Proper 11B 2024
July 21, 2024
Ephesians 2:11-22 ∙ Mark 6:30-44
He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, liar, a thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took him in
As the 19th century American poet Edwin Markham wrote, we all know what it’s like to be left out and excluded. At one time or another, we’ve all been a lonely stranger at the gate. But most of us do not use our emotional intelligence to respond with compassion and inclusion.
Karl Marx said that the human condition is one of alienation. We are dominated by forces of our own creation, which confront us as alien powers. Marx argued that the essence of class struggle – the protecting of what we have from others – lies in the belief that we have so little and the fear that others will take away the precious little we have.
Irrespective of how his political theories have evolved, I think Marx was correct in his analysis of the human dilemma. We spend much of our lives feeling subjugated by forces of our own creation. We are strangers in a world of our own making.
It’s a sad but all-too-true paradox that we often do to others the opposite of what we would have others do to us. We turn our backs on the newcomer even though we were once a newcomer. We find reasons why this or that person should have no place in our lives or the life of our nation. We want strong boundaries and weapons for self-protection. We are quick to judge and slow to accept those who are different. We often exclude others because we are afraid of being excluded.
Think for a moment in time when you were excluded, ignored or sidelined: when you felt alienated, separated and alone, like a stranger in a strange land. Remember an occasion or season in your life when you felt far off, separated by a wall of hostility, rejection, or disregard. It’s not a pleasant memory – is it?
To remember is more than a passing thought. The Greek word for “remember” as found in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians means to make something present. Active remembering makes a past event real and the emotions of it occur again in us. At the eucharist, with a simple loaf of bread and cup of wine, we remember Jesus’ last meal with his friends, and in doing so, make Christ present in our lives.
Active remembering is at the heart of method acting, a well-respected technique introduced by the Russian actor and director Konstantine Stanislavski. Method acting has been a technique employed by many famous actors, including: James Dean, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Kerry Washington.
“Sense memory” is a critical element in method acting that challenges the actor to remember, invoke or make present the character in his or her own life. Recalling the physical sensations of similar circumstances – taste, touch, sight, smell and sound – can induce a similar sensory state while acting, Through sense memory, the actor relives the experience and emotions of the character, so that actor and the character become one, thus creating a true representation on stage or screen. While filming Cast Away, Tom Hanks didn’t cut his hair or bathe (to the point that he got a staph infection), and he lost fifty pounds to look and feel starved. To prepare for his role as a blind man in Scent of Woman, Al Pacino talked with individuals who were blind, attended a school for the blind, and started living as if he had lost his sight. Lady Gaga spent nine months speaking with an Italian accent to ready herself for her role in The House of Gucci. Forest Whitaker, in preparing for the role of Idi Amin in The King of Scotland, immersed himself in Uganda culture by living there and learning to speak Swahili.
In real life, we don’t like to remember things that are unpleasant. We want to forget pain, and so we do. But it’s important to remember not only the joy, but also the pain of our lives. In active remembering, we relive the pain and renew the promise to not let it occur again. Active remembering is at the heart of Holocaust Studies, Black History, and Native American culture. It is the teaching philosophy of the educational program Facing History and Ourselves. Such pedagogies, that some seek to eliminate from our educational system, insist that we must remember the atrocities and struggles of the past so that we won’t repeat history, but instead move forward to make a better future.
By remembering our own pain and suffering, we are less likely to hurt another or to make someone else suffer. By recalling our own exclusion and alienation, we are more likely to reach out to another in need, to welcome the stranger and sojourner, and to include the friend, colleague or neighbor who is different. Like the great method actors, when we actively remember our own pain, we become more empathetic to the pain of others. We develop compassion, the concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others and an awareness of the interdependence of all creation.
This morning’s gospel recalls how Jesus saw the great crowds and had compassion for them. Remembering what it was like to be alienated from his own family and rejected in his hometown, he became one with the outcast who sought acceptance. Throughout his ministry, even on the cross, Jesus taught and exemplified the principles of remembrance, inclusion and compassion.
