All Are Welcome

Sermon preached on September 11, 2011 at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN 

Scripture: Romans 14:1-12

We all remember where we were 10 years ago this morning when we heard the news. It’s one of those moments in history that’s indelibly imprinted on people’s memories like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the day President Kennedy was shot and the day the Challenger space shuttle blew up. 

We won’t forget, but what will we take away from the memory of September 11, 2001? Will we heal? Will we be allowed to heal?

10 years ago I remember hearing about and then reading about in the paper, an incident that happened at a local gas station. A couple who used to live in town because the husband worked at the college had an adopted son whose skin color was darker than most of the rest of us here in the Falls. He was harassed at the gas pump because someone assumed he was Muslim or from the Middle East.

That reminds me of several friends I grew up with in California whose parents and grandparents were in the Internment Camps during WWII. They were American citizens! They had nothing to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, yet all Japanese people were lumped together and put in the camps and most of them had to completely start over when they got out after the war.

Many of my Japanese friends were Buddhists but they celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas like every other American they knew. They just had more holidays because they celebrated their cultural and religious holidays as well. New Year’s Day was a big one for them and we used to be invited over for delicious Japanese food and delicacies to help them celebrate. One friend’s mother was a nurse who always volunteered to work Christmas Eve and Christmas day so one of her Christian colleagues could have it off, and then she wanted to be off New Year's Eve and day for her family festivities.

So… what does this have to do with Paul’s letter to the Romans, you may ask? Quite a bit, I think. In the early days of the church--there were both Jews and Gentiles in the new groups who became followers of Jesus. They brought their own beliefs and customs with them and sometimes there were conflicts as to what was right and proper. 

Those who still considered themselves Jews were concerned about eating kosher and not mixing meat and dairy and all those food rules that seem ridiculous to us but made some sense in the days before refrigeration and preservatives. Others believed it was OK to eat anything and that people who didn’t were just silly. They probably even told Paul the famous “7 last words of the church” way back then: “But we’ve always done it that way!”

Paul tells them their job is to welcome everyone, no matter what or how they eat, and even if they are “weak in faith.” I’m sure glad he said that! How many of us have had times in our lives when we are weak in faith? Thank God we’re welcome anyway!

“What Paul seeks in this passage is not merely the tolerance of diversity, [or] a grudging, acceptance of the inevitability of differences. Instead, he articulates an active welcome for those with conflicting views and practices. If Christ welcomed all people (Romans 15:7), then Christians must find a way to welcome one another and to respect the integrity of one another.” [1]

Today we live in a global world where we can no longer afford to be isolationists, even when it comes to religion. Not only do we need to learn to work together with other Christians who believe and practice differently than we do, but we also need to learn about the other great religions of the world and to respect the people who follow them. Of course there are fanatics in every religion and violence is wrong no matter who perpetrates it. But just because a group within a particular faith does something horrible, doesn’t mean that all people of that faith are horrible.

Paul also talks to the Romans about judgment involving celebrations, judgment involving eating and just judging people in general. He says “don’t do it!” That’s God’s job, not ours.

Back in the early ‘70s one of my cousins and his girlfriend got pregnant before getting married. His younger brother’s fiancee apologized to my grandmother that she had to know about their behavior. My grandmother--who I was sure didn’t approve of such things--said, “judge not, lest you be judged.” She might not approve, but it wasn’t going to stop her from loving her grandson and his wife and child. I was impressed. But then, my grandmother was one of the best Christians I ever knew.

It’s VERY difficult for us NOT to judge other people. It may be one of the biggest challenges we face. We’ll never succeed 100%, but according to Paul we’re all accountable to God, so we need to try.

On this 10th anniversary of September 11th, not being judgmental is a very important thing for all Americans to be thinking about. It’s time to heal, time to love, time to move forward.

Diana Butler Bass, whose book Christianity for the Rest of Us was read by the Wednesday morning study group awhile back, has some interesting thoughts on remembering this day:

“In order to heal, to ‘move on,’ as counselors say, one must do the hard work of death--to patiently remember the whole life of those who have died and to learn from the gifts that person left behind. Remembering is a process, a spiritual one at that, by which we come to terms with mortality and flawed humanity, as well as the power of courage and abiding love.

“We all have a memory of 9/11. But have we remembered?

“Silence makes room for remembering. ...I wish for empty public space, a communal practice of quiet, to reflect on not only what happened on 9/11 but in the long, sad decade since. For just a brief time, I long for, in the words of an ancient hymn, ‘all mortal flesh keep silence,’ in the face of the fear and trembling that gripped us one September day ten years ago.

“I wonder what we would find there--of our selves, our neighbors, and God--in that void of words?” [2]

Whether we can do it or not, God loves and welcomes all people. This hurting world has many other moments of horror just as horrendous as 9/11. Technology and communications have made our world smaller and forced us to begin to try to understand one another and respect one another’s beliefs and customs and be non-judgmental. There is much in this world that needs to be healed, loved, and welcomed. Because all are welcome, we must all heal….. And here’s how to start:

To heal the Universe, we must heal the earth...
To heal the earth, we must heal the country...
To heal the country, we must heal the city...
To heal the city, we must heal the neighborhood...
To heal the neighborhood, we must heal the home...
To heal the home, we must heal the family...
To heal the family, we must heal the members...
To heal the members, we must heal the self… [3]

Love heals. God heals. God welcomes. ALL are welcome… even you… even me. AMEN.

Endnotes

¹ Texts for Preaching, Year A, Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, McCann and Newsome, p. 484.

