Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · June 8, 2008

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

Prayer of the Day

Gracious and Loving God, we are each made in your own image. We pray that you will remind us we are one family, united in love, called to follow you. Through Christ we pray together.  Amen.

Scripture

Matthew 9:9-13,18-26

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed Jesus.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means…”

While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”

Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.

When Jesus entered the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region.

 Message

Family Matters

Jacob Thorne

I thought I’d begin this morning by sharing a story. The first time I went to India I was 23. I had no idea what to expect. With the exception of Canada, I had never been out of the country before.

The night before my departure, Paulette and I carefully packed my backpack, and I trusted that my backpack would arrive safely in Chennai. My backpack contained all of the essentials and comforts that I would need during my trip in India: anti-malaria pills, tons of Snickers bars, clothing, books, gifts, everything. When I said goodbye to Paulette in St. Louis, all I carried with me onto the plane was a small bottle of water and a book. So, perhaps you can imagine my surprise – and I have to say extreme disappointment – when, after 36 hours of continuous travel, I arrived in southern India, in the middle of July, with high humidity and temperatures, and everyone in my group, except me, was so thankful to see their luggage on the baggage carousel.

So, at first I found it a bit humorous that I didn’t have my backpack with me after all. I thought, “Oh, this is great. I’ve always wanted to travel light. This will be a new experience. I’ll really be able to experience the culture.” That lasted for about five minutes. I broke into this semi-controlled panic, and I realized that I have absolutely nothing with me. To make matters even a bit more complicated, no one could tell me where my backpack was. Several days later I learned it never made it out of the gates of Chicago.

After being up for almost two straight days, because I was so excited about this first big trip that I couldn’t sleep on the planes on the way over, we left the airport and headed to our first destination. My first experience on the streets of India caused me to experience acute culture shock. I cautiously sat in the front seat of a van. As I looked around, I encountered extreme sensory overload. Busses, rickshaws, taxis, bicycles, cows and pedestrians were moving in every direction. Fruit cars, street vendors, stalls, temples, and shacks lined the street. The smells of horse dung, human urine, sandalwood, burning trash, and diesel fuel filled my nose. Everything moved so, so fast, but no one was hurrying. At the very last moment when I was sure – like 100% sure – that we would end up in a deadly crash, busses would swerve, and a small motorcycle carrying five passengers, with one of them holding onto a computer, just gracefully changed lanes as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had occurred. This was my introduction to India.

Someday I hope to tell you more about my experiences in India: what it’s like to ride on the Bangalore Express, worship with a community of faith in an entirely- different language, plow a rice field with a team of oxen, make friendships that last a life time, visit sacred temples, share a meal over banana leaves, and reach out to street children who run up and down the streets of India. 

India is an amazing place. It’s a country I love, a country that I enjoy visiting, and a country I hope to return to soon.

But today, I want to share with you my experience of an “untouchable” village I visited. India operates on a caste system, a caste system which was officially abolished more than 50 years ago. It is, however, still very much in existence today and is set up in terms of social stratification. At the very top of the caste system are the Brahmins. Below the Brahmins are the Kshatriyas and the Shudras, and the list goes on and on. At the very bottom of the caste system, below everyone else are the Dalits, also knows as the “untouchables.”  The “untouchables” are considered the outcast of society. The “untouchables” cannot escape the caste system that they are born into. You cannot work your way out of a caste.

The untouchable village that I visited had been plagued with water-borne diseases and poverty. They had a drinking well that had been contaminated, and even though there is a clean well less than a quarter of a mile from their village, they are not allowed to use the water because the higher castes did not want to be contaminated by the lower castes. For me, this was difficult, if not impossible, to understand. As I walked around the village and thought about the “untouchables,” I wondered, “What should I feel? What should I be thinking?”

