"US and Them"

Sermon Transcript for June 18, 2000

By Rev. Mike Beck

Scripture Reading: Luke 18:9-14

 

The Jesus we love and come to worship each week was far more non-conventional than we would often like to admit. In fact, I think it would be safe to say, if I were to meticulously follow Jesus’ example in ministry, I almost guarantee that the Staff-Parish Chairperson’s telephone would begin ringing often and it wouldn’t be too long before many in the church would be demanding a change in pastors. You say, "What do you mean by that, Reverend Mike?" The theme of today in this week’s 50-day Spiritual Adventure is that Jesus in his ministry shattered the stereotypes of "us" and "them". For example, look who He chose for His disciples. He didn’t go down to First Church. He called a common fisherman. He called a despised tax collector. He called a zealot. He called a doubter. Look who he wanted to have dinner with, Matthew, the scoundrel, the hated tax collector. He said, "I want to come to your house for dinner." He said the same thing to old Zaccheus. Look at his dealings with women. Women didn’t have their place in society in Jesus’ day that they do now. But Jesus stops there, of all places, Samaria, to have extensive dialogue with a Samaritan woman. Mary Magdalene, that in all likelihood could well have been a prostitute before she became encountered with the Savior becomes one of his closest counterparts. Look at his concern for the disenfranchised members of society. He reached out and touched the lepers--you just didn’t do that in Jesus’ day. He loved to spend time with children. Children in Jesus’ day were third class citizens. He had a very big heart for the poor. And, in contrast, we think that Jesus’ greatest criticisms, who were they directed to? The religious establishment of His day!

He emphatically illustrates this matter of "us-and-them" in His parable of these two guys who went to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee who kept the law meticulously. He lifts his head to God and he says, "God don’t you see all the good things that I do and aren’t you glad I’m not like the guy over there." The guy over there, a tax collector, in his shame he doesn’t even look up to God but beats upon his breast and said, "Lord, have mercy upon me because I know that I’m a sinner." And what a surprise it must have been that day when Jesus closes the parable by saying it was the tax collector who went away justified, not the Pharisee.

Now most of us would not be that blatant. And yet there is much more of a subtle "us-and-them" mentality that is alive and well within the church and within each of our individual lives. Let me illustrate. That attitude is present when our attitude toward the church is this, "The church is for good folks like me because, you know, we pretty well have it together." It’s friends who have an attitude about the kind of folks in terms of their education, their income level, where they happen to live, that we feel are appropriate to worship with "us". It’s friends with an attitude where they believe that God loves "us" because of all the good things we have done. Looks like that point is God surely can’t love these folks because of all the bad stuff they’ve done. It could be present in the church when we are absolutely certain that we’re the ones who have got this "theology" thing right. That is an "us-and-them" mentality. It can be present in a church when newcomers to the church aren’t invited to be a part of certain committees or listened to in terms of major decision-making until they’ve been there for thirty years. If you’ve been there for thirty years, then we’d like to ask you to be a trustee. If you haven’t been there for thirty years, then you’re not yet ready for that. It’s friends with an attitude where we too often in the church, in words of a book that came out a few years ago, we "shoot our wounded". Do you know how we do that? We usually do it at the dinner table where we say; "Did you hear about such and such? And then we go about shooting our wounded and hurting. It’s friends with an attitude toward; especially this is true of teenagers, the clothing that a person wears to church or the way they wear their hair. Friends, it’s ultimate hypocrisy for us to say, "Well, we wish our teenagers were in church more." And then turn around when they come and complain about what they wear or what they do.

In the book, "Jesus, the People’s Choice", the chapter for this week, he asks these questions and invites the reader to fill in the blank:

I feel superior whenever I am around a _____.

(African-American, Native American, Asian, Hispanic, Caucasian.)

I know that God has more respect for persons but I’m glad I’m not going to be in the shoes of _____ when it comes judgment day.

When I follow my natural inclination, I tend to void _____. Fill in a category of personal achievement there.

I look only excessive _____ in places of leadership at work for the church.

Unless my son or daughter marries a _____ I will be fit to be tied.

