interrupts Jesus in this
gospel as he is trying to go on retreat. The need of the people so moves
him he cannot help but stop and respond. Again, God pitches God’s tent
with us. God who creates us all knows that if God is going to change us in
any way for the better, God has to come down somewhere sometime in the life of
God’s whole human creation – and in the life of human being. God joins us
in solidarity -- as Jesus does in baptism – which he does not need but chooses
as way of identifying – fully, freely, even failingly -- with our every human
circumstance and condition!
God says, in effect, by this action: I give up
my native “God Home” in the sky by and by -- my removal from you, isolation from
you, distance from you, ignorance of you. I relinquish my heavenly detachment,
my safety and my protection from you. (I think we are much harder on God than
God is on us! As seen in the image of God sending God’s own child, God’s own
children, into the world for us to murder in our greed and fear.) Instead, God
says, I will join you in your struggle – perhaps a more useful word today than
our “sin.” I am not ready to abandon sin – at least until sin abandons us! But
what seems at stake now is not so much separation of some for how bad we are --
but survival of all for how human we are! Since when, God asks us, through all
my loving and caring for you, my leading and guiding of you in your very human
life-and-faith journey -- when did I ever say I wanted a house, a comfort zone,
a security of any kind?
Brothers and sisters, we cannot escape, avoid,
ignore, or deny this tension, this contradiction, this need to live by risk and
by trust in the one who was in the beginning yet journeys with us --forever!!
We cannot treat any of our own houses, humble as they may be, or even this house
of faith, as the fixed and final home of our God. We have been saying at Artown
events here how at the age of 80, our sanctuary never feels so alive, so young,
so connected and so fulfilled as when we are offering ourselves, sharing
ourselves, even giving ourselves away! Why not just take care of this capital
debt? Get it over and done with? Imagine on any given Sunday – at any one of
our services – 8 AM, 10 AM, 2 PM – we constitute the capacity to retire this
debt! Just close the doors, turn off the air conditioner, and agree not to
leave till we pay for it! Is this the day to do that? Is this the day of the
Lord? Let us get on with the journey of faith, from fear into freedom, both
inward and outward, as the meeting place and people of God!
That is what Paul says here in Ephesians God is
all about in Jesus Christ! Bible scholar Ched Myers says, more than any other
piece of New Testament literature Ephesians speaks directly of “war” and “peace”
and challenges us as the church, as Myers puts it, to disengage ourselves from
all “social institutionalizations of enmity.” Enmity is the root word of
“enemy” and opposite word of “amity,” meaning friendship. In fact, he says,
Ephesians calls our atonement, literally our “at-one-ment” in Christ, the
“universal disarmament” of the church! We throw down our arms this morning! We
declare, with Phil Ochs, the war is over – and we ain’t a-fighting any more!
In fact, I hope each in our own way we will consider contacting our senators and
congressperson this week – to say the last thing the Middle East needs is for
our nation to send more weapons – at least until there is a ceasefire and some
kind of communication resumes – not only with nation-states but with popular
movements as well! For we live in the “new world” now, and war is the way
of the old world we’ve left behind.
Paul (or whoever wrote Ephesians for him) takes
in these verses the very “worst case” example of all human enmities – that
between Jew and Gentile – the paradigm and prototype for intractable
“enmitization” -- and declares for all the world to see and hear –
We’re now together on this – insiders,
outsiders – house-builders, tent-dwellers – both! Christ tears down the wall,
the distance between us – that means all of us! – for God in Christ plays no
favorites – with any people of any faith or any nation any place in this world.
God repeals the very code that puts some over others! God starts all over –
creates a new human, in a new world – a fresh start for everybody! We are made
equals again in Christ – no matter who we are! We share the same Spirit – who
gives us all gifts, all graces! To share for the good of the whole – in fact,
the whole human species – and all other species as well! This is the Jubilee –
once and for all! This is the only “home” God has made for us in Christ – in
whose very body we all belong – no matter how we name “God!” Every one of us
is a part -- everyone has a part to play! The tent of our God has become our
own skins! God uses us all – no matter how we get here! No matter how long it
takes. No matter how many false starts, wrong turns, dead ends to our journey.
God is not done with us yet! God is building us – brick by brick!
As Nathan further reminds King David – God journeys with us by covenant and by
promise, by the giving and the receiving of words to each other – and by the
perplexing work of perpetual negotiation – forgiveness and renewal – again and
again. We are so thankful for the witness of the larger Tongan community
in the Bay Area – following the devastating deaths of the Prince and Princess as
result of the negligent driving of a teenager. The prince’s sister spoke
publicly – “to extend forgiveness toward the young lady who caused this tragedy
. . . Because of my personal faith, I have no other choice but to extend
forgiveness toward her, and I hope no extreme measure of violence or malice of
heart will be exchanged between anyone.” What a hope for the world –
beginning with each one of us.
for in the end, by God’s own example, all we
have to give one another IS one another. That is what our very given names
signify in our baptisms – All we are, all we have, all we say and do -- is given
of God in the beginning, and received of God in the end, and used of God on the
way. That’s what baptizing “Sione Manitisa” means today, and “Jack Montgomery”
next Sunday. Let us, in the names of these infants and children and young
people – and in the names of those infants, children and youth all over the
whole hurting world today – but especially those bombed and displaced,
terrorized and tormented – in Israel and in Iraq, in Palestine and in Lebanon –
let each of say with our own given names – I, __________, give myself for the
world today! I, ___________, give myself for the world today! I, __________,
give myself for the world today! And, Amen.
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