The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost-the Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg
19th
Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21B
September 29, 2024
Once upon a time there were two
neighbors who had adjoining farms. They
were good neighbors. Members of their families had married over the years, and they’d
all had a good relationship. They tended
to lean the same way politically and they had shared the border between their
farms peacefully for over half a century.
One day Randolf visited his neighbor Floyd’s farm and thought he
recognized one of his pigs among Floyd’s.
Randolf convinced himself that Floyd must have stolen his pig, and no
one could convince him differently. So
Randolf complained to the authorities, and they organized a trial. In order to be fair, the judge appointed the
jury to be equal parts from each family-six from Randolf’s and six from
Floyd’s. The great surprise came when
one of Randolf’s family members decided against him, tipping the jury in favor
of Floyd’s claim that the pig had always been his. Randolf seemed to accept the results,
although it must have been a humiliating experience, and life went on. A year and a half later two of Randolf’s
nephews got into a fight with one of the trial witnesses who had testified
against Randolf, and they beat the man to death. “Over the course of the next decade the two
families were at war; there was vicious stabbing, a string of vigilante
shootings, posse raids, and a Supreme Court case. A house was burned to the ground. A man was hanged. Women were beaten. All told about 80 different people got drawn
into the feud across the region.”[i] This is the story of the infamous dispute
between the Hatfields and the McCoys on the border between Kentucky and West
Virginia. And it is a quintessential
example of how regular people can get drawn into the forces of high conflict
that are very difficult to escape.
One of the key aspects of high conflict
is the invisible force that encourages us as humans to sort ourselves into
groups or categories. This is actually a
biological imperative that has been necessary for our survival as a species,
this impulse to sort into groups can be both helpful and harmful. It is helpful in its encouraging us to
protect the other members of our group.
It is harmful in that it nudges us into an us versus them mindset,
collapsing complexity.
We see these forces at work in three of
our readings for today—the Old Testament reading of Esther, the Psalm, and the
gospel.
The book of Esther reads like a
soap-opera. “It tells the story of
Esther who becomes Queen in Persia after she wins a beauty pageant that the
king puts on (after having set aside his previous wife who refused to show off
her beauty at his request). Esther, who
is a Hebrew, follows the counsel of her uncle and guardian Mordechi, and keeps
her faith a secret from her new husband.
Meanwhile, political machinations unfold between Haman, the king’s
right-hand man and Esther’s uncle. When
Mordechi refuses to pay homage to Haman because of his faith, Haman hatches a
plot to kill all the Hebrew people in Persia.
In an epic plot twist, which we see today, Esther orchestrates the
salvation of her uncle and her people and ensures the assassination of the
dastardly Haman.”[ii] It’s a classic us-versus-them,
good-versus-evil conflict in which the underdogs are saved, and the bad guy
with all the power gets his comeuppance.
And then there’s the psalm. Do I need to even say anything about the
pslam? It’s all about how God has
protected God’s people from their enemies, siding against the enemies in their
us-versus-them conflict.
Our gospel reading for today is a
continuation of Mark’s gospel that we’ve been reading over the past few
weeks. This week picks up right after
last week, when the disciples have been arguing about who is the greatest among
them, and Jesus takes a little child into his arms and tells them they must all
be like the little child. When today’s
reading begins, we can assume that the little child is still sitting there in
Jesus’s arms, as the disciples begin to complain that they have seen someone
doing deeds of power in Jesus’ name who was not one of his followers. The disciples are leaning into their group as
Jesus’s in-crowd, falling into the trap that we all fall into, but Jesus’ flips
it all upside down by responding that “whoever is not against us is for
us.” Ok, that’s not what they were
expecting. Isn’t the line supposed to be
“whoever’s not for us is against us?” That
helps with the clearly defined lines between us and them; it makes things so
much simpler to be able to identify who’s in our group and who isn’t.
Whoever isn’t against us is for us? Well, how on earth are we supposed to draw
lines with that? But Jesus pushes his
disciples and us even beyond that, emphasizing that a key aspect of
discipleship is how we keep or make peace.
It can be overwhelming to think about keeping or making peace once we
find ourselves in a high conflict situation.
It doesn’t even have to be a Hatfield/McCoy type feud. It can be overwhelming to think about how to
make peace even in the midst of ordinary life, in the midst of our current election
year with all of its dramatic polarization.
Can you think of a time when you found
yourself in a polarized or intractable situation? How was it resolved? Was it peaceful? What could a peaceful resolution have looked
like?
So many times, in the midst of
disagreements, when we find someone we care about on the “other side,” it’s
easier to say, well, let’s just agree to disagree. And while that may preserve the relationship,
it does not really promote true peace.
It (maybe) allows us to stay on our own sides and be friends across the
fence, but it does nothing to shift the forces that work to drive us apart.
So what, then, can we do? Well, one of the first things that we can do
is to pay attention to a lesson from this trying weekend, as we have watched
and (to some degree) experienced how Hurricane Helene has devastated whole
communities across the southeast. We can
remember our common humanity. There’s
nothing like a disaster that can bring people together. Is there a way that we can put aside our
differences right now and find a way to work together as humans? Other things that we can do is to work to
bring complexity back into the equation.
Embrace curiosity. Resist
caricatures. Look below the surface of
what is being presented to what may be going on. Ask questions and really listen to the
answers. Assume nothing.
This week, I invite you to think about those places in your life where you have drawn lines between “us” and “them.” Ask God to help you to begin to be curious about those divisions and to help you to begin to discern a way forward that leads to peace for you and others.
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