“Bonding and Bridging”
A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, January 15, 2012
First Congregational Church of Stoughton, United Church of
Christ
Text: Matthew 15:21-28
In his
poem “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost writes, “Something there is that doesn’t love
a wall, that wants it down.”
In the
poem, a farmer comes out in the spring with his neighbor to walk their property
line. They do this every spring, and every
spring they find the same thing: the stone wall that had stood erect earlier in
the year has crumbled. Maybe it’s the
wind, maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s a mystery; but something keeps
knocking down the wall that separates those neighbors. Every year they build it up again, and over
the following year, it once again falls into disrepair. The other farmer likes having the wall there:
“Good fences make good neighbors,” he says.
Nevertheless, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants
it down.”
This is
a most appropriate weekend to talk about walls and efforts to knock them down. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. tore down
walls of brutality, hate and inequality by committing his life to the cause of
peace, equality, and justice.
And one year ago
this weekend, this church voted overwhelmingly to accept our Welcome Statement to
ensure that differences such as race,
gender, nationality, ethnicity, faith background, marital status,
family structure, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender identity,
gender expression and physical or mental disability would be embraced as part
of God’s diverse creation rather than serve as walls to divide people. By accepting that Welcome Statement, we
became an Open and Affirming congregation, making a public and definitive
welcome to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual people into the full life
and ministry of this church. I hope that
you saw the article in this week’s Stoughton
Journal marking the anniversary of this important milestone in the life of
our church.
In the
Gospels, Jesus is all about taking down barriers; Robert Frost might have
described him, too, as “Someone that doesn’t love a wall.”
But that
doesn’t seem to be the Jesus depicted in this morning’s scripture lesson from
Matthew. It is a striking story, one that I have used before in talking about
who might be thought of as within and beyond the reach of God’s love. In this passage, Jesus comes across not as fully human and fully divine,
but as fully human period, with no image of God reflected in his words and actions.
He is in Gentile country seeking
respite from the crowds when a Canaanite woman rushes up to him, begging Jesus
to heal her afflicted daughter. “Have
mercy on my, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” This woman has much going against her. She is a foreigner, a Gentile, and a hated
Canaanite. And if that weren’t enough,
as a woman in an oppressively patriarchal culture, she is supposed to be seen and
not heard. As we begin to read this
passage, we anticipate that Jesus will be above the prejudices of society in
first century Palestine; we expect him to uplift and affirm this outcast woman;
we expect another show of compassion, another miracle, another person made
well.
But inexplicably, he ignores her,
not even responding to her pleading words.
Undaunted, she keeps shouting
after him. The disciples urge Jesus to
send her away, and he seems to agree with them, making a statement that sounds
like a rationalization: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.”
Can this be the same Jesus of Nazareth who laid his hands
on the sick and the needy, who ate with the marginalized of society, and who
transformed the life of Levi, the hated tax collector, into Matthew the
disciple and writer of this Gospel?
That is the Jesus we expect to see.
And yet, the Jesus in this story
says to the woman, “You don’t belong.
You’re not my concern.” Crushed,
she falls on her knees, and cries out once again, “Lord, help me.” And again he dismisses her, this time with
the condescending response, “It’s not right to take food out of the hands of
your children to feed the stray dogs.”
We struggle with this story, with
this depiction of Jesus. And for
generations biblical scholars have searched for some reason, some explanation,
that would explain away Jesus’ harsh words and inaction. I suggest that in this story, Jesus –
fully divine and fully human -- is holding
up a mirror into our own human hearts and giving us a picture that we might not
want to see of ourselves.
It is
part of our humanity to want to connect, to belong, to be part of a
community. And yet the shadow-side of being
part of a community is not being part of a community – those who don’t get chosen at recess, whose
invitations to dance get turned down, who get blackballed and cold-shouldered
and voted off the island. There are any
number of reasons why those who are already in the group will keep others out
of the group – pride, fear, ignorance, the desire to feel superior.
I
remember distinctly in junior high and high school you were either in the “in”
crowd or you weren’t. I wasn’t. And when I went back in November for a big
farewell to the high school building, which is being torn down next month, all
those old feelings of insecurity and being on the outside looking in came
rushing back – 40 years later – how sad is that??
Now you might be sitting there
thinking, “Jean, why are you still preaching this message? We’re Open and Affirming now. We’ve made a public declaration to be inclusive
and welcoming. We have already knocked
down the walls.”
Well, maybe… maybe not. I don’t want us ever to get smug or
comfortable thinking that our vote a year ago was a one-time event or an ending
in and of itself. Far from it – it was
just the beginning of a process, because now we are called to live into our
Welcome Statement on an on-going journey to bring all people – no matter who they
are or where they are on life’s journey – into the full life and ministry of
the First Congregational Church of Stoughton.
Notice I said “they” and not “you,”
the way we are used to hearing that tag line phrased. Because, I’m not talking about you, or more
correctly, us. You – we -- are already
here. That’s the difference between
bonding and bridging, which is the title and point of my sermon this morning.
Political Scientist Robert Putnam,
in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse
and Revival of American Community, writes that sociologists distinguish
between two kinds of connections: bonding and bridging.
Bonding happens when people who
perceive themselves to be similar develop deeper connections. Those similarities may be perceived in things
such as race, gender, ethnicity, marital status, family structure,
socio-economic class, and the like which is exactly why we include them in our
Welcome Statement. We don’t want similarities
which might serve to bond some people also serve to exclude others. But another bond that can happen in this
church is -- being in this church.
You’re here, I’m here, and even if we have nothing else in common but
the fact that we’re both here, that’s enough; we’re bonded. And that’s great. That’s wonderful.
But it’s not enough.
And that leads me to bridging.
Bridging requires us to look
outward.
That’s where the walls of this
church can sometimes serve as the wrong kind of walls – the kind that wall us
in or wall others out.
And so
the challenge for all of us as we enter our second year of being an Open and
Affirming congregation and of living into our Welcome Statement is not to be
content with welcoming whoever shows up at our doorstep. Our challenge is to go out beyond these walls
and build bridges with people we have nothing in common with except being
members of God’s family. And invite them
here to experience God’s gracious, extravagant, all-inclusive love.
In the
very last verse of this morning’s lesson, we see the Jesus we expect, and he stops and pays attention to the Canaanite
woman, he hears her need, he responds with compassion, and he heals her
daughter. As he has done so many times
before, he knocks down the barriers that separates people and focused on
building bridges with the inclusive and boundless love of God
“Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.” Like Jesus, may we help to knock down those
walls, deepening bonds in here, and building bridges out there. May we continue on our journey of extending
God’s gracious, extravagant, inclusive love, welcome and invitation with all. Amen.
