Pentecost 7

The Reverend Martha Frances
Year B, Pentecost 7, Proper 11
23 July 2006

Text:  Mark 6: 30-44
Other Readings: Isaiah 57: 14b-21; Psalm 22: 22-30; Ephesians 2: 11-22

Have you ever felt like the outsider?  The one left out when your friends were invited to a party?  The one who, for whatever reason, did not fit into the group?  I know I have.  My family moved quite frequently when I was a child, & It seemed I was always having to make new friends, find my niche, learn who I could trust & who to avoid.  Even as an extrovert & being of the majority race almost everywhere I’ve lived, starting over again was never easy.  The pain of being different still washes over me when I enter a new environment.
THE BIG ISSUE in the early church was that of inclusion, & the author of the Ephesians is dealing with just such an issue in the epistle for today.  The earliest Christians were Jewish, & it was only after the apostles were confronted in visions such as Peter’s dream of a sheet full of unclean animals to eat was offered to him combined with experiences like Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch that Jesus’ disciples began to focus much of their missionary work on the Gentile community.  By the time Ephesians was written, the churches were sorting out how Jewish Christians & Gentile Christians were to live together in unity.
The author of Ephesians, actually one of Paul’s disciples, we believe, reminds those new Christian groups that, because of Jesus, those who were far off have now been brought near, that Christ has broken down the dividing line—the hostility—between the two groups.  Of course, this writing wouldn’t have had to speak thus had all been going smoothly within the nascent Christian communities.  Notice the many ways he reminds the Christians that they are to be united in Christ:
“he has made both groups into one,
broken down the dividing wall, thehostility between us,
create in himself one new humanity in place of the two,
reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross,
you are no longer strangers & aliens, but you are citizens with
the saints & also members of the household of God.”
     We in this congregation remember the time when Black Episcopalians worshiped on one side of town & Anglos on the other.  No one thought that Hispanic Christians might choose another denomination than Roman Catholic until the Pentecostals made such inroads in Hispanic communities, whereupon we from mainline denominations woke up & began to scramble to learn Spanish & figure out what Hispanic ministry might entail.  Our churches are much more integrated than when I was a child or young adult, but we at Hope are still certainly in the minority.  By & large, Sunday morning is still the most segregated time in the United States.  
     When I was at Lord of the Streets, I worked with those who are still the outcast, the “different ones,” due to economic inequity more than racial biases.  As former vicar & executive director there, I listen to readings such as today’s with different ears than I would have previously.  Although Jesus regularly reminds us that the last shall be first & the first last, that we must remember the widows & orphans, & that those who care for society’s least actually care for him, we church people are often reluctant to take Christ’s admonitions to care for those most vulnerable in society seriously.  “Charity” has long been part of our ethos, but many folks still cringe at the thought of having “those people” in our own back yards, so to speak.  As we look across the street to Black Middle School, we know that many underserved & struggling young people attend there.  Please pray for the group who meet today & in the near future to determine how we can reach out to those who need a tutor, a grandparent figure, an adult friend.
     Listen, if you can, with the ears of those who are “different,” to Jesus’ teaching, he who has compassion for them because they are sheep without a shepherd.  Our gospel reading today is one of the few places in Mark’s gospel where he uses the word “apostles,” but they have been out on their mission that we discussed last week, & apostle means “one who is sent.”  Apostle emphasized the direct connection between the one sent & Jesus who sends him or her.  We’re sent in Jesus’ name out of our comfortable church into the city to feed the hungry with spiritual as well as physical food.
     Jesus taught the crowd all day in this deserted place, in a place where nourishment was scarce, where the elements tore at the people & battered them pretty badly, especially those who had no shelter.  The disciples asked Jesus at the end of the day how they would have enough food to share with all these people, & Jesus gathered what they could scramble around & find, the scripture tells us—5 loaves & 2 fish—& when Jesus took them, looked up to heaven, blessed & broke the loaves & gave them to the people, there was sufficient for all & 12 baskets left over.  Does this sound something like our Eucharist?  The allusions to the Lord’s Supper are certainly intentional, & we must share both our spiritual bounty & physical amenities with those in need.  Let us pray for how Christ is calling Hope to extend God’s abundance beyond our walls, & then let us have the courage to act generously.