September 27, 2015

                  The Pope reminded us that on this continent “we are not afraid of foreigners, because many of us were once foreigners ourselves.” In the debate about immigrants we can feel our own fear of strangers or of the unknown or of the dangerous places immigrants come from. We would rather stick to problems we know and what we think we can fix. We see the images of desperate families running for freedom across the fields of Europe. What will happen to them? What could we do?

                  The Pope reminds us that our story is also the story of immigrants. Our mothers and fathers had to make a home in a new place, a new language, surrounded by strangers. Our faith story is also the story of immigrants. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. Jesus was a refugee fleeing political persecution. We also hear the story of Esther and a time when her people were refugees in a foreign land.

                  Esther is a queen (one of many) in Persia. Her father, Mordecai is a leader of the Jews in captivity. Haman is one of the king’s officials who hates the Jews and who wants to destroy them. He gets the king to give him authority to kill all the Jews (and the king doesn’t really know what Haman is doing.) Esther bravely seeks to speak to the king. This is a time when women have no right to speak. If she displeases the king he can simply kill her. We hear how Esther asks for her life and the life of her people                  and how she reveals the plan of Haman to destroy them. The story ends with Haman getting what he planned for Mordecai, and the people are saved.

                  In Jewish tradition, this rescue is celebrated on the feast of Purim. While the whole book of Esther is read, people cheer at the name of Mordecai and boo at the name of Haman. People dress up. There is tradition that all men are required to get drunk. People tell stories and they feast on little cookies called hammentasse – Haman hats.

                  Many years ago, I was a chaplain at New England Deaconess hospital in Boston. I was visiting with a Jewish man who was about to have a leg amputated (poor circulation related to diabetes.) As you may know, grief touches grief. Our losses remind us of our other losses. I expected to be helping this man cope with the loss of his leg. Instead, he began to talk about the family he lost in the holocaust. In Poland, he fled into the woods and survived. His parents and brothers and sisters were taken away. The night before his surgery, he was remembering the night he slept in the woods, cold and hungry and alone.

                  In the hospital, a few days later, a few weeks; it was the feast of Purim. Rabbinical students came and read the book of Esther. The man I had met earlier was also there. We had noisemakers to boo and hiss at the name of Haman. We clapped and cheered whenever they named Mordecai. I believe he even had a little Haman hat to eat. My friend had lost his leg, but he had lived with loss before. He was restored with new life, with new family, in a new world. God did not spare him his loss and at the same time God did not abandon him to his loss. God was still with him.

                  We do not proclaim a religion of arrival or of completeness. We are living a story of a journey. We proclaim that God is with us, wherever life takes us. This implies that we live our lives wherever we find ourselves and with whomever we find ourselves.

                  There is no special sect that is just for us and not for the uninitiated or for the impure. There is no reason to protect our faith or to create any barriers. Whenever we cross our arms and judge another, we are really judging ourselves and forgetting who we are and from where we came. I have no right to be here. It is only by God’s blessing that I have attained anything worth being proud of. It is only by the work and care of others that I have made my way in the world.

                  The disciples are worried for Jesus. Someone is casting our demons in his name and he isn’t one of the official disciples. This makes me wonder whom they are protecting. Jesus gives blanket permission, and then he adds his warning. Don’t cause one of these little ones to sin. Don’t quench the faith of the weak. Don’t get in the way – put a stumbling block in the way of someone trying to follow Jesus. We don’t mean to do this. We’re probably unconscious of what we are doing. We make little judgments about what people ought to do – how they should live. We create a little mental list of all the things other people should do to get their lives in order.

                  We don’t know their story. We don’t know their journey. We have no idea what oceans they have crossed or the dangers that they have faced. Perhaps they could teach us a thing or two about faith.

                  So what is most important? We are called to share good news. Sharing requires reciprocity. We give and we receive. We wonder why we have trouble sharing the gospel. Perhaps it is because we have acted so long as if all the answers, and everything we need is right here (and only here.) Maybe what we need is out there. Maybe we need to hear good news shared by strangers.

                  We rejoice that God comes to us in the form of a stranger. We rejoice that God comes to us when we have lost everything. God takes us as we are, broken, confused, and lost. God makes for us a new home and surrounds us with new family and new friends. In this – we are no longer strangers.