Jesus’ Tent is Large and (Perhaps) Without Walls
a sermon by the Rev. Jay Ekman, Saratoga Springs, New York
based on Mark 9: 38ff.
I. This is welcome back Sunday. It is good to begin with a clean slate. I have two confessions. It’s time that I made them—even Judy will be surprised!! I feel a little like Gov. Mark Sanford on a bad day. Sooo hard as it is--- here goes.
Since coming to Saratoga 36 years ago, I have {actually} made two mistakes! The first one happened when I didn’t think that YAHAs would take off. I reasoned that “If I didn’t spend $10 for lunch…neither would our more senior members.” Well---40 monthly participants later—I guess I got my ears pinned back!
Here’s my second act of contrition. I wasn’t sure the Peace Fair would take off. In the early going I wasn’t even sure what it was! The vision of Elizabeth Meehan supported by Linda LeTendre with additional assistance from Anne Diggory, Barry Gustafson and Pat Nugent and a bunch of others---took off last Sunday!! It was quite a success and I could not be happier to be proven wrong.
II. The only thing that would make me really much happier would be to be found wrong on my “take” on the Middle East, but more and more people, including generals, are coming to the cynical side of the table.
III. The committee managed to garner some 40 different presenters. I will take credit for the weather! Given today’s “Sitz im leben” it is good for people who care about peace and justice to come together. It is good to know that we are not alone.
IV. I am reminded of the story of the old war protestor picketing outside some military base. Someone asked him, “Day after day you come here—don’t you realize you won’t change the world?” The old man said, “I don’t do it to change the world. I do it to keep the world from changing me.”
Maybe, in part, what is what last Sunday was about. We want to keep that free floating rage that poisons some of current protest….we want to keep some of the me-firstisms that infect our souls… from getting the best of us. Whether it is a health care industry that guards its profits to the public determent, or obscene corporate bonuses or Congress pandering to get re-elected rather than making hard decisions for the national good, last Sunday was about “Keeping the world from totally changing us!”
V. All of which brings me seamlessly to the morning’s lectionary reading. Jesus’ disciples catch someone healing in Jesus’ name; BUT he isn’t part of their group! {They apparently failed to stop the man—which is another sermon!} Jesus says, “ Let him be…if he is not against us…then he is for us. He’s doing the kind of good things that we want done.” [Well—that’s a rough translation!]
VI. My conviction is that Jesus was a very sensitive, humble, caring, inclusive and gutsy sort of guy. In fact the earliest expressions of the Jesus community, before we had empires to unite, elaborate cathedrals to maintain, and clergy power to protect, included something like 500+ different groups with {more or less} different understandings of Jesus. BUT all groups were “united” around Jesus’ fresh vision of what it meant to be human and God-honoring.
It was only after some 300 years had passed and Emperor Constantine had a desire to unite the Roman Empire that a concerted effort was made by BIG city folks in Rome to decimate or co-opt the rich variety of faith(s) that were the early Jesus movement.
VII. It was in Constantine’s time that a human compulsion for exclusion and hierarchy championed a “Christian vision,” that I think was decidedly anti-Jesus. Jesus was {then} interpreted as seeing the broadness of God’s creation through very limited spectacles—and this at a time when they didn’t have spectacles! In these times scripture was written to imply the messiah saying, “It’s my way or the hi-way.” The exclusionary process began earlier than Constantine. Matthew and Luke, written 20 years after Mark, take our morning’s scripture and turn it into, “If folks are not with us…they are against us.” Given the human propensity for “exclusion” it’s a wonder that Mark’s scripture remained in its open and inclusive form!
VIII. There’s a saying that has stuck in my mind for years. “The only time anything worthwhile gets done, is when no body cares who gets the credit.” Maybe that’s what Jesus is saying in Mark? “I stand for healing, justice, compassion, and love. Why should I care if folks who engage in those same value laden behaviors {just} happen not to be from my group?”
IX. History is always fact plus interpretation. When you add “a religious perspective” to the historical process, the outcome is even more complex and confused! Frankly I feel relieved and empowered believing that Christians….or Protestant Christians….or Presbyterian/United Church of Christ Protestant Christians are not alone in wanting and working for a just and more peaceful world.
X. Last Sunday—because of the good efforts and vision of lots of different people, from different walks of life, different faith perspectives, and commitments to different topics of global importance, we gathered as one body to affirm a common HOPE for a healthier world. In Jesus’ terms: IT IS THE GOAL of peace and justice THAT MATTERS…NOT THE DIFFERENCES!
I believe that last Sunday’s fair fit Jesus’ vision of God’s love as a large tent—without walls. That one tent covered many different and wonderful efforts for good. I want to give a special thanks to those of you who made it possible. It was surely good to have been proven WRONG---a second time!! AMEN.