Harold D. Baker

Around Christmas time, there was an article in the L.A. Times about the town of Nazareth. Archeologists had discovered the ruins of a house from roughly the time of Jesus, the first such dwelling ever found. In that period, Nazareth was a poor, isolated Jewish village of about 50 families.

If you had watched Playing for Change: Peace through Music, you would have seen good footage of modern Nazareth. It is now about 65,000 people, the largest Arab city in northern Israel. It is picturesque, with rolling green hills and white houses, a little like the Bay area.

Anyway, this little house was a place people lived when Jesus was growing up, in a town of just 50 families. With this fact, the imagination takes flight. It is impossible not to think that Jesus passed by, knew the family, played outside perhaps. We recall our own childhoods. What yard in our neighborhood didn't we know, where didn't they know us?

As an adult, Jesus was asked, "Who is my neighbor?", and we are still struggling with what he said. Our neighbor is the other, the one we don't know, whose life is foreign to us, with a different language, different clothes and manners, and funny-smelling food. Jesus did not have much luck with his physical neighbors, as we see if we continue past today's reading. The Gospel organizes the world in a different way.

Almost two weeks ago, the catastrophic earthquake on Haiti swept into our collective consciousness. A host of countries and organizations rushed to organize and transport help to the Caribbean. Transportation and distribution proved very difficult. For days, the isolation of the victims continued under the world's concentrated and helpless stare. A number of journalists were in the city, and it was possible to see and hear the people's ordeal by television and Internet. On YouTube, for example, you could find as many images of suffering from Haiti as you were prepared to handle.

It was as though a hole had been torn in the social fabric, and we were suddenly looking in on a reality that normally we would block out.

In one ten-minute YouTube clip, a Haitian guy named Lungyim from Les Cayes takes us on a walking tour of his devastated neighborhood. We turn into the courtyard of the Hospital of the Immaculate Conception, the largest in Les Cayes. The modest complex was mercifully spared collapse. Crowds gather outside and inside, standing and squatting over the patients, who lie scattered over the floor and among the sparse furniture. Few medical personnel are seen. We stop at one girl about 20 years old, propped against the wall, who had been caught in the collapse of her concrete dwelling. Her eyes are swollen shut, teeth are missing, and there is a crudely-stitched gash on her forehead. She talks feebly in Kreyol with Lungyim behind the camera, telling how she was injured and brought to the hospital. Her name is Rose-Andrée. The camera circles behind; we see her hair shaved away and a wound bleeding through its bandage.

With luck, Rose-Andrée may soon have a cot and medics looking after her; fresh bandages, neat sutures, and antibiotics. It seems very little, but at least she will survive and recover.

Back in the U.S., the battle over health care reform continues. Above the noise and grime of the political process, serious questions hover. What are the nature and limits of community? What is the minimum, intrinsic human bond or obligation that we will not deny and dare not renounce? The answer cannot be imposed. It must emerge, like a picture coming into focus.

Who is my neighbor?

The scene shifts from one ruined city to another. (We will be jumping around a lot today in time and space.)

This is the context for today's Old Testament reading from Nehemiah. It is the 5th century B.C.E., and the Hebrew people are just returning to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. Finding the walls of their city destroyed, they gather their resources and begin to rebuild. They are under pressure from hostile local rulers and in constant threat of armed attack by the surrounding population. After two months of harrowing labor, with sword in one hand and tools in the other, they complete the reconstruction. In our Old Testament reading, the people are summoned for a reading of the "Law," or Torah. Thousands gather densely at the Water Gate: men, women, and "all who have understanding." Dozens of teachers circulate through the crowd, explaining and clarifying, so that all understand the meaning of what they hear.

It is an emotional scene of homecoming; the people weep openly to hear the words of the Law. What they are hearing is the first five books of our Bible; more than just laws in the narrow sense, it is the history of the origins of the Hebrew people. This story is the home of the listening crowd, just as the rebuilt city of Jerusalem is their historical home.

The experience reconstitutes them as a community. As the priests command, they feast together and rejoice. Those with nothing must also be at the table; no one is left out of the celebration.

We jump ahead five centuries, back to the small town of Nazareth. In sharp contrast to the day-long observance in Nehemiah, the Gospel reading encompasses only minutes. Like the Nehemiah, it is a reading about a reading, but in this case there is mostly silence. Jesus gets up, takes the scroll for Isaiah, and ruffles through it, searching for something. Finding his passage, he reads seven lines of prophecy, rolls the scroll up again, and sits down. Here is the passage:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Silence. Everyone stares at him, waiting for the commentary. When it comes, it is a single sentence and a refusal to comment: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." There are no difficulties of interpretation, only the bare immediacy of the prophetic Word.

