A COMFORTING - AND DISCOMFORTING - WELCOME
July 29, 2001
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
Mark
2:13-17
Stephen Crane
wrote this little poetic reflection:
“A
man said to the universe, ‘I exist.’
‘That
may be true,’ said the universe, ‘however that has never created in me any sense
of obligation.’”
Do you ever feel
like that man? Do you ever wonder if anything - anyone - somewhere out there
cares at all about you and your life; if who I am and what I do really have any
meaning at all? Do you ever wonder?
We try so hard
to fill our lives with meaning and significance. We work, we achieve, we
accumulate. How do I know that I am worthy, that I count for something? Look
at all that I have done. Look at all that I have. I must be worthy. After
all, I once won second place in a national sermon competition. And yet, it
isn’t quite enough, is it? Always there is that little voice that whispers,
“Why didn’t you win first place?”
Daniel Zeluff
shares this true story from his ministry: “A top executive from an
international company was depressed. He was tired all the time but couldn’t
sleep. He said that he didn’t know what it was not to work hard. Lately he
found himself crying a lot and he had not cried in years. He saw himself as a
failure, though by external measurements he was a success: money, position in
the community, responsible job, achievement, wonderful wife and family. He told
his story about clawing his way out of a Georgia farm, how he discarded bib
overalls for custom-made suits, and how he had acquired prestigious degrees from
Ivy League schools. He had it made…to everyone but himself.
“’I keep making
mistakes,’ he said, ‘I’m not there yet, and I’m tired.’ He had pulled it off,
yet still felt inferior.”
His is not an
isolated case. A study not long ago revealed that over 50 % of the successful
men and women in Manhattan, successful as the world measures success, are in
therapy. They have done all the world has asked, yet still feel unfulfilled,
empty, many even feel like failures. It’s tough out there. The passing grade
in America today is very high. Anything less than #1 really isn’t very good.
One colleague says, “All you have to do is read your monthly college alumni
journal to feel miserable the rest of the day.” They all seem to be doing so
well. What’s wrong with me? Diogenes Allen of Princeton Seminary says: “We
live in a society where almost everyone is made to feel a failure.”
“Those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call
not the righteous, but sinners.” Do you find yourself anywhere in those
familiar words? Could Jesus possibly be talking about us? “I have come to call
not the righteous, but simmers.” Who were these sinners?
Actually, a
better word for this text might be outcasts. Jesus is not referring to
murderers and thieves here. These sinners - outcasts - were the many people,
usually poor, who did not follow the letter of the religious law, particularly
its purity codes. They did not eat the right foods or prepare them in the right
way; did not observe proper times of fasting, weren’t clean enough, educated
enough, religious enough to be acceptable in proper society. These were the
people who just did not measure up to the high standards of the scribes and
Pharisees, those keepers and interpreters of the law. Outcasts, outsiders,
people not quite good enough, people who didn’t measure up, people who must have
thought of themselves as failures because everybody told them they were. These
were the ones welcomed and blessed and beloved by Jesus; these were Jesus’
chosen ones. I ask you again, do you find yourself anywhere in this scripture?
Henri Nouwen,
that great saint of the church once said: “As I look within as well as around
myself, I am overwhelmed by the dark voices telling me, ‘You are nothing
special; you are just another person among millions; your life is just one more
mouth to feed, your needs just one more problem to solve…Prove that you are
worth something.’ These voices are increasingly powerful, especially in a time
marked by so many broken relationships…And my own dark side says: ‘I am no
good. I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected and abandoned.’”
But, says
Nouwen, in the midst of all these negative voices, there is another voice. In
his words, “Long before any human beings saw us, we are seen by God’s loving
eyes. Long before anyone heard us cry or laugh, we are heard by our God who is
all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are
spoken to by the voice of eternal love. Our preciousness, uniqueness and
individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time - our brief
chronological existence. They are given by the One who has chosen us with an
everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through
all eternity.”
