- World Communion Sunday
Today we honor and worship the God who unites humanity into one family; who makes us all brothers and sisters, children of one God… And we give thanks to God for the church, which exists not only in every place where the bread and wine are present, but also in every time where the bread and wine are present.
World Communion Sunday reminds us that we are connected - connected to Christians in every place and every time, partaking of one meal, one bread, and being formed again and again into one body - the one body of Christ, past, present, and future.
- Turning Neighbors Into Enemies
We all know President Trump has as a primary goal the construction of a border wall.
Southern Baptist preacher Robert Jeffress supports building the wall. Jeffress has said God supports building walls, because the prophet Nehemiah built a wall, and because the future city of God in Revelation has a wall.
But you have to be pretty selective and narrow-focused to conclude that God wants this wall. After all, while there are Biblical passages that speak of separating people and excluding foreigners and immigrants, there are many more that highlight the importance of offering welcome and hospitality to immigrants.
And about that wall in the book of Revelation: the Biblical author says there will be a new heaven and a new earth, as we’ve already heard. And he says that God will dwell among the people, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes, and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.
And there will be a great new city of God; and yes, this new city, this new Jerusalem, will have a wall around it. The Bible says it is a great, high wall, with twelve great gates: three facing east, three facing west, three facing north, and three facing south...
If you were to stop there, it would sound like this is another passage supporting the building of walls that keep people separated.
In Revelation, the wall is described as being made of pure jaspar, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. And the foundations of the city are made of precious jewels; and the twelve gates are actually twelve pearls...and the streets are pure gold…
Are you picturing all this? It’s kind of hard to imagine...
And then, from the end of the chapter, as we already heard: there is no sun or moon shining on the city, because the glory of God shines brightly.
And the gates in the walls… the gates will never be shut; those twelve gates will always be open.
The gates that let people into and out of the city of God will always be open.
So, yes, there is a wall in this metaphorical city of God, but with open gates, the people are allowed to come and go, passing into and out of the city freely. If the gates are never shut, one wonders what the point of having a wall is, but the wall symbolizes the strength of the city. The city is strong, the wall is strong… but the gates are always open.
And because the gates face out in all directions - east, west, north, and south - those open gates are ready to welcome, without hesitation, people from every nation.
There is a lot of symbolism and metaphor here, obviously, and some of it is hard for us to understand in these modern times. But one thing that’s clear is that the kingdom of God has open gates and open borders.
And it becomes very difficult to use the Bible to justify building a wall designed to separate people or keep people out.
Pope Francis knows this. Pope Francis went so far as to say that “a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel.”
Building walls is not the gospel. Building walls is not good news.
But maybe there are other reasons to build the wall. Reasons that the Bible doesn’t take into account. Reasons like national security in the 21st century.
Except that, according to the U.S. state department, a border wall won’t stop terrorism. In recent years, most acts of terrorism have been committed by American white nationalists who are already here, and the terrorists who have come from overseas - a wall wouldn’t have stopped them.
And a wall won’t stop drugs from entering the country. Most drugs that come into this country from outside our borders are hidden in trucks that come through at border crossings, and a wall won’t change that.
And a wall won’t stop criminals. Immigrants actually commit less crime than citizens do.
So a wall doesn’t really make sense. It’s contrary to God’s will, and it goes against logic and common sense.
The wall is simply a propaganda piece, a tool to make Americans afraid of black & brown people from other countries. It stokes fear & division. It turns our neighbors into enemies.
- A Changing World
Yet the Christian faith in general, and World Communion Sunday in particular, remind us that we cannot be divided, and that one of our highest callings in life is to find ways to build bridges instead of walls. As Pope Francis has said.
Here’s another thing. If we build walls to keep ourselves separated from the rest of the world, we might want to take Robert Frost’s advice, and consider what we are walling in, and what we are walling out. Because the world today is a lot different than it used to be.
