No Longer Strangers
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church
July 23, 2006
Ephesians
2:11-22
We are citizens of many bodies: we are citizens, certainly,
of a particular nation, but within that bounded geographical
entity we are citizens of a neighborhood, a school district,
a city or town, a county, a region, a state. Some of us are
citizens of an alumni group, or a labor union. We are in book
clubs or running clubs. We are citizens of families: all of
us have a family of origin and many of us have been partnered
into new families, which in turn have generated even newer families.
I am aware that lines between membership and citizenship may
be blurry, but little matter. There is a larger point to be
made, about belonging, about who is in and who is out, about
rules – both formal and informal – that govern all
of this. Every form of citizenship, and membership, is important,
from the PTA to the VFW to whether you are a Yankee hater or
a Yankee lover. Each form of joining and belonging gives meaning
and structure to the way we live our lives.
We live in a time where it seems that many of the written
and unwritten rules that bind us together are up for grabs.
We would seek a clear-cut simplicity in the enemies we fight,
and yet the nature of terror and religious sectarianism hardly
respects national boundary. Pollsters and pundits and politicians
would seek to divide us into red and blue, but we know better.
We know that much of life is lived in some shade of purple.
We live in a “bowling alone” culture, where we know
our neighbors less and less, where membership in civic institutions
is decreasing, where we “cocoon” in our homes, ironically,
to be sure, because even as we disconnect, polls indicate that
we seek more connection in our lives. Technology – in
the form of cell phone and IPOD and BlackBerry – offer
the illusion of being more connected but leave us feeling, perhaps,
even more disconnected.
What we want is to belong. What we want is for life to have
meaning. What we want is to be connected, with our own best
selves, with fellow travelers, with something greater than ourselves.
And connection seems a rare and elusive commodity.
I have been struck, and perhaps you have as well, about the
recent spate of political biographies. Not in my lifetime and
perhaps not in yours have so-called “dead white men”
been so popular, not just academically, but to you and me. Bestsellers
about John Adams and Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and
many others pop up frequently. It is as if we could only find
a way to reach far into the past and grab something good, something
important, and import it into this moment, that things will
feel more settled, more meaningful.
We are doing it in the life of the church, as well. I will
do so in a moment, in fact.
It is an important venture, but rather than doing it blindly,
we should do it carefully, and thoughtfully, with nuance, and
together, and perhaps with persons we might disagree, and with
humility. Politically, we claim this and that about America’s
founders, but when we dig a little deeper, we realize that a
simple exporting of a centuries-old idea is rarely clear-cut.
Principles, yes, but practices are more complex than that. Rules
and customs change.
The same is true in the life of the church. We spend a great
deal of time asking what John Calvin would do, or perhaps even
what Jesus would do. Principles, yes, but practices are more
complex than that. I have read more essays on whether Jesus
would drive an SUV than I can count. Who knows? But we do know
biblical principles of stewardship and caring for the earth.
Life, liberty and happiness need to be played out on the real
stage of human life, as do affirmations like “the greatest
of these is love” or “love thy neighbor” or
“thou shall not kill.”
Augustine of Hippo, from the fifth century, is one church
father who is continually being sought out in a kind of retrieval
operation. Like reading Shakespeare in high school, I wish I
would have paid more attention to Augustine in seminary. Calvin
built most of his theological thinking on Augustine’s
theology, and much of the way we live our lives as Western citizens
and Christians is derived from Augustine.
The work we may remember (perhaps form Jeopardy!) is called
City of God. Unlike those who believed that God was interested
only in spiritual matters and that human life had little consequence
to the greater purposes of God, Augustine’s theology of
history interpreted events in the lives of nations and people
as the redemptive acts of God in history, culminating in the
appearance of Christ and the establishment of the church. (See
Mike Bone, The Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Modern Western
Theology) Augustine formulated this philosophy in terms of an
ancient and on-going struggle between two societies: the heavenly
city, or city of God, as symbolized by Jerusalem, and the earthly
city.
But unlike many philosophers and theologians, Augustine viewed
these “cities” as intermingled. It is God’s
concern about who are citizens of either, or neither. It is
our concern to live as faithfully as we can, with integrity
and hope, as dual citizens: 1. In the political world we find
ourselves – in this case, the United States, or Monroe
County, or Rochester or Webster, or Greece, or Chili, or Pittsford.
2. And in the religious world in which we find ourselves. The
church.
Boundaries, like the line in our backyard that divides Brighton
and Rochester, or like the one that divide the Lutherans and
the Methodists, may be important, but they are not essential.
We are called to remember that.
For Augustine, body of Christ imagery was central, imagery
derived from the Apostle Paul. Which leads us to return to the
affirmations of citizenship – in church and culture –
and to return to something very important. One filter of reading
every headline we read is just this one. What does it mean to
belong and what does it mean to be a member? The current escalated
violence in the Middle East is such an example. Who is the friend
of whom and who is the enemy of whom when allegiances and understandings
shift. Or in our city, when gun violence claims victims and
decimates communities and families. Or in the church, where
groups vilify other groups.
Augustine, representing the best of our tradition, might have
insisted that we are called to live beyond the notion of boundaries
and divisions, and as messy as it might be, to claim common
ground and common cause with all those with whom God has placed
us in community. Since God chooses, and we do not, our task
is therefore not to underscore differences, but to live into
blessed community – politically, culturally and religiously.
It is hard work, to be sure. It is easier to demonize than
reconcile. It is easier – architecturally and in every
other way – to build walls than to build bridges.
Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus that at one time we were
aliens and strangers to the covenant of promise. We had no hope
because we had no God. But now we have God, who has broken down
the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles, creating one new
humanity, so that we are no longer strangers and aliens, but
citizens and members of the household of God, and that we, each
of us, all of us, are God’s dwelling places.
There is no better news than that, that the internal dissonance
and external division that prevents connection with our true
selves and with others has been rendered meaningless, and that
we are called into a new reality, a new holiness. The implications
are deep and broad, the implications of an altogether transformed
membership and citizenship.
• How we live in the church, this church, the Presbyterian
church, the church universal, is transformed. We will continue
to disagree, and we will continue to work on the issues that
are important, issues of justice and hope, but the manner in
which we do so and the ways we engage those who believe differently,
will reflect our common residence in the household of God.
• How we live in this city, this region, will be transformed.
I am thinking today especially about how we, in particular geographies
and with particular backgrounds, can reach out and reach across
to those who are different. If violence is to stop, then all
in our city will need access to education and health care and
food. And we right here in this congregation have the resources
to work to make that happen.
• How we live in the world will be transformed. Because
of our common residence, we are connected to what is happening
in Africa, in the Middle East. Our commitments can yield to
no easy solutions, to no simple answers, but rather to a vision
of hospitality and reconciliation and peace.
If God, as Paul insists, intends to bring all people together
in one humanity, (See Pheme Perkins, New Interpreter’s
Bible, Volume XI, page 404), then our task is to usher in that
new reality, moment by moment, inch by inch, person by person,
heart by heart.
No longer strangers, let us embrace that promise for every
child of God, every citizen. In the name of Christ, who is our
peace, our cornerstone, our home. Amen.
