Learning time at Harrow United Church, June 11, 2023
Last week, my daughter, who lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia said when she went outside, she could smell the smoke in the air from the wild fires that were burning outside the city. Fortunately, there was rain on the weekend, and things are more under control.
But it forced a lot of people out of their homes, and many more to think about what it would mean to evacuate.
I hold in my prayers all those families, and communities who’ve had to leave, or be ready to leave, in case the fire burns towards them.
Have you ever heard of a bug-out bag? It’s the bag some folks always have ready, in case of an emergency evacuation. You can click on the link below to preview a book about them. This guy knows way more than I do!
Think of the old party question. “If the house was burning down, and you only had 5 minutes to decide what to take, what would it be?
What would go in your bug-out bag? According to several websites, the rule of thumb for emergency evacuations is the five Ps: People, Pets, Prescriptions, Photos, and Papers.
There’s a story about Abram and Sarai, in their earlier life, before they become Abraham and Sarah. They got the word from God they were to leave the land and people they’d known, and go to a new place that God would show them, where they were to start over, and make a new life. They were to bug-out.
Setting aside questions about whether they were up to the long journey, and whether they could deal with all the changes coming, it struck me as I read this passage, what about all their stuff?
They were, not putting too fine a point on it, old. Older than most of us here this morning. They’d had a lifetime together to acquire possessions. Was it possible, even with the help of servants, to pack everything and take it to the new land that God said was at the other end of a long journey?
I have trouble packing for a short trip. Especially when I have to fly. In these days when it can cost more for my bag to travel than me- so everything has to fit in a backpack I can slide under the seat ahead of me. That’s how I roll, and that’s how I don’t wait for bags to be unloaded from the plane’s underbelly.
But how to pack for a permanent move? Abram and Sarai were not coming back. What they took, would be what they would have.
How do you choose? It’s a practical question, but it’s also a spiritual one. What beliefs and attitudes weigh us down?
There’s a story about Jesus meeting a man named Matthew, who was a tax collector. Jesus invited Matthew to follow him, and the story says Matthew stood up and followed him.
In Jesus’ time, tax collectors were very unpopular. They were local people, who collaborated with the Romans who’d invaded the country. The tax collectors had to deliver a certain quota of revenue to the Roman officials. They were paid a commission. They also had license to collect more, if they could get it out of the poor peasants, and could keep anything above their quota, for themselves. Tax collectors had soldiers assigned to them as enforcers, to keep them, and the money collected, safe for Rome.
Jesus’ friendship with a tax collector was scandalous. Not only were they seen as traitors, collaborators, they dealt, on a daily basis with coins that bore the engraved image of the Emperor. This literally dirty money made them ritually unclean, and not worthy of going to worship in the synagogue or temple, according to the Jewish religious laws.
Being with unclean people, who touched unclean things, made Jesus, in the eyes of the law, suspect of being unclean himself. The technical term is Jesus had cooties. Do you remember that terrible schoolyard game?
The story in Matthew goes on to tell us “Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and misfits?”
Jesus was doing something very similar to what God did with Abram and Sarai. Jesus invited people to follow him, not to a new land, but to a new way of living.
The journey would not be easy, and they would have to travel light. They were not, for example, going to be able to carry all their self-righteous rules about who was clean, and who had cooties.
This new way of traveling, without the weight of some of their traditions, and ways of doing and being they were invested in, could be deeply disturbing to the religious rule keepers. Which is why when they witnessed Jesus at the home of a tax collector, breaking bread with cootie-covered sinners, they asked “what kind of example is this?”
Jesus did not waste a lot of words in his response. He asked, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
I think Jesus was saying he’d been sent by God to offer mercy, love, acceptance, encouragement, not judgment or condemnation. He was fully aware this would not sit well with those who were stuck in their ideas about how things should work. Which is why this version of the Bible, the Message, has Jesus saying, “I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
Every church I have ever worked in, or heard about, sometimes has arguments that spin around the axis of “This is how we do things”. People with a long history in the church are used to certain things being a certain way. People who are new to the congregation- and that often includes the minister, might dare to ask, “Why don’t we try something different.”
As a minister, I have learned how dangerous that can be. It is easier, safer, to go along with all the traditions, not ask the questions, and not make any waves.
It can be like a balancing act. Keep people happy enough to support what the church is doing, but along the way, also convince them that it’s okay to try new ways. Except that for the last 50 years, this careful approach has resulted mostly in churches dying and closing. Many of those that reamin are teetering on the brink, and facing some really hard choices.
The Good News is this could be a kind of Abram and Sarai moment in the history of the church in North America. It may be God is calling to us, to start off on a journey to a new land- which may not be a place, but more like a new way of being. The hard part of that Good News is we may not be able to bring all of our stuff. Amen
Amen!