From My Missionary Days

This week's gospel reading has to do with being salt and light, and for some reason, it makes me think back to my days as a missionary in Japan.  I suppose when I considered what in God's name I was doing over in Japan being a missionary, I more often thought of it that way:  I may not be making great big visible waves (I thought), but I was being salt and light by being God's person in Japan.

But when I start thinking back to those days so long ago, I also remember a particular passage of scripture.  It was the scripture verse that I used for one of the only two sermons I preached in Japan.  It was a scripture verse from Ephesians 2, about how Jesus has broken down the walls that separate us, and made us into one people.

Of course, the author of the letter to the Ephesians is referencing two particular groups:  Jews and Gentiles.  They were divided by culture and religion.  The Gentiles were regarded as far away from God.  There was a 'dividing wall of hostility' between them.  But, not any more.  Jesus reconciled them to one another on the cross.

Think about that.  Jesus reconciled them not just to himself, but to one another.

So, I'm thinking about dividing walls of hostility right now.  And not just that great big long expensive one that the President wants to build on the southern border.  And actually, not even primarily that one.  I am thinking about all of the other dividing walls of hostility that there are, even though Jesus says that through his cross, they don't exist.

I recently saw a message on social media about how terrible it is to care more about refugees than it is about homeless veterans.  And I thought:  who told us we had to choose?  Someone is erecting a dividing wall of hostility, and to what end?  There is the wall between the women who marched and the women who did not think it was necessary to march.  There are walls between immigrant and native, documented and undocumented, and Christian and Christian.

I was not born yesterday.  There are real differences between us.  There are things that each of us are right about, and wrong about.  But you know what?  There are also fake differences between us.  We really are all in the same boat.  We all bleed, we all fall down, we're all going to die.  We are also all beloved by God, for some strange reason.

Another person wrote on a social media post that he is not going to care about refugees because, "their lives are not more important than mine."  All right.  But their lives are not LESS important than mine, either.

I am a person of privilege.  I have never been a refugee.  I have never had to flee my home.  In fact, for most of my life, I have fit in with my surroundings pretty well.  But for a few years I at least knew what it felt like to be a stranger, a foreigner whose tongue tripped over the new words she was learning, who often got lost and had to rely on the kindness of strangers, who stuck out where-ever she went.

And I tell you what:  that experience made me cling to the cross, and find my hope in the demolition of those dividing walls.  For in all of our beautiful diversity, and for all that we refuse to see it or believe it, it is still true that we are no longer strangers or sojourners, but we are children of God, with Christ himself the cornerstone.

The Car Place

Last night on the way home from work the "check engine" light abruptly came on. I called my car dealer right away, as I have an irrational fear of being stranded somewhere with my car, and I don't have a cell phone, either. The service person said since the light was not blinking, that was a good sign (if the check engine light was blinking, she said, she's advise to pull over right away and get the car towed in), but I thought it best to get it checked out right away.

So I got an appointment and spent more time than I would like at "the car place" today. I brought a book I have been reading (Preaching as Testimony, by Anna Carter Florence), and some sermon folders, so that I could work ahead.

"The Car Place" is somewhere I feel most dislocated. I am totally out of my element when I am there, at the mercy of whatever advice they mean to give me. At a bookstore -- I belong. But at the Service and Repair station, I am ignorant and incompetent.

The first thing I found out when I came is that someone signed me up for something called "Oil Change for Life." Every 3500 miles, if you take your car in, you get a free oil change. I had no idea. No one ever told me about this benefit. So I have not been taking full advantage of it.

I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere, right?

So, I was sitting in The Car Place, waiting for my car, and reading ahead on the lessons for a week from Sunday. You know, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword." "Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." "Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven." You know, fun stuff like that.

The lesson talks about sparrows, too, how not one of them falls without God noticing. Jesus tells the disciples that the hairs on their heads are all counted, that they are of more value than many sparrows. Maybe they are all at the first century version of The Car Place, and they feel out of their element, incompetent, ignorant. Maybe they look around and say to themselves, "You know, I really don't belong here. It would be really easy for people to smile and take advantage of me."

And I thought about those who are sparrows now, the ones whose lives seem to be dispensable to us (sold for a penny), like the Mexican woman I know who fled domestic abuse, and was undocumented here for awhile, like the albinos who are being murdered in Tanzania, because their bones are valuable to witch doctors. They are valuable to God, not dispensable at all, and God is willing to fight to the death for them.

Eventually the car was done, and it cost a goodly sum to repair, even with the free oil change. I am still musing on these words of Jesus.

And especially these: "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known."

Even and especially the value of sparrows, caught in a world where they their worth is hidden.