A Habitat For Humanity
Sermon
Lyrics for the Centuries
Sermons For The Sundays after Pentecost (First Third)
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth.
-- Acts 17:24-26b
Shortly after the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald some of his close friends went through his papers and manuscripts. They discovered a number of proposed plots for stories. One such plot dealt with the varied members of a family who had inherited a house. The bequest had one stipulation. To receive possession of the house they had to live in it harmoniously and purposefully.
That's quite a stipulation. Living together in harmony is no easy task in any house large or small. The testator in Fitzgerald's proposed plot doesn't leave any margin for error. It's simply get along or get out! Fortunately for us and our larger human family on this earth, God has not given us an eviction notice, at least, not yet. That in part is what grace is all about. It also says something about what the scriptures call the patience and forbearance of God.
In these mid years of the premillennial decade I sense in a good many folks I talk with something of a doomsday mood. No one seems to be bullish about the future. Brood long enough about the massive human problems of the planet and it is difficult not to become depressed. The conflicts and tensions just go on and on. Old rivalries and divisions continue to plague the social fabric of the world. If the great question of the sixteenth century was "Where can I find a gracious God?" the burning question at the end of this turbulent twentieth century is "Where can I find a gracious neighbor?"
The desire for supportive community exists in all of us. Several years ago an interesting experiment involving children was conducted at the University of Louvain in Belgium. A group was shown three pictures of a birthday celebration. The first showed a child all alone with cake, ice cream, and a pile of toys. The second showed a child with mother and father, cake, ice cream, and toys. The third showed a child with mother, father, and a lot of other people around a table with lots of food. There were no toys.
The children were asked to think of their own birthday and in terms of these pictures express their preference. None of the children selected the first scene. One out of three selected the second scene. Seventy-two percent of the boys and sixty-nine percent of the girls selected the third scene. These children were expressing a universal preference. We want a caring community around us.
But here is the paradox. While we want community we tend to be more comfortable with people just like our selves. There dwells also within us a fear of diversity. This is a contradiction we can observe in our own national history. The Statue of Liberty was given to us by the people of France to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of our independence. We are all familiar with the words of the American writer, Emma Lazarus, appearing on a tablet in the main entrance to the pedestal. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
When the immigrants surged in during the latter part of the last century and the early part of this one, a pattern of people flight appeared. We didn't quite know how to relate to these folk with different languages and customs. It was difficult to understand a person's ambition to own a push cart or be a tailor. The urban flight began with the coming of the country day school, the country club, the upscale resort areas, and the exodus to the suburbs. This pattern has continued and still today we sense this fear of diversity.
One recent manifestation of this people fear is the advent of walled and gated suburban enclaves and the controlled environment of planned retirement communities. Celebration is the town to be built close to the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld. A feature article in USA Today had this to say about it. "Celebration is billed as a 19th-century town for the late 20th century, harking back to a time when lemonade stands, not crime, were on every corner. Disney is selling turn-of-the century safety, charm and orderliness." 1
This ambivalence about the contours of community crops up in our biblical narratives. Today's first reading is an example. God nixes David's plan to build a house for him. In turn God promises that he will build a house for David. It will not be a house of cedar wood or stone, but a community. In the biblical sense, a house can also mean a community that shares the purpose of its progenitor. God's house is the community that shares God's purpose. The promise is made that an offspring of David will come and build a house for God. But we note that the envisioned community is one bound by a common ethnic boundary.
The early Christians as they sought to understand the meaning of Jesus turned to passages like this to see him as the fulfiller of the promise. But in terms of what Jesus did and said the bounds of community were radically expanded beyond the litmus tests set down by race and piety. Geography was set aside as the gospel writers Christified space. Instead of a promised land every land became a land of promise. The vision at the heart of the New Testament is the vision of a diverse and inclusive community.
This particular narrative is part of what is called the succession narrative in the books of Samuel. It was written in a time when many felt things were just falling apart in Israel. But this is not a story that wallows in nostalgia. It tells of the days of David the way they were. The dark side of life is much in evidence as one reads on about the undercurrent of rivalry and corruption during the days of David. The whole document was a call to hold fast in all times to the promise and the vision. The last verse of chapter six should really be part of the reading, for that verse is the essential preface. "And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death." Remember, Michal was David's wife. Remember also that barrenness is biblical metaphor for the absence of visible assurances about the future. Prophetic promises are always made in the midst of contradiction and absurdity.
Driving along the coast of Spain not too long ago, we stopped at a walled overview to look out at the sea. I noted on the wall someone had drawn three symbols: the oval enclosed Serbian cross, the letters KKK, and a swastika. I would like to think it was just a bit of juvenile graffiti. But all three in their own way are symbols of the way human arrogance and people fear can presume to make God into a household patron. Neither the imprisoned cross, nor the fiery cross, nor the twisted cross represent the cross of him who died for all that all of us might be brothers and sisters in the household of God.
