Here is my homily for the opening of our academic year, addressing the theme of \u201cWelcoming the Stranger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scripture: Mark 9: 33-41<\/p>\n
Perhaps you are like me and you find yourself occasionally asking questions like these: \u201cWhy does that homeless guy stand in the middle of the road and beg for money?\u00a0 Why doesn\u2019t he take advantage of the many services our community offers to meet his needs?\u201d\u00a0 Or, in another moment: \u201cHow can that Democrat\/Republican\/Independent (you fill in the blank) believe such rubbish?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t she see what is going on and what is needed?\u201d\u00a0 Or, even this: \u201cI respect all religions, but why are Muslims often associated with terrorism around the world?\u00a0 Is there something about their faith that leans toward violence?\u201d<\/p>\n
We could go on, I imagine.\u00a0 Silly questions, you might say \u2013 especially for good, educated, faithful folks like us.\u00a0 But admit it, nary a day goes by when you and I don\u2019t ask such questions \u2013 maybe not out loud, but surely in our inner thoughts.<\/p>\n
The unnamed disciples in our gospel for this morning \u2013 those talking out loud among themselves about who was the greatest \u2013 are icons of our human proclivity to prideful claiming of the superiority of our own experience, intellect, political position, religious persuasion and so on.\u00a0 And it is Jesus\u2019s equally iconic response \u2013 \u201cWhoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all\u201d \u2013 that turns our world upside down.\u00a0 So what do we do?<\/p>\n
There is a remarkable tension in both our liberal arts academic tradition and our Lutheran Christian tradition.\u00a0 At their best and most faithful, both traditions claim that genuine learning and faith, grounded as they are in humility and openness, must embrace the experience of difference and otherness.\u00a0 In fact, they both argue that we are most learned and faithful when we give up attempting to control our world, when we recognize that the gifts and ideas and experiences of others are at the heart of a community that is healthy and just and compassionate, when we celebrate the ways in which our learning and lives are enhanced by the strangers in our midst.<\/p>\n
That said, we are not always at our best in either our academic or faith communities.\u00a0 How easy it is once we have been educated and formed in the faith to believe that we have learned enough, that we have found the right way to God, that our ways of seeing the world and acting in it give us a leg up on those who do not share our superior learning and faith.\u00a0 And when we do engage with those we count as less learned and faithful, our behavior often leans toward finding ways to help \u201ccorrect\u201d their deficiencies at best or marginalizing and ignoring them at worst.<\/p>\n
So here comes Jesus back at us again.\u00a0 \u201cWhoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.\u201d\u00a0 And then to make his point, he takes a child in his arms.\u00a0 Now, this strikes me as a Hallmark moment of sorts, not really the hard-edged rebuke we might expect.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty hard to argue about welcoming in a child.\u00a0 But he goes on.\u00a0 The disciple John pushes the point, believing that surely Jesus does not believe that outsiders are capable of helping the cause.\u00a0 But Jesus does not fall into the trap.\u00a0 His response — “Whoever is not against us is for us” — points to truly radical hospitality.\u00a0 Here is the claim that discipleship does not give you the right to turn your back on those whose lives and experiences and beliefs might serve God\u2019s cause in the world.\u00a0 Because that is the point \u2013 this is about God\u2019s intentions for God\u2019s people and creation; this is not about our human machinations to claim superiority and power for ourselves.<\/p>\n
Professor Tim Pippert from the sociology department and I co-teach the Senior Honors Seminar on the broad topic of income inequality in America.\u00a0 The course offers a multi-disciplinary perspective on the realities of income disparity by focusing on two extremes: the homeless and the wealthy.\u00a0 Through a variety of readings and experiences (including volunteering at two shelters and<\/em> tours of private clubs and museums), we are all challenged as educated people to struggle with our own perceptions of those who are different than we are.\u00a0 And those perceptions often begin with the stigma we attach to those at both ends of the wealth spectrum.\u00a0 We do wonder why the homeless live the way they do.\u00a0 We jump to conclusions about their level of education, about their drug and alcohol abuse, about their mental competency, about the decisions they made in their lives.\u00a0 At the same time, we also wonder about the greedy 1%, those who occupy private clubs, those who control wealth and corporate power, those who are not accountable for their riches.<\/p>\n For me, the inspiring thing that happens in our course is witnessing students admit these stigmas and then seek to listen to the experiences of others \u2013 homeless or wealthy.