The apostle Paul had to be knocked to the ground and blinded by the light in order to get it. In a letter probably circulated widely among the Gentile Christian world, read in churches and homes to gatherings of people, spread in the underground, religious press, the apostle wrote about the compassion of acceptance.
Paul asked the communities of early Christian converts to remember that they were once excluded from the covenant of promise. Paul bid these Christian believers to remember that they were once far off, but now – through Christ – they had been brought near: citizens together, members of the household of God, equal in God’s eyes.
Paul urged the followers of Jesus to remember that in Christ, there is no east or west, no south or north, no distinction between male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, slave and free. In today’s world, the apostle also might have included distinctions like Republican and Democrat, urban, suburban and rural, gay and straight, cis and transgendered, immigrant and native born. Paul reminds us that Jesus died for everybody’s sake, not just for those who fit in some neatly defined package.
I take Jesus’ teaching about compassion and Paul’s words of welcome and inclusion very seriously. As a child growing up in a religiously mixed home, I felt alienated and separated – outside of both covenants – as if I lived on the edge.
Then one day, I remembered who I am and from whence I came. I heard the divine voice assuring me that I was loved, that I was capable of loving, and that I was called to lead others to love in ways beyond my imagination. I who was once far off – an alien, a stranger, an outsider in my own world – was brought near, and encouraged to bring others along.
It’s very easy to exclude people: to make some feel welcome and others not, to feed some and turn others away, to bless some and curse others. Thus, we must be attentive to that risk, recalling the words of Robin Hyde in her poem about Pontius Pilate: “What was the face I turned away this day?”
Whenever I am tempted by exclusion, I am jilted by the memory of my own exclusion, separation, and alienation, and that of my ancestors in flesh, faith and spirit. These memories, painful as they may be, remind me of Jesus’ mission in this world: to bring the love of God to those who seek it; to show the way to God to those who want to follow; and to extend the covenant of promise and salvation to all God’s people. These memories also bring to mind Jesus’ command that we care especially for those who hurt, those who are hungry, and those who are considered “the least” of our brothers and sisters.
This country that I – and I believe you – dearly love is facing the challenge of inclusion, respect and civility in a way that we’ve not experienced since the Civil War. We are being asked to decide which strangers we will welcome into our national life, who really belongs in America, and who gets to decide what is American and what is the American vision.
In Mark’s gospel passage this morning, Jesus “saw a great crowd and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” That’s how I see the American situation today. We are like sheep with some shepherds who want to destroy and scatter us, some who are being called to hang up their shepherd’s staff, some who need to learn the art of shepherding, and some who should be invited into the work.
Here in America, on both coasts, in the rust belt, the heartland, the mountains, the new and the old south, and on the border, we’ve become strangers and aliens, separated from one another, not understanding one another, and lacking compassion and respect for each other. We have built huge dividing walls with mounting hostilities between us. In many ways, we are like sheep without a shepherd hungering for leaders who will show us the way to unity with justice and compassion.
These are challenging times that require us to welcome the stranger, not only in our homes, but also in our hearts. And that’s the tough part. When we embrace with compassion the stranger at the door, we also embrace the stranger in those we know and love, and most especially the stranger within. And when we embrace the stranger within, as painful as it might be, we remember that, we who were once far off and have been brought; we are no longer strangers and aliens but are citizens in the household of God; and that as we grow and mature in the Spirit of Christ, we ourselves become a dwelling place for God in the world.
So, the next time you see someone who is sitting on the edge, who might be feeling far off, lonely, excluded, alienated and separated, draw a circle and take them in with compassionate love. And when you feel threatened or alienated from someone with ideas that are really different from your own, try to understand who they are, what their life experience has been, and why they believe what they believe. And then, talk with them about your life experience and why you believe what you believe. Maybe you will find some sacred, common ground. Friends, it’s the only hope we have for this land that we love.