Today's Sermon

 

"Finding God Through Finding Each Other"

 

Romans 12:15-18
            ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 

                        “Finding God Through Finding Each Other:  The Gifts of Paul 7”
            A shorter reflection today given the video retrospective from our high school mission trip, a reflection in light of such a trip.  As I think about adolescence, my mind is drawn to the classic The Catcher in the Ryein which the brutally honest and acerbic protagonist Holden Caufield wrestles with the world he experiences.  In a telling passage, he is reflecting on how every square inch of the world seems to have been profaned.  It bothers him, but even more it bothers him on behalf of his younger sister Phoebe, whom he would like to inherit a less defaced world.  It reads (and I’ll allow you to fill in the profane blanks):

While I was walking up the stairs…all of a sudden I thought I was going to puke again. Only, I didn’t. I sat down for a second, and then I felt better. But while I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written “---- you” on the wall. It drove me ---- near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the ---- it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them—all cockeyed, naturally—what it meant, and how they’d all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever’d written it.[1

Holden’s own crassness only matches what he sees and bemoans about the world.  He’s had enough. 

            While I want to be careful not to generalize, the young’s experience of the world is raw, honest, sometimes understandably cynical, and yet often they’re not ready to abandon hope for what could be. 

            Why do we send our youth on mission trips?  In part it’s to see.  The practice evolved out of efforts to go and do good for those who needed it.  Well, it’s older roots were in proselytizing, but our brand has been more about service.  There is good in this.  Those who have so much should lend a hand to those who have less, though we have seen the limitations and errors of that way of thinking, for it makes assumptions and reinforces a power dynamic and can lead to doing more harm than good.  We’ve grown.  We do the trips now as much out of cultural exchange, for we know if we were just about helping, sending money would be far more efficient.  We go to connect with others who may have had different backgrounds and we go so our own group members form internal bonds that might carry them through the year back here, since the bond of faith is rare in a context such as ours.

            The Romans passage you heard, which we heard last week, offers several pieces of wisdom for how to be and connect.  It just fit too well.  Paul writes, “rejoice with those who rejoice”—or laugh you sometimes hear it—and “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).  It’s about sharing space and experience with others, not trying to fix them.  That’s what real being together is about. Realize you’re not better than anyone else; don’t assume you’re smarter (v. 16).  Others have something to teach you.  Learn to live peaceably with others best you can (18), which is to acknowledge it won’t be easy, but it’s an important lesson.  It’s a good lesson to begin young, and it’s one not to abandon as we grow older.

            The Exodus passage too offers something to this conversation.  It features the famous image of the burning bush burning with God’s presence but not being consumed.  That’s how God introduces God’s self to Moses.  God then instructs Moses to take off his sandals, “for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5).  What makes it holy?  This is a question to sit with.  A recognition of holiness, reverence you might call it, is the opposite of what Holden Caufield experiences.  Nothing is sacred anymore, everywhere is liable to be profaned.  We know that people and creatures bear the same treatment. 

            I believe, though I am not the expert, just a fellow student, part of the reason we go on trips with youth is to move through the world as a people seeking faith and seeking to treat the world as holy ground, the other as holy, one another as holy:  laughing plenty—and you see evidence of that in the video—and probably crying some—that more privately.  In the end, I think what we’re doing, knowing we can’t but leave a mark on the world, is learning both to see and ultimately write something better, something more beautiful for our younger sisters and brothers to see.

            Amen.

 

[1]J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye