So this scene -- If you
haven’t seen the movie “Goonies,” I guess it doesn’t make much sense. But if you HAVE seen the movie Goonies –
well, let’s be real, it might not make very much sense either…
Chunk and Sloth… best
names ever… they’re just so different. I
mean, so much so that it doesn’t really need to be said, right? Sweet white kid from the suburbs – poked fun
of because he has had too much food available in his life… Versus man born with
extreme birth defects into an evil family who has kept him chained up and
starving…
When they first meet,
Chunk is terrified, of course – at the end of the movie, Chunk vows to bring
him into his family.
Even in a story, how can
people this different be reconciled together into family?
So Chunk and Sloth are so
different that reconciliation together seems impossible – but they are both
human beings. How different, then, is
God from us? We are created in their image
– but we are definitely not God! The
distance is probably even beyond our comprehension.
And we humans – well,
sometimes we are not very good at “different.”
Not good at it, but oh how we LOVE
different -- We embrace it with outright
glee sometimes.
Giants fans versus –
well, everyone else…
Country music versus pop
fans… Team Edward vs Team Jacob… Coke versus Pepsi…
And one of my personal
favorites – Chicago Theological Seminary vs, say… Luther….
Some of these are fun, no
doubt. But what about when they’re just
not?
What about
“conservatives” and “liberals?” CNN vs
Fox? Light skinned versus dark
skinned? Latino immigrant vs European
immigrant? Sleeping on a bed vs sleeping
on the street? Sick or healthy? College educated versus trade school
educated? Poor vs Rich? My family…. vs your family?
Yeah. We love differences.
Sometimes that enjoyment
is surface and all in good fun – And sometimes we embrace it as our very core,
as our birthright – this is ME and MINE – and that is THEM.
But God – God does
something else. RADICAL, even.
He sees our incredibly
other-ness and loves that other-ness. And not only this, but Paul writes that he
reconciled with us while we were GOD’S ENEMIES.
Enemies. An enemy actively works against another
person.
Yet it is when we, you
and I, are actively working against God’s purposes that Jesus loves us and dies
for us. Jesus refuses to enter into the
“US vs THEM.” Jesus says “WE” and then
proves his commitment to that “we” through his death.
Jesus walked into rival
gang territory and said “no more division” – all the while completely knowing
that he was going to be killed on sight.
That sounds pretty
futile. Was it a useless gesture? Jesus laying his life down for God’s enemies?
It may be obvious by the
fact that I’m standing up here that MY answer to that is a hard “no” – and with
Paul I’m also very willing to argue that that isn’t the end of the
conversation. In fact, Paul goes on to
say that we are reconciled by Jesus death – and that we are saved by his life.
Now if you’d like to have
a conversation about all the cool twisty and turny ways of thinking about that
statement, I am definitely your girl and I will meet you in my Starbucks office
any time…
But, as much as I would love
that as conversational fun, I think the real point is a lot simpler. I think the point is that God is at peace
with us – but Jesus give us clues during his life of how to live into that
peace and fulfill God’s vision of what that looks like.
And Jesus tells us a lot of ways to do that, but there is one way that he says is the very first, and that no way is greater – “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
We can hear this in a lot
of ways – and those ways are influenced by where we were born and where we live
– independent individualism is highly valued in our culture—and this passage
can trip people up because of that. In
fact, I heard in a group this week, “some days I hate myself, why would God
want me to think of others like that?”
But I would suggest that
this is not the way we should look at this statement. Jesus wasn’t speaking to a person with our
individualism values – in fact, he was quoting a much more ancient text –
Leviticus. And Leviticus 19:18 in the
Hebrew reads “Do not bear grudges against other tribes but love your neighbors
as if they are yourselves.” 
Love the people next door
as if they are the people living in your house.
Wait – what? Who says I have to be responsible for my next
door neighbors like I am for my family?
I mean, one side is easy – it’s the Walthers, and they ARE part of my
church family – but the other side? Who
are they? I mean, they’re not unfriendly
– but they are NOT family.
But Jesus says love the
people that are not family as if they are your family. Care for the people outside your tribe as you
do the people inside your tribe.
If you’re a Giants fan –
love the non-Giants fans as if they are.
Love the Buddhists as if
they are Lutherans.
Love the Colombian or Syrian
as if they are Americans.
This is the first,
foremost, greatest commandment, according to Jesus Christ.
I would say – and maybe
this is too bold, but it is my perception—that right now our culture is
experiencing a descent into protective tribalism. Divisions – angry divisions – seem to
characterize our discourse.
I am not talking about disagreements.
Or even criticism. Healthy
disagreements and vigorous conversations about them is one way we progress as individual
people and as a culture.
But that’s not what I’m
seeing. I’m seeing that we are in a
hamster wheel of vilifying those who disagree – simply deciding that those who
hold different views on politics or religious or social issues are evil and
maybe not even as human as we are.
That is creating an
oversimplified us and them. We are
dividing along tribal lines and losing a sense of unity and community. It’s true that God doesn’t tell us not to
have tribes – as I said earlier, I think God knows how much we love them – but
we are not treating other tribes the way God commands us.
In fact, it seems more to
be the case right now that if you are not part of my tribe, I am free to treat
you with disrespect, or with violence, or as less than human – using
dehumanizing language in public spaces such as “illegals,” or “deplorables,” –
“Drumpsters,” – “Libtards” – This is not healthy disagreement or productive
criticism. This is separating my tribe
of human beings from your tribe – not human beings.
God knows that this is in
us. But the first commandment – and
Jesus never says this about anything else – the first, he says, and none is
greater – the commandment that should be the very top of our list – before pray,
before confess, before show up at church, before “do this in remembrance of
me..” –
First, the Lord your God
commands you – love the other tribe as if it is your tribe.
Easy words – extremely
difficult actions, right? I mean, I dare
you – next time you’re at Rawhide, sit with all your local fan friends and
cheer super loud for the opposing team.
That’s going to be really fun, right?
And when it’s something that you feel is deeply important for the future
of your country, or your church, or your children – well, it gets exponentially
harder.
But the good news is that
Jesus doesn’t command us to monitor other people’s actions or obey this
commandment for anyone but ourselves. He
commands us to do it. And there are small
changes even in our hearts and thought patterns that obey this
commandment. We are given opportunities in
which we are confronted with other tribes constantly. How will we respond?
David Frederickson, who
is one of my favorite professors at Luther, said something during my summer
class that I haven’t been able to shake in the six weeks since I was there – he
said, “If you want to experience God in your life, find the radically excluded
and stick to them like barnacles. That’s
where you will find God.”
“If you want to
experience God in your life, find the radically excluded and stick to them like
barnacles – that’s where you will find God.”
And we want that,
right? How many of us have struggled
with times when God has seemed distant?
How many of us long for closeness with Jesus Christ? And here, right here, he gives us a road map
with a big giant X on the treasure. Find
the excluded, the ones outside your tribe – love them and you will find
God. A promise with no conditions on
it. “Here I am,” says Christ. Come and love me.
God loves us as if we are
family. God commands us to love others
as if they are family.
And with that command
comes a promise that when we do, we will find and experience God.
May that experience be
the deepest desire of our hearts. Amen
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