|
|
Sermon by Ellen Francis, OSH |
Preached by Ellen Francis, OSH on Sunday July 15, 2007 at the Convent of St. Helena, Vails Gate NYand Grace Church, Monroe NY
I think we’ve all seen photos taken from space and with the newest telescopes: images of incredible beauty and variety, of galaxies, planets and even of our own Earth. This past week on BBC news they showed the beginning of the universe, 13.7 billion years ago (give or take a few million…). I’m not quite sure how they took this film, but I gather that with the time it takes for light to travel across the universe, the film shows what happened at the beginning of time. This film starts with a bright spot at the center of the screen, then an enormous flash of light, and then a brilliant ball at the center of the screen with a ring of light around it. In the flash of light, the core of the universe exploded (I don’t know what else to call it), and then everything expanded at the perfect speed. If the expansion had been too fast, the universe would have dissipated into space. If it had been too slow, everything would have imploded back to the center again. It seems a true miracle that it all happened with just the right speed and force and with a delicate balance of creative energy, so that the universe could come into being. The universe continued to expand, and is expanding still, over immense distances which we can hardly imagine.If this is all true, then at the beginning, all of creation was contained within that one, incredibly dense ball of light. All of the matter and energy in the universe, the milky way, our solar system, planet Earth, and all Earth’s living creatures were contained in that one point in space. As the universe expanded, God’s creative energy brought about fantastic diversity and many billion years later breathed life into the creatures of Earth. I think this is entirely consistent with the spirit of the Biblical story, in which God created humans out of the dust, and in which Christ is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
So, we are truly one people, and we share a physical ancestry with all other creatures and living things and even non-animate things on Earth. But then we know from the Bible stories, as well as from history, that the one original family of humans divided into tribes and ethnic groups and nations that couldn’t speak to each other and began to be at odds with one other and began to see each other as competition and as enemies.
In the story we heard today from the Gospel of Luke, we will lose the real power of the story unless we remember that the Samaritan is a despised foreigner to the Jews. They were the descendents of two groups of people, closely related to the Jews and with shared history. It’s ironic that they became “the foreigners”. When the Assyrians conquered the land of Israel in the 8th century BCE, they followed their usual custom of deporting the conquered people in order to better control their empire. They deported the Hebrews to Assyria, in the East, and they deported other conquered peoples into the land of Israel. There were only a small number of the very poorest people who were left of the original Hebrews in Israel. The Samaritans were the descendents of those very poor Hebrews left behind in Israel to work the land, and of the other peoples who were brought there from other conquered lands.
Years later, in 538 BCE, Cyrus the Great permitted the return of the Hebrews from Babylon to Israel. When these Jews returned to Israel, they considered themselves the “real deal”. They found people living in Samaria who were worshipping differently and whose scriptures were different from the approved texts. By the time of Jesus, the Samaritans had a separate religion with a Samaritan Bible and with a different center of worship, on Mr. Gerizim, rather than in Jerusalem. They were politically separate, and had a long history of differences and antagonism with the Jews. For example, in the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman, the evangelist says, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans” (John 4:9b). When Jesus heals the lepers, he notes that the Samaritan is the only one who returns to give thanks, and even Jesus calls him “this foreigner” (Luke 17:18).
The Jews had ostracized the Samaritans, and yet they had so much in common. They were really the descendents of the original Hebrews and of other displaced persons. They had both blood in common, and the common experience of being “strangers in the land of Egypt”. Yet, as all-too-frequently seems to happen, those returning from exile separated themselves from the inhabitants of Samaria. Gradually, “Samaritan” became the stranger, the foreigner and apostate. In the story that we heard today, Jesus tells of a priest and a Levite who “pass by on the other side” of the street so that they won’t touch the unfortunate man and become ritually unclean. They are putting their ritual responsibilities first, rather than caring for someone clearly in need of assistance. But the divine, in Jesus, tells of compassion and of “showing mercy” to “the foreigner”, who is really our neighbor.
We are all one people, one creation, with one fragile home planet, and one in the matter and energy of all creation. One God created us all. What we hold in common is so much more than what divides us. Today, we will be taking a significant step to strengthen our sense of being “neighbors” to one another. Today, we will all witness and take part in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, and celebrate a new membership in the body of Christ. This child will be marked as Christ’s own, and we will welcome him and promise to support him on his faith journey. It seems to me that we are not so much washing away sins (he hasn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to sin yet!), but rather in baptism we are washing away our sin of separation from the love of God and the grace of God.
As we renew our own baptismal vows, let us remember our own commitment to renounce evil and the forces which divide us. Let us be strengthened in our resolve to love our neighbors as ourselves and to respect the dignity of every human being. With God’s help and grace we can do all these things. We are one body, in Christ, and one in creation. In Christ, we are rescued from the power of darkness and isolation, and welcomed into the creative power of transformation to live and walk together in God’s love.