The stories we hear this morning from the gospel, taken from the common lectionary which will be heard around the world today by millions of people, attempt to answer questions such as these. Just a few minutes ago, when I read the gospel reading for this morning, I read three different stories: Matthew the tax collector, the girl who died, and the woman who was hemorrhaging. These stories are not meant to be read individually or to be heard individually. They are meant to be read as a collective whole. But in order to understand the unity of the stories, it’s helpful to know a little bit more about the background information.

Many scholars believe that Matthew the tax collector was the final editor of the Gospel of Matthew. We know during the time of Jesus, tax collectors were seen as being at the very bottom of society. The tax collectors were the outcasts. They were outcasts, not only because they worked for the Roman government and collected taxes, but also because they were notorious for being shrewd and dishonest. Tax collectors were so unpopular they were barred from entering a Jewish synagogue, because they were considered unclean. So, knowing that the tax collectors were among the most despised individuals in the ancient world, it’s interesting, to say the least, that Jesus not only invites Matthew to be one of his most trusted disciples – one of the twelve disciples – but also that Jesus sits down and has a dinner at Matthew’s house with many tax collectors. 

While Jesus was eating with the tax collectors, a man came to Jesus and said to him, “My daughter has just died.” He said to Jesus, “If you lay your hand on her, she will be made well.”

Matthew assumes that when we hear this story, we’ll instantly recognize the unusual request of the man for his daughter. Young girls, during the time of Jesus, were a liability. Women, during the ancient world, were bought and sold, but Jesus and the father recognize the intrinsic value of each and every human being. Jesus brings the young girl back to life, because he realizes everyone has equal value.

Then in the midst of everything that had taken place between the tax collectors and the young girl, a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years saw Jesus, reached out, touched the fringe of his cloak, and said to herself, “If only I touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 

You see, the woman’s continuous bleeding made her ritually unclean. She would have been, like Matthew and the young girl, an outcast, but Jesus made her well and instantly restored her to life. 

So, what do these three stories share in common? It’s the understanding that Jesus calls those who are the very least of society – the untouchables, the ones who we may want nothing to do with – to be his followers. 

I think the explicit message of this story is very clear: We are called to reach out to the least of those in our society. We are called to move beyond our comfort zones and reach out to those we would otherwise pass by. We are called to recognize that each person is of infinite worth as a child of God, made in God’s image, and should, therefore, be treated with dignity and respect. We are called to say that the human family, as created by God, is fundamentally interdependent. No part of the world or any community should say, “We have no need for you," or, “You have no claim on us.” We are called as Christians to recognize we have a biblical obligation to welcome the stranger, just as Christ has welcomed us. 

But what about the implicit message of the story? Remember Matthew was shunned by the society in which he lived. He was not able to worship in the Jewish temple. He was not welcomed into the homes of others, and he must have felt tremendous inner guilt. Why does Matthew think it’s so important for us to hear, out of all of the stories to choose from, these particular stories of Jesus? 

In order to answer this question, I want to spend just a few minutes talking about Henri Nouwen. Henry was one of the great spiritual writers and directors of the 20th century.  Henri taught at Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale. He met with Mother Theresa. He traveled around the world. He published dozens of books on Christian spirituality, and he literally changed the lives of thousands of individuals. We’ve studied his works here at Broadway, most recently during Lent.

Out of all of the words of Henri’s I’ve read, there is one story I often think of. Henri shares with his readers a story of what happened when he had just finished giving a lecture to thousands of individuals. When the lecture was over, Henri stood at the front of the stage, and he greeted people as they came by. Ten, 20, 50, 100 people came by and shared with Henri how his thoughts, his writings, his meditations, had literally changed their lives. Then, out of the entire line of people thanking Henri, one person came forward and told him they really did not agree with his lecture or what he had just said. In fact, they thought some of his words were offensive, inappropriate, and just plainly wrong. 

When Henri went home that evening, all he could think about was this one negative comment. He didn’t remember all of the people who had shared with him so many positive stories and thanks. He didn’t remember all the good moments of the lecture or the trip. All he could think is that, somehow, he had failed, because he had not been able to please at least one individual. He felt unloved, hurt, and alone from that one comment.