“I have come,”
says Jesus, “to call you. I choose you. In all your weakness, in all your
strength, in all your unique craziness, even though you never hit a home run in
Little League or were the only person on your fishing trip not to catch any
fish, I choose you! No matter what the world thinks of you or what you think of
yourself, I choose you. You, you are my Beloved.” Friends, of all the
truths of our lives, this is the most basic, the most profound, the most true.
This is the truth Christ wants us to claim for ourselves…believe it…receive
it…listen to it. Amidst all the competing voices of our lives, his is the one
voice telling us the truth about ourselves.
And not only
about me, but also about all of us. For if somebody like me is welcome at
Christ’s table, then just maybe someone like you, like him, like her, like those
kind of people, is welcome also. Here, I think, is where the comforting word
of Christ becomes perhaps just a bit discomforting.
A colleague
writes, “I can still remember the Sunday when, as a youth, I brought a friend of
mine to church with me. My friend had never been in a church. I brought him
because I knew that he was struggling mightily with a drug problem and I thought
the church might help. As fate would have it the preacher used an illustration
in the sermon about a ‘worthless’ abuser of drugs…My friend never went back. He
knew from that illustration, that he was definitely on the outside of church.”
Inside -
outside…very important concepts in Jesus’ day. You’ve heard me talk about this
before. And nowhere was this inside - outside, clean - unclean, pure-impure
division of society any more important than around the dinner table. Pot luck
suppers were not very popular in Jesus’ day because one did not dine with just
anyone. There were appropriate distinctions and discriminations to be
observed. And everyone knew this, everyone, that is, except Jesus. I cannot
really understate how shocked people were by Jesus’ dinner time behavior. A
rabbi, a teacher, allowing these sinners, these “outcasts” to break bread with
him. Actually inviting them to his table. He shouldn’t even be in the same
room with them - unclean, impure, inferior. “Why does he eat with tax
collectors and sinners?” Could it be that God’s Kingdom is all about pot lucks;
that in God’s new community there is no us and them? New Testament scholar,
Marcus Borg says: “Jesus’ table fellowship with outcasts would have shattered
the social world which pronounced them unacceptable, and would have enabled them
to see themselves as accepted by God…members of an inclusive community
reflecting the compassion of God.” Jesus simply refuses to make distinctions
and discriminations as he pronounces this radically inclusive Kingdom.
Sounds pretty
good when I and people like me are included, in spite of our weaknesses,
failures, our persistent refusal to be the people God calls us to be. Ah, but
it gets a bit challenging when we realize that also sitting at Jesus’ table are
all those others with their weaknesses, failures, and persistent refusal to be
the kind of people I think they should be! Are we ready to accept a Kingdom, a
new world, that inclusive?
An old New
Yorker cartoon showed a group of convicts huddled in a circle on the floor
of their cell block. Spread out before them is a map of the prison grounds, and
on the map is a detailed route for their planned escape. One of the prisoners
turns to the leader of the group and says, “I wish you wouldn’t keep saying,
‘This is where we are now!’”
That might be
the voice of the scribes and Pharisees, of conventional, cautious wisdom - “This
is where we are now and where we had best stay. Don’t rock the boat. Keep
everyone in their place.” But Jesus never saw a boat he couldn’t rock. And he
never tired of challenging people to let go of where they are now so that they
can move on to where they - we - need to be. There is really only one way for
the doors of a church sanctuary to open and that is outward.
A US pilot once
described a bombing run in Vietnam. He told of bearing down on a village
prepared to drop his bombs when, as he emerged from the clouds, he caught a
glimpse of a church. In his words, “It must have been Sunday because I could
see a crowd of people entering the church in the village. It was only a
glimpse, but I could see it clearly. They were Christians…It could have
been my hometown, my Catholic church. They looked just like us. They
worshipped the same way we worshipped. Nobody told me."
Those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come to call
not the righteous, but sinners.” Friends, I think we have just been told!
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