What do you observe about yourself with the way you fill in the blanks? Are you surprised that you answered honestly? Did you seem to want to lump people together in groups than to see them as individuals?

Please hear me very carefully on these next points I want to make:

1. "Us" and "them" attitudes are seldom blatant, but when they are present in subtle ways they do major damage to the cause of Christ.

2. We are all guilty in this area--the preacher included. Let me illustrate that in a moment.

3. God understands that it is natural that we want to spend and will spend the majority of our time with people whose interests are similar to ours. That’s normal. God understands that.

4. Shattering the stereotypes of "us" and "them" does not mean that we sacrifice our convictions.

I’m working with the New Member Class of ten people that began meeting a couple of Sunday evenings ago. I asked them what drew them to Grace Church. And to a person they said, "This is one of the friendliest churches I’ve ever walked in." Some of them talk about walking in to other churches and walking out and not a soul went to say anything to them. And they talked about totally the opposite with their experience here at Grace. That’s why, if you’ll notice, here at Grace Church we try not to use the word "visitors". And this illustrates how subtle it can be. We try to use the word newcomers. Because if you think about it, "visitors" conveys an "us" and "them" mentality. When there’s "us" and then there’s all the visitors. Newcomer is a much more inclusive word.

But now I’m going to talk a moment about how easily we can fall into that trap which is perhaps best illustrated by the current homosexual debate within the United Methodist Church. And I will use this today in a very different way than I have used it before. At a recent General Conference and I said long ago that getting away from an "us-and-them" attitude expresses the theme, "We Sacrificed our Convictions". At our last General Conference the United Methodist Church said once again, "We believe homosexuality is incompatible with the Christian teaching. We will not ordain practicing homosexuals. We do not want our clergy performing homosexual union services either both in or outside of our churches." And I’m in agreement with those decisions. I think we said again at General Conference, "This is who we are as United Methodists Christians."

But having said that, friends, at the same time we can not forget what our Discipline tells us. Homosexual persons, no less than heterosexual persons, are individuals of sacred worth. All persons need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a well ship and enabled reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self. We prove that God’s grace is available. We commit ourselves for ministry for and with all persons.

And then as I was highlighting these I looked across the page to some other areas that were on giving. We encourage the intentional commitment of the church and society to minister passionately to those in the process of divorce as well as members of divorced and re-married families in a community of grace where God’s grace is shared by all. Friends, do you realize that in many churches you are ostracized if you are divorced? I’m glad that’s not true here at Grace for the most part. And then, I looked down and it say, "boy, am I guilty of this". "We affirm the integrity of single persons and we reject all social practices that discriminate or social attitudes that are prejudicial against persons because they are single." How often I have said to a single person, "When are you going to get married?" Saying, as if, they deliberately choose not to get married, that’s not okay. It’s us and normal folks like me who have married and had children, and then there’s this other single folk. And here’s where I want to shed the light of God’s Holy Spirit right on the preacher. For in the past I was far too prone to select this issue of homosexuality if I wanted to illustrate moral decay within our society or even the church to hold to Biblical authority. Which example would I pull out? This one. And I want to say this morning, when I singled out homosexuality on a too regular basis as I did, that is wrong. It’s wrong especially in light of the fact that Jesus himself said absolutely nothing on that issue and said volumes about persons who thought themselves to be self-righteous.

To follow Jesus’ example of shattering the stereotypes, friends, it isn’t easy. But to help us, let me suggest three ways that we can make strides forward toward that goal.

1. Like most things in life, it begins with self-awareness. Our self-awareness is enhanced when we’re willing to study the issues honestly instead of bringing our preconceived notions to them. Self-awareness is helped by the loving correction and guidance of friends. What I just said a moment ago stems from a very dear friend in this church who was brave enough to walk in to my office about a year ago and say, "Reverend Mike, you know I appreciate your ministry. Your sermon last week was wonderful. But you lost me once again when you made an illustration and chose to single out a homosexual issue for your illustration." And I’ve learned over the years not to be so defensive when people who love me want to help me grow. And I actually said, "You’re right." And I want to move away from that "us-and-them" mentality. Self-awareness, most of all, is when we let the piercing light of the Holy Spirit that we celebrate this Pentecost constantly be leading us in the new truth.

