Second Sunday After Pentecost\/B<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Sermon by Rev. James Eaton \u00a9 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n
June 6, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1<\/a> \u2022 Mark 3:20-35<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n My family and I recently moved to new city: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, so we\u2019re meeting a lot of new people. One of the rituals of meeting people is answering the question, \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d That’s never been a problem for me because I have been working since I was 14. But in January I retired. So it first, I wasn’t sure just how to answer this question. And then it occurred to me one day to simply say, \u201cI’m retired.\u201d Most people let it go with that, which I find interesting, since it really says nothing other than I don’t work for money. Some people ask some people ask, \u201cWhat are you retired from?” To which I reply, \u201cWell, I used to be a pastor.\u201d Now the community in which we live is very diverse but on the whole it’s a pretty liberal place and of course more and more today being a Christian is seen as a conservative flag wave. So to avoid putting people off, I immediately tell them well I was a pastor of a Congregational Church. The problem is most people here don’t know what a Congregational Church is; this is Presbyterian and Catholic territory and evangelicals. Those are the three choices: Presbyterian Catholic evangelical, so I have to then explain, \u201cWell it’s something like the UCC or like Unitarians, although I myself am not a Unitarian. Seeing this process has made me realize how carefully we divide people into categories. What\u2019s your category? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Modern life is built on what’s called micro targeting. Micro targeting is a process by which we are all divided up into more and more and more categories. The categories are used to sell things including politics. You can see this process at work. Search the web for a product or information: retirement activities in Harrisburg, for example. The next thing you know, you get a slew of ads that promise retirement income, dates for people over 50, and medical ads I\u2019d rather not mention. Our categories are also part of our identity. Because we have allowed ourselves to participate and to embrace the targeting, we have divided ourselves into categories, there is inevitable conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see it in our politics where elections are supposed to solve conflicts. Now that basic principle is being denied by a Big Lie and efforts to discourage voting. We see it in social lives where the business of wearing a mask or getting vaccinated has become a battleground. Even churches are divided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s a good day to read from Paul\u2019s second letter to the Corinthian Christians. Division in the church is the reason he wrote them and what we call Second Corinthians is actually pieced together from several letters. The Corinthians are divided because some are following a new leader and refusing to listen to Paul. What\u2019s Paul\u2019s solution? <\/p>\n\n\n\n First, he points them back from their own party spirit to the one Spirit given by Christ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture\u2014\u201cI believed, and so I spoke\u201d \u2014we also believe, and so we speak, 14<\/sup>because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence.<\/p>2 Corinthians 4:13f<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n For Christians, our first principle is always the Risen Lord. This is our source although, as Paul says elsewhere, \u201c\u2026we have this treasure in clay jars\u2026\u201d 2 Cor 4:7 What matters is the treasure, not the jar that contains it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So what can we learn by turning to Jesus? Today\u2019s Gospel reading is all about conflict. The culture of Galilee was full of categories. Jew and Gentile, Male and Female, free and slave, peasant and rich, city dweller, farmer, Roman, and so many others. Within these categories were others: Jews who were Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, priests, and people like tax collectors who were generally looked down upon. All the categories of our time\u2014gender, class, race, ethnicity\u2014existed then as well as now. So perhaps we can learn from this moment how to live in our moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus has just started his ministry. John the Baptist has been arrested; Jesus began preaching the arrival of God\u2019s rule. He begins to attract crowds and he chooses disciples. He casts out demons, he heals people. He also attracts conflict; scribes\u2014we would call them lawyers\u2014claim what he\u2019s doing is wrong. But he continues and continues to attract crowds. Things come to a head over healing on the sabbath and the scandalous fact that he eats with sinners and women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, his mother and brothers come and send for him, apparently to get him to stop. This is his reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho are my mother and my brothers?\u201d 34<\/sup>And looking at those who sat around him, he said, \u201cHere are my mother and my brothers! 35<\/sup>Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, in all the culture of the Roman world, in all the culture of the Judea at the time, the most fundamental category of all was family. Roman heads of household\u2014fathers\u2014could settle disputes within a family with the force of law. So this is astonishing: Jesus is taking this family value and stretching it to include everyone \u201cwho does the will of God\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the signature act of Jesus: he breaks boundaries, he creates community. The scribes who oppose him aren\u2019t enemies, they are family\u2014if they do the will of God. The outcasts in the communities he visits aren\u2019t outcast from him\u2014they are family, if they do the will of God. Everyone isn\u2019t just welcome, everyone is welcome. Everyone matters. Everyone is a child of God. In Jesus, the categories which conflict are transformed into communities of care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t my insight, this isn\u2019t a bright idea I had thinking about these readings, this is how Christian Churches spread. Historians tell us that it wasn\u2019t mass conversions that led to the spread of the church, it was two great leaps forward, both of which occurred during pandemics. Lyman Stone is an historian who notes that during a great pandemic in the Roman Empire in the second century AD, as many as a quarter of the population died. The culture of the time cast out the sick but Christians cared for the sick, whether church folks or not. A century later, another pandemic struck and he notes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n It triggered the explosive growth of Christianity. Cyprian\u2019s sermons told Christians not to grieve for plague victims<\/a> (who live in heaven), but to redouble efforts to care for the living. His fellow bishop Dionysius described how Christians, \u201cHeedless of danger \u2026 took charge of the sick, attending to their every need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n