Healing Religious Divisions

Healing Religious Divisions

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

January 26, 2014; 3 Epiphany, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(1 Corinthians 1:10-17)  I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

(Matthew 4:12-23)  When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles--
the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

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“It has been reported to me… that there are quarrels among you.”  It’s not hard to guess.  The topic is religion.  And those are words from our Christian scriptures.  “It has been reported to me… that there are quarrels among you.”  What do you know?  Disagreements about religion. 

It fills our news reports.  How many of the violent conflicts in the world today are partially if not primarily fueled by religious quarrels.  Human history is filled with stories of people killing in the name of God.  It happens between religions; it happens within religions.

Paul writes to the Christian church in Corinth where there is an open conflict between parties:  “I belong to Paul.”  “I belong to Apollos.”  “I belong to Cephas.”  “I belong to Christ.”  Each of these parties belongs to the same church.  They are sincere and committed followers of Jesus.  And they disagree enough to create identifiable parties that threaten their union and their mission.

There is also some significant division and conflict within today’s Gospel reading, though you need to know a little extra to actually see it.  The sentence “[Jesus] left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum” is a loaded sentence.

Jesus’ hometown Nazareth was probably a village of a party of Natzrenes.  The name of the town comes from the Hebrew word netzer, meaning “shoot.”  Isaiah prophesizes, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:1-2)

Some scholars think that the clan of David, Jesse’s son, inhabited Natzareth to be a community of the “shoot” that “shall come out from the stump of Jesse.”  They would have been isolationists, marrying within the clan, inwardly-focused, acting with the outside world only when necessary – waiting for the Messiah that they expected would come from among their own.  They would have believed that they were the sole possessors of Divine truth and that all others were heretics.  It was groups like these that preserved genealogies such as we find in Matthew and in Luke.[i]

The village of Capernaum was situated on the Sea of Galilee, not far from a significant extension of the major east-west trade route, the Via Maris.  It was accessible to caravans from most of the known world.  The village synagogue was allied to the more moderate-liberal House (or School) of Hillel.  For Hillel, loving God and loving neighbor took precedence over all other laws, including the Sabbath.  We see Jesus quoting Hillel when he says, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)  That was a hot-button topic of religious debate between the more liberal House of Hillel and the more conservative House of Shammai.  Jesus took sides in that debate, and was attacked by conservatives for healing on the Sabbath.

So in this little vignette of today’s gospel, we have regional and theological divisions within the geography of the passage:  the rigid separatists of Nazareth, the Gentile influenced liberalism of Jesus’ new home Capernaum.  And we have the traditional powers of Jerusalem who always were looking over their shoulders at the odd things that tended to happen up north in Galilee, the people “who lived in a land of deep darkness.”  And just below the surface, we might wonder what John the Baptist is thinking.  He is under arrest.  His disciples like Andrew continue to leave his community to join Jesus.  Yet, there is no sign of what he hoped for from a Messiah:  the winnowing fork and fire that will burn the wrongdoers like chaff.

There is enough material in today’s readings to provoke centuries of war. 

Must it be so?

I have some firm beliefs.  I worship Jesus the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  That sounds pretty exclusive, doesn’t it?

I believe that before time and forever, God the Holy Trinity has been pouring God’s Divine Life into the very matter of creation.  I believe that the Holy Spirit, immanent within creation from the beginning, became enfleshed in Jesus.  Enfleshed, but not exhausted in Jesus. 

For me, the Spirit of Christ is present everywhere, at all times.  Wherever there is an ounce of truth, goodness or beauty – there is what I know as the Spirit of Christ.  Wherever there is any wisdom, compassion or freedom – there is what I know as the Spirit of Christ.  Wherever people respond with faith, hope or love – they are breathing what I know as the Spirit of Christ.  Wherever people connect with the infinite depths of the Mystery of God – there is the dazzling darkness of the mystical Spirit of Christ that I believe in. 

I have become convinced that you do not have to believe in Jesus to follow him.  I know lots of people who are more faithful than I am to what I know as the Spirit of Christ, people who do not believe in Jesus as I do.  They experience and honor the infinite creative divine mystery.  They may call it the “Buddha-nature” or the “Shekhinah” or “Elohim” or “Shakti” or “Tao” or “Ch’i” or “Allah” or “Brahman” or have no name whatsoever.  I know people who honor what I call the Incarnation of God by their reverence for the mysterious spirit of the earth and for the holiness of humanity.

It’s a bit ironic, but I find I am often more comfortable with people who use entirely different names to speak of the mysterious loving energy I call Father, Son and Holy Spirit, than I am with some of my own brother and sister Christians who use our holy words to condemn, divide, judge and even curse.  When we see the ravages that religious division has wreaked upon our planet’s history, I find it impossible to condemn the skeptic who has given up religion and instead is nourished by “the beauty of nature, the mystery of music, the creativity of fresh thinking, the intimacies of personal relationship, and the courage with which [humans] have faced difficult times.”[ii]

When St. Paul says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and temperance” there is no implied Christian monopoly over such divine indwelling.  Paul declares, “There is no law against these things.”  (Galatians 5:22-23)

It seems to me that there is a great fraternity of large-hearted people who are able to recognize the web of spiritual interconnectedness between spiritual traditions and religions systems.  They approach each other with openness, eager to learn from one another, while moving deeper within their inheritance and growing more in their own tradition.  They are not alike, but they are kin.  And they recognize that God is greater than any particular human religion or revelation.  Their respect for the mystery of the ultimate humbles their particular claims.  They can be peacemakers.

In such a Spirit, divisions are opportunities for new understanding.  We are invited to see the Divine through other windows.  Two Saturdays from today, on February 8, we will host a gathering of these people on Interfaith Harmony Day. 

As a Christian, I believe that every human being is a child of God.  Everyone is created in the image and likeness of God.  It is our job to repent and to recognize that the kingdom of God has indeed come very near.  It is our calling to recognize the deeper unity that Paul urges upon the divided Corinthians. 

It is our job to fish for people – to search beneath the surface into the mystery below our vision, and to discover the teeming divine life that surrounds and supports us.

Be fishers of people.  Look below the quarrels that divide religious people.  Patiently wait, and watch.  Then set your hooks.  Set your hooks into whatever expression of wisdom, compassion and freedom you can catch.  Set your hooks into every expression of truth, goodness and beauty.  Bring forth to the surface every moment of faith, hope and love.  Let the perfect love of God cast out fear, especially fear of the stranger or the different one.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if those who are religious were known no more as quarrelers, but rather as peacemakers.

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[i] Charles Page, Jesus and the Land, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1995, p. 33-38.

[ii] Jay, McDaniel, Living from the Center, Chalice Press, St. Louis, 2000, p. 27.