² http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dianabutlerbass/2011/09/09/911-let-all-mortal-flesh-keep-silence/

³ Author unknown. (I got it from John Vlasich on facebook.)

A New Heart

sermon preached by the Rev. Sue Hamly on February 13, 2011

at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Texts: Psalm 119:1-8 and Matthew 5:21-37

Wow! That’s quite a gospel reading isn’t it? It’s not one we get around to very often because we’re usually starting Lent by now. But this year Easter is really, really late--not until the 24th of April--so we have a few extra weeks of the Epiphany season and some texts we haven’t read in awhile.

The psalm doesn’t really prepare us for what’s to come in the gospel. It sounds really nice. Happy are those who walk in the law of God and keep God’s decrees and seek God with their whole heart and who do no wrong.

Oops! There’s one problem right there… NO one does no wrong (except Jesus)! We’re all imperfect so we all mess up at least once in awhile. But we try our best to praise God with an upright heart and follow God’s commandments and ordinances.

And THEN we come to the gospel reading……

Before we even start on that, we need to remember what Jesus said in last week’s reading. That was verse 20, immediately preceding the start of today’s reading. He said: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”[1]

The Pharisees, at least, were the most righteous (or maybe self-righteous) people there were and they devoted themselves to following the law to the letter. They had no room for exceptions, and of course that was one of the problems Jesus had with them. It would seem that if anyone was getting into heaven for following all the rules it would be the Pharisees! So, you weren’t getting there unless you did even better--or were more conscientious--than the Pharisees. And THAT was almost impossible! Basically Jesus was saying that following the rules the Pharisees sought to enforce was futile.

So… now, are we ready? Probably not, but let’s move on anyway.

Today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel is a rule-maker’s dream: You’ve got murder, hate, adultery, lust, divorce and oaths. Anyone quoting from a verse here or a verse there can find ample justification for shunning, judging, chastising and rejecting the ones who can’t live up to the rules.

Those of us who are old enough may remember all the flap over an interview Jimmy Carter did in Playboy back in the ‘70s where he talked about having lusted in his heart. Anyone who has ever looked at another person and appreciated their physical attributes is in trouble, according to a literal reading of this passage.

And divorce… that paragraph will make lots of people uncomfortable or it might even make them give up on the church altogether. The Old Testament said a man could give his wife a written divorce decree. But that meant she was out in the cold with no property and no one to take care of her. So what Jesus is saying is technically better for women because in those days women needed to be provided for by some male person, be it husband, father, brother, uncle or son.

And don’t swear at all. Well, sure, don’t swear false witness is a really good idea, but perhaps it’s even better not to swear on anything, good or bad.

But you know what? I think what Jesus was trying to get across to his listeners was pretty much the opposite of what he was saying. Sure, what he said was good advice to live by, but the thing is no one could do it--not 100%. Perhaps Jesus was saying, “You think you’re following the rules because you know the loopholes. But I’m telling you that it’s about more than just doing the minimum. And you’ve got to see that no one is going to be able to live up to these rules! No one! So stop beating yourself up when you fail. Stop beating up other people when they fail. Everyone fails at this!” [2]

We need a new heart that realizes we can try our best to live up to all the good things we should do and be, but sometimes we are going to fail and God’s grace will be there for us. God’s love will be there for us. And that’s the wonderful thing about God’s love and God’s grace….. God is always willing to give us another chance! With God, failing doesn’t mean “GAME OVER.”

That reminds me of a new game that’s all the rage right now. I wouldn’t call it a video game, but you can play it on smart phones, iPads and computers. It’s called “Angry Birds.” Apparently the birds are angry because the green pigs have stolen their eggs. So the birds fling themselves out of a giant slingshot (that’s where we come in, we have to pull them back in the slingshot and aim them toward the target) and try to crash through the barriers the pigs have set up to protect themselves. You progress through various levels and you have to figure out how to aim the birds so they can hit the most pigs.

Don’t ask my why it’s so addicting, but it is. There is some strategy to it and some skill in figuring out how to get through the different levels. But the most important thing about the game, I think--at least for our purposes today--is that if you fail, you just tap the retry button and go again. You can keep trying and trying until you finally succeed at that level and then you move on to the next. No total failure and no Game Over because you didn’t succeed at a certain number of levels.

That also reminds me of a movie many of you have probably seen, Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. It has become a classic in a pretty short time and I know quite a few people who make a ritual of watching it on or near February 2nd every year. It’s kind of the same thing as Angry Birds. Bill Murray plays the part of a very stuck on himself news reporter who gets stuck on Groundhog Day (Feb. 2nd) and has to live the same day over and over and over again. He finally begins to learn things from reliving the same day and he becomes a different and kinder person by the end. No failure there either, just keep trying until you get it.

Those are contemporary examples of grace. Grace is something that really ticks people off if they are the type who like to enforce the rules on others. But for those who know that everyone fails at one time or another, then grace is a breath of fresh air--and a break--from the hot air of the enforcers. [3]

So, I think this gospel passage is much less frightening or frustrating than it might appear at first reading. God gives us a new heart, but we often forget to use it to be compassionate toward others. So Jesus reminds us that the standards are set so high it’s impossible to attain them all the time. But God’s grace and God’s love are sufficient to get us through and give us another chance. AMEN.

Notes

1. Matthew t5:20, NRSV.

2. Rev. Kirk Moore,

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/5L9vpi/revkirk.blogspot.com/2011/02/further-reminders.html

3. Ibid.