Today’s readings begin with the call of Abraham, biblical father of Jews, Muslims and Christians. With Abraham’s call, God creates and sets apart a people who are to be a blessing to the world. By the way they live the world will discover who God is and what God wants for the world.
For the next two Sundays I am going to focus on the story of Abraham, his wife Sarah, and their slave, Hagar, so we can better understand the beginnings of God’s people. But today I just want to hold up God’s Promise to create and set apart such a people. I especially want to point out that within any such promise, there is always tension: the tension to see oneself as special and thereby act in such a way that protects oneself against the world -- to be a kind of city built on a hill, one to admire from afar. Or, to see our specialness as a responsibility to engage the world with compassion and justice so that we slowly but surely transform it. The danger in the first case is that we become judges of what is godly and ungodly, and create barriers that put us “above” the rest of the people. The danger in the second case is that we get lost in the ungodly ways of the world and lose our identity.
Finding our way through this tension has always been challenging for God’s people. As we read the bible we see God’s people living apart, and then blending into the culture around them. When they begin to lose their identity, prophets and sages call them back. Things tighten up. The community is cleansed and put back on track. Then, slowly but surely they wander off again.
When you think about it, can’t you see that pattern in your own lives......
By the time of Jesus, this tension: the tension between maintaining holiness by constructing barriers to keep from being contaminated by the ungodly, and engaging the ungodly played itself out through the purity system of Judaism. Designed to be a means of setting God’s people apart, it became a socio-political system within Judaism. It established a spectrum of purity among the people of God themselves, ranging from the pure to the impure, the clean to the unclean, the holy to the unholy. One’s place in the system depended on birth, behavior, occupation, physical wholeness, gender, and economic well-being.
For example, religious leaders like priests, scribes and Pharisees were near the top of the spectrum. They were men, and men were closer to God. They had material prosperity, a sign of God’s favor. They had jobs that allowed them the flexibility to keep the purity laws.
On the other hand, shepherds were at the bottom of the list, and close by were lepers and those with physical deformities. Women were impure during their monthly cycle and for days later because bodily discharges made one impure. People who cared for the sick or dead were impure by virtue of contact with those they cared for. Tax collectors were impure because they worked for the Romans and often charged fellow Jews more than required. Poor people were impure because it was obvious that God had not seen fit to bless them. You get the picture. If such a system was in place today - but of course it isn’t - where do you think you would find yourself?????????
Anyway, all this leads us to the three stories in today’s Gospel -- to the people Jesus interacts with. First he goes to Matthew, a tax collector, and calls him as a disciple. Then, he goes to Matthew’s house where more tax collectors and sinners gather. The Pharisees immediately point a finger at Jesus. “Look who he associates with. What does that say about Jesus himself?????”
After that, a leader of a synagogue comes to Jesus. He asks Jesus to come to his house and lay hands of his dead daughter. Uh, oh. First Jesus was contaminated by hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. Now he is going to touch the dead?
While on the way to heal the girl, a woman with a flow of blood for 12 years touches the fringe of Jesus’ robe. A third whammy. Another layer of impurity. The leader of the synagogue must have winced because now Jesus’ presence will make his whole house impure. You see, the state of impurity is very contagious.
The crazy thing is that the purity system was devised to maintain Israel’s holiness, to keep her set apart as God’s special people. The result is much different. It divides the very people it is trying to protect. It divides Jew from Jew. It makes God into a judge. It makes the greatest attribute of God - compassion - almost impossible.
Jesus, however, comes along and disrupts the system. Because he embodies the compassion of God, he crosses boundaries whenever he sees human need. When he encounters sick people he heals them. When he sees people ostracized from the community he reaches out and touches them. When he encounters tax collectors and sinners he has dinner with them. When he hears the great emotional pain of the grieving father he goes to help. Jesus’ calling is to break down barriers, to bring back those who are lost, to raise people to full status as the people of God.
Can you imagine what it must have been like for the woman with the flow of blood to be ostracized for 12 years...... Then she hears about this Jesus who heals people. Maybe she has even seen him at work. At last she sees hope for her life. “If I can just touch the fringe of his garment I will be healed.” And of course she does, and is made whole.
Such hope has been kindled in people whenever they see someone defy a system which has gotten hardened in its attempt to keep things pure. I remember well the hope engendered when three bishops defied “purity” and ordained eleven women in Philadelphia in 1974. The system said that women couldn’t be ordained as priests. We were not “pure” enough by reason of our gender. Three bishops reached out with compassion and justice to a revolution in place. Now, a generation later, we have many women priests and even women bishops.
Think of the hope engendered when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the march in Selma, Alabama and Washington D.C. The system said that black people were lesser people, not “pure” by reason of color. But Dr. King dreamed a dream and things began to change. The revolution is far from done, but it has taken great strides.
Then there is the hope engendered when Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire. The “purity” system said a gay man in a committed relationship was tainted. General Convention said “no” to the purity system. However many in the Anglican Communion are angry. They asked us not to participate in the Meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council this month. They don’t want to be made impure by associating with us.
The struggle to overcome purity systems continues. God’s people continue in tension. Some say we should stand separate from the world, above the world. They fear losing our identity. But can we ever really be God’s people if compassion takes a back seat. Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Or “Be compassionate as God is compassionate.” The way of compassion must always lead the way......