Infinite Respect
June 24, 2007 - Fourth Sunday After Pentecost Proper 7
The Rev. Canon Joan Butler Ford
Zechariah 12:8-10;13:1;
Galatians 3:23-29;
Luke 9:18-24;
Psalm 63:1-8
Infinite Respect
A couple of Saturdays ago, I met "Jaime" (not his real name). Jaime is 5 years old, and the newest member of Dorcas House, our cathedral's foster home in Tijuana. He is very small for his age, and quite frail, for before coming to Dorcas House Jaime was abused and literally starved. He gets so excited when food is put in front of him that he just shakes, and stuffs himself as fast as he can, in the belief that he has to get it when he can. But that is no longer the case now that he is at Dorcas, as the new strategy is to feed Jaime separately, ahead of the other children, and make sure that he eats slowly so that he recognizes when he is full and can stop before he is overstuffed. Jaime doesn't talk, has few expressions, has frequent meltdowns, probably from the sensory overload of being with 46 other children. However when Emily and /Stephen Velez-Confer brought him some new clothes he almost smiled. And when "Juan", another new member of Dorcas helped him ride a pedal car, he almost smiled. I think with all the loving care Jaime is receiving at Dorcas, he will come round. As we all know, children can be mean to one another, especially if someone is "different" or seen as "weird", not fitting in. I can't say this for all the kids there, but if what I saw on that Saturday is any indication, Jaime is not being ostracized, is being accepted for what and who he is, and shown the kind of love and respect, that we could all do well to emulate.
It is this kind of respect for all others about which St. Paul tells us in today's Epistle reading. "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
This letter of Paul was written to the churches in the Roman province of Galatia. Paul had a hand in establishing those churches, so he was writing to people he knew in places he had already been at least once. As always, Paul wrote to address a problem. It seems that these churches were made up of different ethnic groups. Included in the churches are Jews as well as many Gentile converts to Christianity. The Jewish law was very good at setting up divisions between people. It became painfully obvious who was in & who was out. Jews were in first place. Converts to Judaism were second. Gentiles, in other words everyone else, were last, therefore ostracized.
But Paul reversed all this. Based upon the example of Jesus, he espoused freedom from the divisiveness of the law. Freedom, for Paul, means no longer being chained to the rules. Freedom means no longer being held hostage emotionally and spiritually to the law. Imagine the freedom of realizing that if you break a law, you aren't doomed. That God still loves you. That we are saved and freed by God's love, graciously poured out to us, despite our being sinful and undeserving.
It is God's gracious love that unites us with Jesus. It is our union with Jesus that unites us to all other human beings. It is this union that dissolves the potential divisiveness of human distinctions. It is this union with Jesus that breaks down whatever walls of separation we arbitrarily create among people and enables us to respect one another.
Paul's words were not received well by first-century Jews who embraced a religion that fostered exclusion as a way of maintaining purity of faith and protection from outsiders. But Paul followed the example of Jesus by teaching us to ignore our natural tendencies toward cultural prejudice, and all the forces that divide people.
We still display these tendencies. Too often we separate from others out of fear. Think of the arguments over immigration issues that we are facing at the moment. I believe that much of the controversy is fueled by fear…fear of the other, fear of economic loss, fear of changing the status quo. As the Rev. Ken Kesselus tells us, "Superficial comfort can result from surrounding ourselves with the familiar, from disdaining and avoiding those who are unfamiliar and different. In our confusing and complicated world, it is tempting to try to define ourselves by what we are not, rather than what we are, and to attempt to remain separate from those who are different. But such behavior leaves us diminished and fails to fulfill our potential…
"The meaning of today's Epistle is not that there can be or should be no distinctions among us, but that there can be no superiority of one over another or exclusion of one by the other. We do not submit to others, but only to God…
"Differences bear no ultimate significance in the values of God. Male or female; rich or poor; young or old; married or single; educated or unschooled; leader or follower; black, white, brown, red, or yellow; white-collar or blue-collar worker; gay or straight -- racism, culturalism, sexism, and nationalism have no place among the values of God. "1
"The power of God's love, freely given, when used by us is sufficient to overcome the human tendency to separate as a result of our distinctions and differences. Through this love we can have a collective unity – a single identity as children of God. It is the power of God's love that can give us courage to move beyond fear and separation into integration, cooperation, interdependence, and mutual respect."2
Respect does not begin with the idea that the other is worthy or deserving or similar enough to get the respect. Look at little Jaime. His life at Dorcas House helps us remember that respect begins with each of us who does the respecting. We treat others with respect because this is how our Lord teaches us to behave toward others, simply because they are human beings and because we are united to them through God's love.
AMEN.
1 The Rev. Ken KesselusThe Rev. Canon Joan Butler Ford
June 24, 2007 - Fourth Sunday After Pentecost Proper 7