2. We said earlier that it is normal to spend most of our time with persons who are similar to us. That’s normal. God understands that. But we can take a step forward toward this goal of knocking out the walls of "us-and-them" by periodically stepping out of our comfort zone to spend time with persons who are in some way different than ourselves.

My two sons are living in a much broader world than I grew up in. My son Aaron, in travels with a Broadway show and company, is surrounded on a daily basis with a whole spectrum of our society. I went to school at Penn University and I wouldn’t give those four years up for anything in the world. I have a son, Adam, who just graduated from Depaul and boy there were times that Dad got stretched the wrong way by some of the stuff that goes on at this United Methodist University. But do you know Adam will keep his "be careful" and keep his faith to the fire . He’ll be a lot better able to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world around him than I will because he’s been exposed to more adversity than I was.

Our sound equipment here at Grace, we purchased from Mom’s Music And Sound in Louisville, Kentucky. I love, I think I would, to take some of you with me to Mom’s Music and Sound. The walls are lined with rock guitars, and keyboards, and drum sets and there is the normal crowd of long-haired musicians that are hanging out there. And the guy I’ve learned to deal with is named Marvin Maxwell. He’s an old rock guitarist of many years ago. Usually has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and rough behind the edges. But over the years I’ve learned to love Marvin Maxwell. I’ve learned to see beyond the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. And I’ve learned that this guy, he’s the kind of guy, I told him one day, I said, "Marvin, you’re just the kind of guy that Jesus would have chosen to be his disciple. There’s no pretense about you. What you see is what you get. I’ve learned that from him; he has a heart of gold and a love of God that is extremely deep. But you’d never know that the first time you met him. And I enjoy periodically just going down to Mom’s and hanging out with the people that are very different than I normally hang out with. They give me a gift.

3. Perhaps most important, we have to strive to fully understand and live in the awesome grace of God--the awesome Grace of God. Now if you’ve been listening carefully today, you’ve noticed that I’ve spoken from differing perspectives on several of these points. That’s by design. You have heard me say repeatedly that I think one of the most important words for the Christian is the word "balance". That we try to find that "balance" within our personal life.

In this matter of grace, we must take seriously the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who coined the term "cheap grace". Any of you see the special on grace? Unfortunately it was on the same time as the Pacer’s game, so I constantly throughout the evening flipped back and forth between the channels. In simple terms, Bonhoeffer described "cheap grace" this way. Cheap grace is an attitude, "Well it doesn’t makes any difference what we do, we’re saved by grace. Grace alone. So just go out and do anything you want to." And Bonhoeffer said, "The grace we lived in was purchased by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we dare not turn God’s grace in to cheap grace."

But at the risk of being overly simplistic, as we live out our lives in Christ, we constantly have to keep these three simple phrases in mind:

Be careful not to judge another person unless you’ve walked in their shoes. Be careful not to judge another unless you’ve walked in their shoes.

Remember always that "there but for the grace of God go I". When we look at some aspect of society that turns our stomach upside down, we need to say, "Maybe they didn’t have the advantage of Christian parents and community of faith that I had growing up. There, but for the grace of God go I.

And then we have to remember the profound truth about our salvation as recorded in the words of the hymn writer: "Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling."

I close with this illustration. A First Grader went on her very first day of school to a newly integrated school at the height of the desegregation storm. An anxious mother met her at the door at the end of the day to inquire how things went. The little girl replied, "Mother, you know what? A little black girl sat next to me today." In fear and trepidation, the mother expected to hear of problems but asked calmly, "And what happened?" To which her daughter replied, "We were both so scared that we just held hands all day long."

And friends, when Jesus helps us shatter the stereotypes of "us-and-them", we’ll discover we share a whole lot more in common with others than the things we feel divide us. Would you pray with me? "Lord, this one is hard and we’re all guilty. We don’t do it blatantly but we do it subtly, more often than we want to admit. And it does harm to the world you love. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, help us Lord to make progress in this area. To shatter the stereotypes of "us and them" remember none of us are worthy. Your grace is truly amazing. Help us Lord as we know you will. In Christ name, Amen."