Sunday, July 9, 2023

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A July 9, 2023 This past week, I was scrolling on social media when I came across an article title that captured my attention: “Why your brain hates other people: and how to make it think differently.” As if the title weren’t enough to draw me in, listen to the first few lines: “As a kid, I saw the 1968 version Planet of the Apes. As a future primatologist, I was mesmerized. Years later I discovered an anecdote about its filming: At lunchtime, the people playing chimps and those playing gorillas ate in separate groups.” The author Robert Sapolsky continues, “Humans universally make Us/Them dichotomies along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, language group, religion, age, socioeconomic status, and so on. And it’s not a pretty picture. We do so with remarkable speed and neurobiological efficiency; have complex taxonomies and classifications of ways in which we denigrate Thems; do so with a versatility that ranges from the minutest of microaggression to bloodbaths of savagery; and regularly decide what is inferior about Them based on pure emotion, followed by primitive rationalizations that we mistake for rationality. Pretty depressing.” He concludes his introduction saying, “But crucially, there is room for optimism. Much of that is grounded in something definedly human, which is that we all carry multiple Us/Them divisions in our heads. A Them in one case can be an Us in another, and it can only take an instant for that identity to flip. Thus, there is hope that, with science’s help, clannishness and xenophobia can lessen, perhaps even so much so that Hollywood-extra chimps and gorillas can break bread together.” I’ve been thinking about this us/them division this week. It shows up in two of our scripture readings—the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading. First, in the Old Testament, we see the conclusion of Abraham’s story that we’ve been following over the last few weeks. Sarah has died, and Abraham has decided that it’s time for his son Isaac to be married. But Abraham doesn’t want Isaac to marry a woman from the Cannanites, those people that he’s been living among. Instead, Abraham sends his servant back to his old, hometown where all his relatives still live. “Go to my country and to my kindred” Abraham tells the servant, and he promises the servant that God will send an angel before him to help him find Isaac a wife. So, the servant goes, and when he gets to Abraham’s brother’s compound, he prays that God will help him. Then we get our reading for today, when Rebecca shows up at the well, makes herself notable to Abraham’s servant by offering hospitality in the gift of water to him (and his 10 camels), and upon his investigation, reveals that she is the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother. Rebecca ends up agreeing to journey back to the land of Cana where she will marry Isaac-her first cousin once removed (and spoiler alert-where she will give birth to twins Jacob and Esau, and Jacob will go back home and marry not one but two of his first cousins-Rachel and Leah—the daughters of Rebecca’s brother Laban). This story illustrates not only how God continues to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of making Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, it also shows the lengths that we will go to preserve our us versus them lines that we have drawn, and it shows how hospitality can help break down some of those lines and barriers. In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus fielding complaints as he is on the road teaching and proclaiming his message in different cities. He’s growing increasingly more frustrated and angry as he reflects that his critics can’t be satisfied with either the more austere John the Baptist and his call to repentance or Jesus, who comes feasting and breaking bread with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus’s critics clearly want him to be more like “us” and they are criticizing him for his reaching out beyond the division of us and them. He is frustrated because the most religious are the ones who can’t seem to grasp his message. But then we see a turning point. Jesus moves from anger and judgement—specifically a grace-filled judgement that invites repentance and can see broader and better possibilities of and for these people Jesus cares about; it’s a judgement that’s all about lifting up and restoring relationships. He moves from judgement to an invitation to grace and care, where all can find rest and comfort. In this passage we see him breaking down the barriers of us and them, inviting all into the rest and comfort that he offers. So, let’s talk a little more about us versus them, and how that plays out in our own lives and in the life of our church. Can you think of a time when you have found yourself in an “us versus them” situation when somehow the lines became blurred or even broken down? Or can you think of a time when you found yourself in an “us versus them” situation and the lines weren’t broken down? We talked about this in our Wednesday healing service, and as we ended our conversation, we discovered that we had inadvertently divided ourselves into an us versus them scenario of people who are ok with women clergy (the us) and people who aren’t (the them). I couldn’t have created a better example of all this if I had tried! In a more painful encounter, I had a conversation with our nursery supervisor, Dianne Jones, last Sunday. Dianne and I were touching base on how things in the nursery were going, and she shared with me that she had thought about resigning her post with us. She told me about how she, a person of color, had felt the looks from some of our parishioners when she would bring the children into church or when she would come over for hospitality time—looks that said to her, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” As Dianne was telling me all this, I had to fight my natural inclination to get defensive, to defend “us.” As I watched her speak, I saw her gentleness and her heartbreak, I heard her longing, as a long-time Christian and practitioner of her faith, as the one who teaches and nurtures and loves our youngest parishioners for it to all be about us and how we live out our faith together here—no insiders and outsiders, all beloved of Christ in need of forgiveness, grace, healing, and a place to belong. I apologized and told her that I appreciated her sticking with us, and that we would try to do better. I asked her if I could share this with y’all today, and she graciously agreed. In the article I referenced earlier, Robert Sapolsky makes a scientific case for how our brains are wired to create these us versus them strata, these automatic characterizations of people, but he says it is fairly easy to rapidly recategorize individuals and even whole groups (giving three powerful examples) and writing, “We all have multiple dichotomies in our heads, and ones that seem inevitable and crucial can, under the right circumstances, evaporate in an instant.” You can read the article for yourself and see some of the strategies that he suggests. But what it really boils down to is intentionally practicing what Jesus taught—the importance of relationship with God and with each other, how we are changed and become more open when we are empathetic and curious, gentle and humble of heart, how we all have fallen short of the best possibility who God has created us to be and are all in need of Jesus’s forgiveness, and how Jesus invites all into his restful embrace. Your invitation this week is to pay attention to the times when you find yourself categorizing someone as a “them” to your us. Take one opportunity this week to be in relationship with that “them,” even if it just means a brief conversation, sharing a smile or noting or imagining something that you have in common. Pay attention to how the Holy Spirit works in, around, and through us to help us break down the false barriers of us and them. May you be willing to find rest this week alongside the gentleness of Jesus, who alone can offer you perfect belonging and perfect rest. i. https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/your-brain-hates-other-people/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0BvZIpgiC9B9ua7rJ-QjZxYebK2naD8SMX-xiZNznHXh8Xa7-XAu2hfWw_aem_AeWeLYurQH-6KeDzJ38dUr1k1Q0bcRt0ApTg-dNSHE4F_v4Vz6FXqJlz3ywfW6oa6iY#Echobox=1687990738

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