The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21B

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.” 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.” 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.