____________
1. USA Today. October 18, 1995.
-- Acts 17:24-26b
Shortly after the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald some of his close friends went through his papers and manuscripts. They discovered a number of proposed plots for stories. One such plot dealt with the varied members of a family who had inherited a house. The bequest had one stipulation. To receive possession of the house they had to live in it harmoniously and purposefully.
That's quite a stipulation. Living together in harmony is no easy task in any house large or small. The testator in Fitzgerald's proposed plot doesn't leave any margin for error. It's simply get along or get out! Fortunately for us and our larger human family on this earth, God has not given us an eviction notice, at least, not yet. That in part is what grace is all about. It also says something about what the scriptures call the patience and forbearance of God.
In these mid years of the premillennial decade I sense in a good many folks I talk with something of a doomsday mood. No one seems to be bullish about the future. Brood long enough about the massive human problems of the planet and it is difficult not to become depressed. The conflicts and tensions just go on and on. Old rivalries and divisions continue to plague the social fabric of the world. If the great question of the sixteenth century was "Where can I find a gracious God?" the burning question at the end of this turbulent twentieth century is "Where can I find a gracious neighbor?"
The desire for supportive community exists in all of us. Several years ago an interesting experiment involving children was conducted at the University of Louvain in Belgium. A group was shown three pictures of a birthday celebration. The first showed a child all alone with cake, ice cream, and a pile of toys. The second showed a child with mother and father, cake, ice cream, and toys. The third showed a child with mother, father, and a lot of other people around a table with lots of food. There were no toys.
The children were asked to think of their own birthday and in terms of these pictures express their preference. None of the children selected the first scene. One out of three selected the second scene. Seventy-two percent of the boys and sixty-nine percent of the girls selected the third scene. These children were expressing a universal preference. We want a caring community around us.
But here is the paradox. While we want community we tend to be more comfortable with people just like our selves. There dwells also within us a fear of diversity. This is a contradiction we can observe in our own national history. The Statue of Liberty was given to us by the people of France to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of our independence. We are all familiar with the words of the American writer, Emma Lazarus, appearing on a tablet in the main entrance to the pedestal. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
When the immigrants surged in during the latter part of the last century and the early part of this one, a pattern of people flight appeared. We didn't quite know how to relate to these folk with different languages and customs. It was difficult to understand a person's ambition to own a push cart or be a tailor. The urban flight began with the coming of the country day school, the country club, the upscale resort areas, and the exodus to the suburbs. This pattern has continued and still today we sense this fear of diversity.
One recent manifestation of this people fear is the advent of walled and gated suburban enclaves and the controlled environment of planned retirement communities. Celebration is the town to be built close to the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld. A feature article in USA Today had this to say about it. "Celebration is billed as a 19th-century town for the late 20th century, harking back to a time when lemonade stands, not crime, were on every corner. Disney is selling turn-of-the century safety, charm and orderliness." 1
This ambivalence about the contours of community crops up in our biblical narratives. Today's first reading is an example. God nixes David's plan to build a house for him. In turn God promises that he will build a house for David. It will not be a house of cedar wood or stone, but a community. In the biblical sense, a house can also mean a community that shares the purpose of its progenitor. God's house is the community that shares God's purpose. The promise is made that an offspring of David will come and build a house for God. But we note that the envisioned community is one bound by a common ethnic boundary.
The early Christians as they sought to understand the meaning of Jesus turned to passages like this to see him as the fulfiller of the promise. But in terms of what Jesus did and said the bounds of community were radically expanded beyond the litmus tests set down by race and piety. Geography was set aside as the gospel writers Christified space. Instead of a promised land every land became a land of promise. The vision at the heart of the New Testament is the vision of a diverse and inclusive community.
This particular narrative is part of what is called the succession narrative in the books of Samuel. It was written in a time when many felt things were just falling apart in Israel. But this is not a story that wallows in nostalgia. It tells of the days of David the way they were. The dark side of life is much in evidence as one reads on about the undercurrent of rivalry and corruption during the days of David. The whole document was a call to hold fast in all times to the promise and the vision. The last verse of chapter six should really be part of the reading, for that verse is the essential preface. "And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death." Remember, Michal was David's wife. Remember also that barrenness is biblical metaphor for the absence of visible assurances about the future. Prophetic promises are always made in the midst of contradiction and absurdity.
Driving along the coast of Spain not too long ago, we stopped at a walled overview to look out at the sea. I noted on the wall someone had drawn three symbols: the oval enclosed Serbian cross, the letters KKK, and a swastika. I would like to think it was just a bit of juvenile graffiti. But all three in their own way are symbols of the way human arrogance and people fear can presume to make God into a household patron. Neither the imprisoned cross, nor the fiery cross, nor the twisted cross represent the cross of him who died for all that all of us might be brothers and sisters in the household of God.
____________
1. USA Today. October 18, 1995.
