The Upload
Posted on Aug 15, 2014 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
I don’t know whether or not you know this, but Jill and I have a trip planned to the Holy Lands in November. We are scheduled to fly into Tel Aviv and then from there spend eight days touring around Israel visiting the sights where Jesus himself visited. We are supposed to visit Mount Carmel, the place where Elijah issued his challenge to the false prophets. We are supposed to visit Cana, the place where Jesus turned water into wine, his first public miracle. All of this and so much more is on our schedule. We are so excited because we have always dreamed of going to the land where so many people of faith, Jews, Christians and Muslims, have all experienced God, but, as I write this letter, our trip is questionable because of war.
Jill and I will be very sad if we have to cancel this trip, but to be honest, I wonder how sad God is right now. His children, the very people that he created in his own image are at war, killing each other because they have experienced God differently and they think that God only reveals himself one way and they believe the way they have experienced God is the only way. This war is about differences and, yet, in so many ways we are all alike, even Jews and Muslims.
I have traveled all over the world and one of the things I have discovered is that no matter where you live, whether it is China, Europe, the Middle East, or right here in the U.S., we all worry about the same things. We all love our families and we want them to be safe. We want food on our table and comfortable places to live. We are all concerned with the price of food and the cost of housing. We all think about the meaning of life and the future of our children. Yes, we are all very much alike and, yet, we so often live in fear of each other, keeping ourselves separate from others, not just others from across the world, but others from across town or across the street.
In this country, we don’t fight with guns, although we do have a violence issue, but we often use hurtful words to keep us separated from each other. Politics has gotten so divisive that the states we live in are labeled, blue or red. We label each other as conservative or liberal. And not only do we label each other, but for many people it is not acceptable to be in community with people who have different political views or social views. And as the world becomes more and more fragmented, the church finds itself more and more divided.
Yes, we all have differences; male/female, straight/gay, Republican/ Democrat, conservative/liberal, black/white…, but God calls all of us his children.
In our Gospel lesson for this Sunday, Matthew 15:10-28, Jesus uses a Canaanite woman to prove that to God, all of us, even a Canaanite woman are deserving of God’s mercy. This woman who had the audacity to break the barriers of separation, struggle to get to Jesus and ask for healing, but initially Jesus focuses on the fact that she is not Jewish. He does this because that is how the existing religious establishment had interpreted God’s law. But even after denying her and calling her a dog, the woman agrees with Jesus that she is not worthy, but her faith is so strong, that she knows all she needs are the leftovers of God’s grace to be healed. That is the faith that Jesus has been describing the past few weeks for us and on that faith he heals her daughter.
Even though she was very different from the Jews around her, Jesus included her in God’s grace. Inclusivity of all people is the very heart of the story of God’s love for all God’s people.
This war in Gaza is breaking my heart and I believe it is breaking God’s heart. Instead of focusing on each other’s differences, we should be focusing on the fact that we are all God’s children and each of us is valued and loved by our Creator. So, once again, I am asking you to pray for peace. I am not asking you to do this so that Jill and I can go on our trip. No, I am asking you to pray for peace so that some day we might truly come to know that we are all God’s children and that we have much more in common with those that are different from us, than we have differences.
Have a blessed week!
Shalom,
Pastor Dave