The episode in Nazareth is an exceptional case of non-recognition, or refusal to recognize, but it underlines the problem of immediacy, of the here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven will come like a thief in the night, or like a stranger on the road at end of day, with no warning, no signs, only a burning of the heart.

More often, Jesus' encounters are scenes of deep mutual recognition. Peter says to Jesus, "Thou art Christos, son of the living God." Jesus answers him, "Thou art Petros, on this rock (petra) I will found my Church." When we see Jesus, he sees us in our astonishing true value as members of his Body, with dangerous, important work to fill our lives.

When I was growing up in Rhode Island, our minister growing up was the Rev. Alden Besse, whom we called Mr. Besse. (This was Low Church circa 1970!) Mr. Besse was Harvard-trained and tough as our rocky New England soil. It was a great gift to have him as my minister. One of his sermons, in particular, has remained with me vividly over the years. The question he asked was:

How will Jesus speak to us in the Kingdom,
and how will we answer his greeting?

It is deceptively simple question, to which Scripture does not provide a single clear answer. Think of all the epithets, titles, and characters given to Jesus, the images of majesty, sublimity, even terror that attach to him: Son of Man, Son of God, Prince of Peace, the Way, the Truth, and the Life--it's enough to make your head spin. Will Jesus even notice us, with all that majesty going on? And what about us, what will we be like in the Kingdom? Will we look like ourselves, or like angels, bleached and buoyant? Or will we be like sheep, woolly and docile? Will Jesus stroke us on the head, and we say, "Baah"?

None of the above. Look to popular religion, to the hymns and traditions of the people, where Jesus is a friend and teacher, a help in time of trouble. Then, look back to the great encounters of the Gospel, and see that this is true. Theology fades away, and again we receive the promised Good News.

How will Jesus welcome us? He will call us by our first name. Think of your own first name. That is how he will greet you. And you will call him as his friends did in life: "Rabbi," Teacher. Between you it will be as a conversation renewed, a walk resumed in pure new light.

Recently I caught up with Mr. Besse through an interview on the Internet. In his mid-eighties, he continues as a parish priest on Martha's Vineyard, a small island off Massachusetts. He is a prominent local activist, organizing peace demonstrations, managing the local food bank, supporting environmental projects, celebrating the arrival of a Jewish cultural center to the island. He is in a heated conversation with his Rabbi, and cannot stop for a moment.

We too have that joy, though Messiah's work is on a larger and more complex scale. It was exactly 20 years ago that Marianna and I first visited here. I cannot now imagine my life without the community and purpose that Messiah provides.

As you know, we have lost our grant from the Diocese, which has been a significant source of funds for the parish. We have found ways to compensate in part, but a gap remains. The Vestry and Clergy do not believe that essential professional staff can be cut without unacceptable compromises to parish work and life.

This is not about direct support to programs like Noah Project and Hands Together, which are supported financially from other sources. Rather, the budget enables Messiah to function as a center of worship and community, with a rich variety of programs for its members. Outside programs extend and fulfill our values and beliefs, but do not depend on our funding.

To close the gap, we are challenging all Messiah parishioners to increase your pledges by 5%. The Vestry has already increased their pledges by at least this amount and added $5,000 to the budget, toward the overall goal of $20,000. It is difficult to ask you for this additional sacrifice, after your already very generous pledges for the coming year. The Vestry has worked hard to find savings, and will continue to do so. We hope and believe that you will rise to this challenge, out of love for this church and what it does.

More important than budget, however, is people. The saying goes, "You give a man a fish, and he eats for a day." You teach a man to pledge, and you continue the work of God's Kingdom. What we really need, however, are fishers of souls. A former Senior Warden once said that many people come to Messiah because they are looking for something real. He meant both the neighborhood we are in and the street-wise ministry by which we engage it. Coming through these doors for the first time can have the shock of a discovery. Who in your life is looking for something real? Bring them here. Get the light out from under the bushel. And help the persons who flow in our doors to feel that shock and the burning in the heart, then the growth of belonging, with work and action and celebration. Let us be a people who faithfully recognize our neighbor, and whose walk with our Teacher is close. Amen.

REFERENCES

Associated Press. "Home found in Nazareth dates to Jesus' time." Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2009. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-nazareth26-2009dec26,0,1508650.story

Fein, Ian. "Growing Class Divide Cause for Worry." Vineyard Gazette, November 24, 2006. http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/11/24/voices_alden_besse.php

Johnson, Mark; Walls, Jonathan. Playing for Change: Peace through Music. Film, 2008.

mrlungyim100. "lungyim ~ after Earthquake In Haiti In 24 hours (UpDate)." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crVfbOjFoHA&videos=DEe_eLw4hJQ&playnext_from=TL&playnext=1. YouTube video on Haiti destruction, visit to Conception Immaculée Hospital and girl with head injury.