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James 3:13-18, Mark 9:30-37

September 20, 2009

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

As we all have waited this past two weeks for news of Annie Le and then for the police to identify her murderer, I have been holding in my heart especially all those who work in the building where she was killed, and indeed, all the graduate students who knew and worked with her. As it became clear that the person who killed her almost had to be someone who worked in the building, I pondered how those folk could go to work every day wondering which one of them did this horrible thing. How must people have looked at one another differently? Cut off conversations? Simply felt afraid of one another?

This, of course, is an extreme example of times we find ourselves in situations where our attitude toward the people around us is one of suspicion or fear or mistrust. Getting on an airplane post 9/11? Walking the city streets at night? In an academic community it is also not uncommon for people to look at one another as the competition and see each other as a threat in an entirely different way than an expectation of violence.

Do you ever consider how you perceive other people, both those you know and those who are strangers, about your default attitude toward those around you? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, because everyone has been talking about a break down in civility in our society. People scream at each other at town meetings; a congressman shouts out during the President’s speech, calling him a liar, and contributions to his campaign fund increase as people applaud his behavior. Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards to say he thought someone else should have won. The claims that we have now entered a post-racial society are proved lies as membership and contributions to white supremacist groups and their access to mainstream media rise, with various media getting ratings out of pitting group against group.

This is not about a breakdown in civility as much as it is a continuation of a growing trend, exacerbated by 9/11, to view everyone around us as potential enemies, threats, competition for limited resources, whatever. It’s as if the swine flu came along right in line with this time of fearing one another, to encourage us to put on masks and refrain from touching each other, to isolate ourselves. It seems to be symptomatic of a whole ethos and not just a virus.

In the midst of this we hear from the writer of the book of James, this from the Contemporary English Version: “Are any of you wise and sensible? Then show it by living right and by being humble and wise in everything you do. But if your heart is full of bitter jealousy and selfishness, don’t brag or lie to cover up the truth. Whenever people are jealous or selfish, they cause trouble and do all sorts of cruel things. But the wisdom that comes from above leads us to be pure, friendly, gentle, sensible, kind, helpful, genuine and sincere. When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice.” And in response to the disciples arguing about which one of them was “the greatest,” (whatever that meant), Jesus takes a little child, one of the lowest account in his society, one who could not reciprocate any gift given, a little child and says that a “great” one would be servant of such a child, would “welcome” that child. The word used for welcome here is translated elsewhere as “receive” or “accept” or “show hospitality to.” In other words, not just pat the child on the head and say “nice to see you,” but to serve the needs of the child, and to do so not in a patronizing way, but to receive them into a relationship of mutuality with you. Most of us at some time have had the experience of being “welcomed” somewhere on a surface level but not truly “received” or “accepted.” Jesus calls here for both, and to act this way especially to those you might consider not worthy of such an action on your part.

This is really more than just making nice or trying to do a daily “attitude adjustment.” I really believe this is a countercultural way to look at other human beings that requires some effort, some thinking, some challenging of the status quo, some catching ourselves and others in the act at our most basic levels. Sometimes the Christian faith is part of our lives in a comforting, helpful way. Sometimes to be a disciple of Jesus requires an effort that puts us at odds with conventional wisdom. I can totally understand those who worked in the building where Annie Le was killed being a bit afraid of one another for a few days until the identity of the alleged perpetrator became clear. What I’m challenging today is what is becoming more and more an acceptable attitude of looking at people all the time, especially strangers, with the default position of suspicion, competition and fear. The penchant to do so affects everything in our society, from family to church to work to schools to politics to relationships of all kinds and creates a society based on what divides us rather than the common good. It creates a society based on labels rather than love.

To interact with others as Jesus asks us to do is not very smart in the way the world looks at smart; James said that a couple thousand years ago and it is still, sadly, true. It leaves us open to the possibility of being used or hurt or manipulated. Yes. When I was 21 I was in a serious relationship with a man I thought I might marry. He dumped me. The week after Valentine’s Day. When I went to cry on a friend’s shoulder, she looked at me and said, “All men are idiots (that’s not actually the word she used), and when you forget it, they remind you.” For a while, that very funny sentence comforted me, and I thought that if I really internalized this, it would keep me from ever getting hurt by a guy again. It was the really smart way to protect myself. Soon I realized, though, that it also was causing me to put distance between myself and men that impeded not only romance, but friendship. That same year I met Gavin. Again and again, I think, we are called to challenge what the world calls “smart,” and recognize how Christ’s kind of openness can also result in being loved and changing lives.

On September 11 this year, I was at the Hartford airport ready to get on an airplane. I walked down a hallway to a place where a large screen TV was tuned to MSNBC, which was doing a real time rebroadcast of the events of 9/11, 2001. Sitting watching this on her break was a young woman in a Transportation Safety Administration uniform. I stood there watching for a moment, and then I said to her, “I don’t think I can watch this on 9/11 when I’m about to get on an airplane!” She turned and looked at me with the most sincere, gentle, kind face and simply said, “You’re safe.” Her words and the way she spoke them almost made me cry. This woman had been trained to view everyone she met in her work day with suspicion; you might say her job was to be suspicious of everyone. She might have heard my words as indicating I didn’t trust her to do her job and been offended. Or she might have responded with a statement about how we must always be vigilant! But in that moment, she heard a stranger, me, and heard not just my words, but the lingering pain those of us who watched those towers fall will always carry with us. She received me in that pain and, yes, fear, and reached out to touch me with words of comfort. In that moment, to her, I was not a threat, but a human being. In that moment for me, she was a model of what both James and Jesus urged on believers, and she continues to be, though she will never know it.

That’s how it is often with being kind, gentle, peaceable, full of mercy, open to listen to what others have to say. It may be that by being this way with people lives are changed in ways we never see. You and I are welcome here today, welcome to be together in the presence of Christ who receives us, accepts us, and seeks to be in a relationship of love and mercy with us. If we respond equally, we will be changed. It’s worth the risk. Amen.