\u00a0 So, for example, a student volunteering at Peace House \u2013 a drop-in center for those experiencing homelessness \u2013 sits next to a long-time homeless man at lunch and learns his story, recognizing the common needs and aspirations they share.\u00a0 Or, on another night, students hear from a thoughtful member of the 1% who worries about her children and how they will live responsibly in a world marked by injustice and scarcity.\u00a0 Come to find out, we can learn from those different from us about how we live as God\u2019s people in the world.\u00a0 We can welcome the stranger \u2013 even when that stranger scares us or makes us angry \u2013 and therein find our way together to serve God\u2019s cause in the world.<\/p>\n So, here we are, living in this tension between the claims of our education and faith to welcome the stranger in genuine ways and our own human pride that distracts us from learning and faithfulness that serves God\u2019s intentions for the world.\u00a0 As we enter these first weeks of our academic year, each of us faces the fact that we may be challenged by a world in which those who are different from us \u2013 the strangers we will encounter \u2013 make a claim upon us that is perhaps more real and intense than it has ever been.\u00a0 Whether that difference is ethnic or cultural, religious, intellectual, ability-based, socioeconomic or political, we will not escape the claim of otherness in our lives in the world.\u00a0 So how will we respond to those who do not share our beliefs or privilege or education?\u00a0 How will we engage the person we don’t understand, perhaps the person we don\u2019t really like?\u00a0 How will we live as thoughtful and faithful people called to do God\u2019s work in the world?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We will sing a hymn this morning written for the L\u2019Arche Community, an international network of Christian communities where people with and without disabilities share life together in a spirit of mutual dependence.\u00a0 L\u2019Arche was founded by Jean Vanier, a Catholic lay leader who speaks passionately about how his life was transformed by his decision more than forty years ago to live with people with disabilities.\u00a0 He needed to overcome his own fears and stereotypes of those with disabilities.\u00a0 He needed to deal with social myths about people with disabilities.\u00a0 He did this by finding within himself what he calls the \u201ccompassion for life\u201d that came when he faced his fears and learned to be present with another human being who happened to be different than he was.\u00a0 Once he learned this compassion and felt its gentleness in his own life, he then devoted himself to building safe communities for others to be present with each other, to live day by day with each other, to seek justice for those who were often marginalized.\u00a0 Vanier\u2019s learning and faithfulness became a lifelong practice of learning to be compassionate, to accompany each other, and to seek justice where the world is not fair.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This challenge to make welcoming the stranger a lifelong practice was brought home to me a few years back when I spoke with a colleague and friend from here in the Twin Cities who had just begun a new job as the director of a facility for those with severe developmental disabilities.\u00a0\u00a0 She is a good and passionate leader on behalf of the vulnerable in our community, having led a housing services organization for many years.\u00a0 She spoke quietly of the challenge she has faced in accompanying the residents of her facility in their journeys.\u00a0 Clearly this has been more difficult than she imagined.\u00a0 And then she told of a wise colleague, who recognized her struggle, and told her how he had come to understand those they served as among God\u2019s greatest gifts to the world.\u00a0 Surely, he said, these good folks are God\u2019s most supreme angels, spiritually strong and mature and wise.\u00a0 Because they are the only ones God could trust to live in the world with their disabilities and the stigma attached so that all God\u2019s people could understand how much God loves all of us and how God intends for us to love each other.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I wonder whom else God has sent into our midst to show us how to love?\u00a0 We may never know if we spend our time arguing about the superiority of our education and faith.\u00a0 On the other hand, if we truly embrace the life of learning and discipleship that welcomes the stranger into our lives \u2013 no matter how difficult or messy \u2013 just imagine the riches of wisdom and faithfulness that God will send us.\u00a0 May it be so according to our gracious and loving God\u2019s will for all of us.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is my homily for the opening of our academic year, addressing the theme of \u201cWelcoming the Stranger.\u201d Scripture: Mark 9: 33-41 Perhaps you are like me and you find yourself occasionally asking questions like these: \u201cWhy does that homeless guy stand in the middle of the road and beg for money?\u00a0 Why doesn\u2019t he 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