Henri notes that sometimes we answer the question, “Who am I?” with the response, “I am what I do.” Henri says, “When I do good things and have a little success in life, I feel good about myself. But when I fail, I start getting depressed, or we might say, ‘I am what other people say about me’.”

What people say about you has great power. When people speak well of you, you can walk around quite freely. Can’t you? But when somebody starts saying negative things about you, you start feeling sad. When somebody talks against you, it cuts deeply into your heart. So, why do we let what others say about us, good or ill, determine who we are?

Henri says the great trap in life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection - doubting who we truly are. It’s so easy to give into that voice of self-rejection or the voice of others who challenge your self-identity. You can be having a great day, and then one comment can cause you to say to yourself, “Well, that just proves once again that I’m a nobody.” Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life, because it rejects the claim and the sacred voice that we are loved just as we are. 

The message we hear from Matthew this morning is, “I am not what I do.” You are not what you do or what others say about you or about what you possess. You are God’s child, infinitely loved and cared for. When we turn to God in prayer, we turn to God in our entirety. We present ourselves to God just as our life is, both the good and bad. There is absolutely nothing to hide. There are no expectations. God accepts us just as we are. This is the message of grace. Just as Matthew did not have to prove himself to Jesus, God says to each of us, “You do not have to prove yourself to me.”

The people whom Jesus touched most deeply, and whom Jesus called to be his most trust disciples were, in part, those who had been told, “You have no future. You have no place. You have no dignity.”

As I was preparing for this morning, I reflected on my experiences in the Dalit village. A part of me wishes that, while I was there, I could have said something or done something. I really don’t know what that might have been. After all, I was a foreigner, an outsider looking in. It’s easy and dangerous to judge a situation which you know nothing about, or little about, but as I listened to the Dalits share their stories, I felt – and I still feel – a sense of hope. Hope that things will not always be the same, and the deep and abiding trust that God will not only help, but will walk with the Dalits as they seek to be made whole. 

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal reported that in the last few years, more than 25,000,000 Dalits have converted to Christianity in India. The Dalits, the article claims, are drawn to Christianity because they are able to love and embrace a religion that accepts them exactly as they are. It is stories of Christ that the Dalits hear, just as we hear this morning, “You have a future. You are a child of God. You are my beloved.” 

When a person hears and recognizes they are loved, cherished, and valued, their perspective on life changes dramatically. If we understand ourselves to be followers of Christ and children of God, then we let nothing - whether it is race, sexual orientation, caste, or economic status - separate us from one another or determine our self-worth.  To say we are made in the image of God is to say that we are all part of a family – a family that belongs to our Creator.

I wish I could conclude this sermon by saying that one day there will be no more anguish, pain, persecution, or self-doubt, but that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus never says, “One day things will be made wonderful.” What Jesus does say is that we are called to live as individuals who believe in hope and recognize that we are loved by God. When you can say to yourself, “I am loved by God,” you can let your heart and your life be led by the footprints of God. When you grow spiritually, you stretch out your hands, and you let others and God lead you. To stretch out your hands and to be led by God are both the great fear and the great attraction of faith, because you don’t know what you’re going to end up finding out. The only thing you can guarantee, for sure, is that God will lead you, others will support you, and you will find and create, both individually and as a community, new relationships and new understandings of life. 

So, today, as we go forward, we pray for all of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. We remember especially, those who face the pain and fear of persecution. We are called to say, “No,” to those who exclude, and we are also called to say to those who cannot accept themselves, “You are loved by God.” We rejoice that the love of God and the strength of God’s grace restore each and every one of us to full life.

Through Christ, we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Eternal God, thank you for making us like you. Thank you that we watch out and care for each others. Thank you for hearts and lips which are eager to sing of your love. Thank you, most of all, for calling us to live differently in the world. Amen.