In a world divided into 'us' and 'them,' who counts as 'one of us'?

Sermon delivered Sunday, May 29, 2016 (Second Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 4, Year C) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA. (1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43; Psalm 96:1-9; Galatians 1:1-12; Luke 7:1-10)



Shortly after 9/11, I worked on a documentary film about the backlash that happened in the weeks and months following the attacks on New York and D.C. As you may know, the increase in anti-Muslim sentiment after 9/11 led to a wave of violence against people perceived to be Muslim. People were told to “go back to your country,” their homes and places of worship were vandalized or burned, and 19 people across the U.S. were killed in a misplaced attempt at revenge against our “enemy.”

Muslims experienced their share of this, but so did Sikhs, followers of a religion from northern India whose turbans and beards reminded people of Osama bin Laden. South Asians of all religions were attacked, whether Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, or Muslim, and so were Native Americans and Latinos – basically anyone with brown skin was seen as “the enemy” and thus became a target. We titled our documentary Divided We Fall, and its “tag line” was, “In a world divided into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ who counts as ‘one of us’?”

In that context, that question was a question about national identity, but that same question can be asked about religious identity. That question runs throughout our Scriptures and the history of the church. Who counts as “one of us”? Who are “we” and who are “they”? It’s not always explicitly stated like that, but defining religious identity always involves drawing boundaries between those who are part of the group and those who are not. Today’s scripture readings all have to do with Israel’s complicated relationship with the “other,” the foreigner, the outsider.

In our first lesson, from 1 Kings, chapter 8, we have an excerpt from the prayer King Solomon prayed when dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem. As part of a long prayer to God asking God to hear the people of Israel when they come to the Temple to pray for various things, he also says this:

“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel… comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven… and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you.” (1 Kings 8:41-43)

The psalm speaks about telling God’s glory among “the nations” and among “all peoples,” repeatedly saying that the “whole earth” should sing and praise the God of Israel.

In the second reading, Paul is passionately scolding the Galatians for “turning to a different gospel” – and although the passage does not explicitly identify what that “different gospel” is, a complete reading of the letter to the Galatians reveals that it is the instructions some Christians have given Gentile converts – they told the Gentiles that if they wanted to be “one of us,” they had to first be circumcised and obey the Jewish law. Paul is adamantly against this idea, asserting that those who do not bear the physical marker of group identity and do not obey the same religious rituals are still “one of us,” since, as he says in one of the most famous passages from Galatians, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

And finally, in the Gospel, we have another question about the boundary between Gentile and Jew. A centurion, a soldier in the Roman army, asks Jesus to heal his slave. Although he is a Gentile, Jesus grants his request, and the scriptures tell us that Jesus was “amazed” by this man, saying, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:9).

All of these passages speak favorably toward “them” – the “other,” the “foreigner,” the Gentile – but we all know that there are plenty of biblical passages that do not. One commentator points out that Israel’s relationship to the “foreign” “is usually marked by an attitude ranging from cautious to defensive,” and probably for good reason: there was always the potential of violent conflict breaking out between the people of Israel and their neighboring countries.

A former parishioner of mine who is a biologist says that discrimination is a biological construct, one that is necessary for survival. Discrimination between “us” and “them” allows us to decide very quickly, based on appearance, what is safe and what is not. These decisions are based on memories and experience: sometimes individual memories, but sometimes collective memories passed down through the species. For example, if I’m a gazelle and my only experience with tigers is that they try to eat me, I will probably not approach the tiger and try to be friendly with it. And even if I’m a baby gazelle and I haven’t had any experience with tigers yet, I’m probably going to be instinctually afraid of them because I’ve inherited the instincts of my ancestors who have had experience with tigers. Being afraid of them is evolutionarily advantageous for me; taking a “cautious and defensive” attitude toward the tiger will likely help me stay alive.

Although human beings are more complex intellectually than our other mammal relatives, we still have a part of our brain that operates out of that base, instinctual fear toward anything that is different. If something is unknown to us, we have no way of knowing whether it is safe or dangerous -- and on the off chance that it might be dangerous, we have to be ready to protect ourselves. Distinguishing between different groups of people is not the problem. The problem is assuming that if something is different, it is threatening – that is what leads to the kind of racism and violence that we saw after 9/11, and that we continue to see any time there is a terrorist attack against Westerners that is attributed to Muslims, or when political rhetoric intensifies a sense that Muslims are our enemy (or whoever the "enemy" happens to be at the moment).

Given the evolutionary advantage of being “cautious and defensive” toward anyone who is not “one of us,” any embrace of the “foreigner” must be an intentional act, one that will involve controlling our “reptile brain,” that part of us that instinctively sees otherness as a threat and wants to fight or flight. My personal view is that the passages of scripture that play in to the “foreigner is the enemy” concept are evidence of the sinful nature of the scriptures’ very human authors. The scripture is inspired by God, yes, but I also believe it is tainted by the humans through whom the message was filtered. Sometimes they allowed the Spirit to flow through them without any interference, and sometimes their particular biases colored how they expressed the message God was sending. Our scriptures for today remind us that there is a divine mandate to welcome the foreigner, the stranger, the outsider, to break down the walls between “us” and “them” – and I happen to believe that that is the unadulterated divine message – one that is certainly not “of human origin,” because it goes against our very biology.

In our redeemed state, we are called to rise above the reptile brain, to acknowledge that “they” might actually have a lot in common with us, that “they” might not seek to do us harm, that we don’t need to defend ourselves against “them.” We are called to realize that our relationship with “them” can be one of collaboration rather than competition, and that “they” can even become “one of us” – as the Gentiles did when they joined the Jewish followers of Jesus to form what became the Christian church – a new “us” that was different than the “us” that had existed before.

But even when “we” stay distinct and separate from “them” – even when we don’t ultimately come to share the same religion – we can work to move our relationship with “them” from our natural state of fear and suspicion to one of trust and respect. Through my work in interfaith dialogue, I have learned to acknowledge the sacred and holy when I find it among “them” just as joyfully as when I find it among “us.” In dialogue with other religious communities, I often find myself remembering today’s Gospel reading and saying, “Not even in the church have I found such faith!”