Five hundred years ago, 90 percent of all Christians were in Europe. Then Christianity spread beyond Europe to the Americas, and then it spread even further, to the south, and to the east. Today, one out of every 4 Christians lives in Africa. Latin America is largely Christian. And, on any given Sunday, there are more Christians worshiping in China than there are in the United States. If the wall is built, there will be more Christians outside the wall than inside.
4. Turning Enemies Into Friends
But even without these changing demographics - even if we disregard religion entirely, or assume that those outside our borders are of other religions - we know that our faith calls upon us to welcome the stranger and to love the neighbor… and the definition of neighbor includes even the one we fear the most or despise the most. It includes the one who is most different from us, the one who worships differently than us.
That’s the whole point of Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan. Many people today don’t realize that, for Jesus and his fellow Jews, the Samaritans were a despised group. The Jews believed it was their God-given duty to keep themselves separated from the Samaritans. They would have easily agreed to the idea of building a wall designed to keep Samaritans out.
But when someone asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus told the story of a man journeying down a road, who was beaten and attacked and left for dead. A Jewish leader came by, but did not help; another Jewish leader came by, and did not help; and then a Samaritan came by - and those listening thought to themselves, certainly HE’S not going to help!
But he did. The Samaritan did stop and help. And to the person who asked “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus said, “Which of these three acted as a neighbor?”
And the man was forced to admit, through gritted teeth, that it was the Samaritan.
What neighbor are we walling out?
Two years ago, I took a group of youth from our region to Hawaii for ten days of service and cultural immersion. And on our first full day there, some of us got to witness a historic event of great magnitude: the return of Hokulea.
The Hokulea was the first Hawaiian canoe built using traditional methods, and navigated in traditional ways, in 600 years. It was built to showcase the navigational expertise of the ancient Hawaiians.
The Hokulea had just returned from a 3 year, around-the-world voyage, spreading aloha everywhere it went. And this voyage helped people realize that, in traditional Hawaiian thought, the oceans didn’t divide far-flung people from one another. Just the opposite. The oceans united people. The oceans connected people.
The difference is really how you think of it. Is your mind bent on division? Then you will find division, and you will create division. But if your mind is bent on unity, then you will find unity and you will create unity. You will create wholeness.
Which, I believe, is what God calls us to do.
5. Kingdom Without Borders
And when we find our connection to others and recognize what it is that connects us, our lives are enriched. Some of us gathered here last spring and listened to a presentation by Paul Turner, a Global Ministries worker in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Others of us got to spend a week at Loch Leven with him this summer.
And we got to learn about the church in the Congo, and how we are connected, and what we can learn from each other. Not just what we can do for them, but what we can do for each other and what we can learn from each other.
This year I became the co-chair of our regional Global Ministries committee. I’m not really sure how that happened. It wasn’t a position that I sought. But I gotta tell you: I’m learning so much!
Being connected to the work of Global Ministries took me to Puerto Rico earlier this year. And I’ve heard from others who have taken trips to Mexico, Uganda, and Palestine.
As a committee we’ve committed to supporting another friend of ours who is currently on a trip to Morocco. And we’re hoping to stay in touch with yet another southern California Disciple who is on her way to Japan.
And the connections we make because of all this enrich and strengthen our faith and our lives. The connections we make with people who are different, who live in different countries, who worship in different languages, is mutually enriching.
That’s why we do mission work.
That may not have been why the church has done mission work historically, but it’s why we do mission work today.
Because we already are connected to every person in every time and place - and the connection is especially strong with all those who gather around the Lord’s Table in worship.
Because the kingdom of God has no borders and no locked gates and no walls designed to keep people out.
This is our witness to the world. That we have so much more to gain by building bridges, and so much to lose by building walls. It is holy work. It is God’s work.
And it’s why we pray - as Jesus did - that all Christians may be one.
And it’s why we pray that all people may, one day, be one.
No comments:
Post a Comment