"Loving Strangers"

"Loving strangers"

Sermon for 4 July, 1999

Trinity Church, Princeton

Readings: Deuteronomy 10:17-21; Matthew 5:43-48

One look at the New York Times this morning,
confirmed it for me.
We're still no closer
to loving our enemies
than we've ever been.

All this week
we've continued to see stories
of the horrors of Kosovo,
horrors which continue
in spite of the tenuous peace which prevails,
horrors which earlier this week included
350 patients at a mental hospital,
abandoned by their Serb care givers,
but abandoned long before, dumped there by families who didn't know what to
do
with them,
and a society
who did not care.

"Love your enemies" the gospel for today tells us.
"Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you".

But to be honest,
I really don't know how to do that.
I can point my finger
at the places
where that love is absent,
particularly as I read the newspaper
day by day,
but in my own life,
I'm not so sure what loving my enemies
might look like.

When Jesus spoke those words, he lived in an occupied country; enemies were
all
around. To love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
had a real and everyday meaning.
We live in relative freedom,
and for the most part, enemies
are about as real to us
as monsters in the closet
or bogeymen under the bed.
And while we might face persecution of a sort
from people who oppose
our values and our ideal,
it all seems somewhat petty
in a world where people continue
to fight for their lives
and die for their faith.
I suspect that this
would be a very different sermon
if I lived in Kosovo,
or the Sudan,
or even Belfast, where my father grew up.

Jesus sketches the boundaries for us.
Love God,
love each other as you love yourself,
and love your enemies.

But it is our reading from Deuteronomy
that brings it a little closer to home. Deuteronomy
fills in some of this space,
the ones in between,
the muddle of people
to whom, if we're honest,
we are pretty much indifferent.

"What does the Lord require of you?", Moses asks
as he speaks his goodbye
to the people he has led and loved
out of the land of Egypt.
"What does the Lord require of you?"
as they stand on the other side of the Jordan,
looking longingly toward the land
which they have been promised.
"What does the Lord require of you?"

"Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to
serve the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the
commandments of the Lord your God..."

And as we cringe, and wonder whether we would be better off to give up
on any pretensions
to faith,
because all this sounds just
too impossible
to take seriously, and too serious
to ignore,
just a few verses later come the words we read today.
"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God,
mighty and
awesome, who is not partial and takes not bribe, who executes justice for
the
orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food
and
clothing. You also shall love the stranger..."
These words put flesh
on what it means
to walk in the ways
of God.

As the Israelites cross that river Jordan
and take hold of the land,
take hold of the blessings they have been promised, they are to love the
stranger.
Love strangers
in a place
where everything
and everyone
is strange.

When I think
of loving strangers
my thoughts go first

to the needs
of the refugees
at Fort Dix.
But what about the other strangers?
What about the resident aliens,
the people who have come to this country illegally
and still live in fear of deportation?
The people who
have never caught on
to the intricacies and irregularities
of the English language?
The people whose color
keeps them forever
on the outside
of our society?
The people who
for generations
upon generations
long before
most of our ancestors
set foot in this place
knew what it was
to belong to the land?
I locked my car doors on Tuesday
as I drove to a clergy meeting at the Cathedral.
For the streets of Trenton are as strange to me still
as the streets of Kosovo.
And God says,
Love the stranger?

This is risky stuff,
and I'm not sure
if I want to be part of it.

But those strangers
are still pretty far
"out there".
The risk increases
if I move a step in.
What about the people I see
as I walk along Nassau street?
Waiting at the bus stop,
huddled in the shade on the University side,
driving confusedly - and frustratingly slowly, from my perspective -
as they search for a parking spot near
to the shop
they've been told to visit.
Love them?

And another step in,
the strangers we come across every day.
The person who serves you coffee over at Small World,
or checks out your library books,
or takes the money for your groceries at McCAffreys;
the police who pulled me over
for speeding
down Library Place,
the man walking his dog past your front door
the students
who flood into our town
with the coming of Autumn.
The people with whom we work,
day after day after day.
Love the stranger, God says.

And just one more step
for today.
The people who are like us,
but whom we sometimes forget
are strangers too.
It might be the person
who has married into your family,
but is always left
just
outside.
Or the brother or sister or cousin,
who got through high school,
and could have gone to college
but whose passion lay
in other directions
than the academic.
The people I meet here at church
whose ages and stage in life, let alone values and priorities
are different from mine.
Love the stranger, God says.

Jesus sketched the boundaries of love and Deuteronomy filled in the middle
space.
But you know, in the end, I think they were saying much the same thing.
For it seems to me,
that loving the stranger
reaches about as far out
as we can imagine,
and leaving the stranger
reaches right inside,
too.

For loving the stranger
might just mean
loving myself as well.
Those parts of me
which make me cringe.
Those parts of me
which I'd prefer to ignore.
Those parts of me
which I imagine
that no one could love.
God loves the stranger,
and God loves us.

And finally
there is God.
God the stranger,
who is both like
and unlike us.
God who is
and does
what we do not expect,
and cannot understand.
Love the stranger, God says.

"What does the Lord require of you?"
Just to love the stranger -- with heart and mind and soul and life
-- whatever that means.

Just a couple of weeks ago I bought a bird feeder for my porch, one of those
long narrow ones. As I sat out on the porch on Wednesday morning, working on
this sermon, the air was alive with birds, chickadees and sparrows , black cap
and white face with grey throat, a bit bigger with brown head white face and grey
throat, long beak sparrow sized greyish white with dark cap, crested brown sparrow
sized one, and a grey one, blue jays and mourning doves, often two or three
balancing on the rim of the feeder, and more waiting in the branches of the trees nearby.
I caught one crested gray bird throwing sunflower seeds on the ground -
obviously not his favorite! Out on the grass were starling, picking at spilt seed,
and at one point I heard a gentle thud, and found myself looking a squirrel in the
face. He couldn't reach the feeder, but had obviously decided that those discarded
sunflower seeds were well worth the risk of venturing onto the porch. I
even saw a rabbit sitting in the grass. I can hardly believe the life which has sprung
up around my apartment.

I must admit
that I'm not particularly passionate about birds, in fact, I'm not even that
interested in them.
I just like the novelty
of a bird feeder.

But as I sat on my porch, I realized
that as I put out seed, day after day,
whether or not I have time to sit and watch the birds feed,
I love those birds
far more
than I love enemies,
or strangers
or even friends.

To love the stranger
is what God requires.
And what that means here and now, I'm not sure I know.
But I'd better find out.

Amen.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
4 July, 1999