“One Body and One Spirit”
World Communion
San Jose, CA, Sept. 24, 2023, Pastor Deb Troester
We stood before a huge 18-foot high wall, made of metal slats set closely together so a person could not slip through, but far enough apart to glimpse the other side of the border. The rusty-looking metal was covered with concertina wire, from the top to within a few feet of the bottom. Disconcertingly, a red jacket was caught in the wire, about twelve feet up. Bare dirt stretched away from the wall. Metal barriers in the form of large “x’s” were set in the ground about ten yards in front of the fence. A deep concrete-lined ditch completed the barriers between us and Mexico. The ditch was dry, but when it rained, it filled up with water, and from time to time bodies were found there - people who had drowned trying to cross.
Yet on the other side of the fence, there was a sidewalk and a street. Cars drove by every few minutes. People strolled or jogged by, some walking their dogs. Peering through, we could see houses, trees, parked cars, kids playing – a normal residential neighborhood.
Later we would see that the Mexican side of the wall was painted with beautiful murals. It was surreal.
A little black puppy with white paws slid easily between the slats and begged us to pick him up. After a while he wandered back to the other side of the fence. A small dog could cross the international border, but we could not. He could go home, but many cannot.
As we stood there, PCUSA mission co-worker Mark Adams began to read the verses we just heard: “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”
One of humanity’s most persistent problems is fear of the other. This fear developed from some real concerns in our deep past. When our ancestors were hunter-gatherers, running into another band of humans could mean a fight, or even death. Anthropologist Jared Diamond wrote of observing a diverse crowd of people in an airport in Papua New Guinea. He remarks that just a generation or two ago, these people’s ancestors, upon seeing a stranger from a different tribe, would have either fought them or run away and hidden. For millennia human beings have generally kept to themselves and their own ethnic group out of fear of a possibly dangerous encounter. Fear and suspicion of those who are different seems almost hard-wired into our psyche, buried deep in our “lizard-brains” as neurologists call our autonomous nervous system. This prejudice against the “other” is also learned in infancy and childhood – passed down from parents and grandparents generation by generation.
Yet God calls us, the church, to be one body and one spirit: “no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God…” “Household” means “family” – we are all part of one family, the family of God. Sadly, in our churches this is often not the case. It has been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week in the U.S. According to a recent study, only 10% of mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. are multiracial.
At least we can be proud that we are part of that 10%, but that statistic does not reflect well on Christianity as a whole in our country.
How can we live into the call to be one body and one spirit, no longer strangers and aliens? The first step is just getting to know each another – becoming friends with someone who is different. In a recent interview on NPR’s Forum program, Ted Johnson, author of When the Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America, lamented that in the U.S. we are all in our own “silos.” Most people don’t have friends of different races or ethnicities, different political or religious beliefs. As a retired African American naval commander he commented that in the navy he worked together with people of many different backgrounds and became friends with them, but outside the military he seldom sees that happen. He encouraged listeners to get out of their “silo” and get to know someone of a different race, a different nationality, a different sexual orientation. He said that once we get to know each other, the walls that divide us will fall.
I am reminded of the PCUSA’s Confession of 1967, which reads, “God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, God overcomes the barriers between sisters and brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary…Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize others, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.” I don’t know about you, but this last sentence convicts me.
God’s intent for humanity is to be one – for us to love and respect each other, and to work together for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven. We struggle with this goal because we are human – we are born into a particular family, of a particular ethnicity, in a particular place, and it can be hard to accept those who are not like us.
The PCUSA is not the first church to struggle with exclusion of the “other.” Ephesians was written to a divided people. Some were Jewish Christians, some were Gentile, - of non-Jewish background. The writer of Ephesians reminds us that because there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and parent of us all” we are one family, whether we like it or not. Just as in our birth family, we don’t get to choose our siblings. Christ has made us one; it is up to us to live into our oneness.
Unity does not mean that we lose our unique culture. As my husband and I traveled to different countries, we experienced many beautiful expressions of faith – Holy Week processions in Puerto Rico, awe-inspiring choirs and drums in Cameroon, Tanzania, and Zambia. Colorful Sunday clothing and dancing down the aisle to bring our offerings – sometimes money, sometimes chickens, goats, yams, or bananas. In the Central African Republic, at a service welcoming a new Bible School class, not only were representatives from Catholic and Pentecostal churches invited, but Muslim leaders as well. In that town Christians and Muslims worked together to build a school for their children. A water project was funded by U.S. Christians, and built by local Christians, who then invited local Muslims to celebrate with them when it was finished and to fill up their water containers as well.
That brings me to the second way we can promote the unity of the church: work together. If we go back to the wall – that same wall that that places such an enormous barrier between our nation and our siblings in Mexico, we find hope: Christians from south and north are working together to create a more just world, where all can flourish. Those of you who saw my slide presentation from my visit last year to Frontera de Cristo, the organization headed up by PCUSA mission co-worker Mark Adams and his wife Miriam Maldonado. Together with Lirio del Valle Presbyterian Church, just across the border in Agua Prieta, Mexico, they have formed the Café Justo coffee coop. It brings together growers from Chiapas, in southern Mexico, processors in Agua Prieta, and buyers in the U.S. Two entire villages in Chiapas depend on this coop for their living. They don’t have to make the dangerous trip into the U.S. for work, because they can earn a living wage right there in Mexico.
There is also an after-school program to help kids who need tutoring, and a craft co-op run by women. [I brought one of the tortilla covers made by the women to cover our communion bread this morning.] a drug rehabilitation program and the Migrant Resource Center, where Presbyterians and Catholics – both from Mexico and the U.S. work together to help immigrants needing first aid, water, a meal, or maybe help getting back home after being turned away. Frontera de Cristo is only one small example of people from different backgrounds, languages, and cultures working together for justice, working to bring down the dividing wall of hostility that separates us. I am sure you can think of many more examples, some right here in San Jose.
Christ’s church brings precious gifts to the world as we work together, worship together, and help each other, regardless of ethnic, religious, or cultural differences. We demonstrate that people can get along, despite all our differences. Let’s appreciate the different ways we worship, the emphasis on values of community, family, and spending time with together - values that other cultures offer to our individualistic, often self-centered Western culture. Giving thanks for the gifts of others helps us live into the unity God intends for us. Author Diana Butler Bass comments on her blog: “Gratitude…makes joy and love possible. It rearranges the way we see and experience what is all around us… Gratitude transforms how we understand what is broken and gives us the ability to act more joyfully and with hope.” Imagine if instead of fearing the foreigner, or reacting in anger to “strangers” entering our country, we gave thanks for the gifts they bring: hard work, love of family, fierce determination to do whatever it takes to help our loved ones survive. Instead of complaining that people from other countries have “different” ways of doing things that are strange and hard for us to understand, what if we open our eyes and hearts with curiosity to what God is doing in bringing them here? I am speaking now to my fellow native-born North Americans of course, yet we find that “our” Anglo-Saxon culture permeates the church. Maybe we need to ask how we can make things easier for those among us who find our ways strange instead of insisting that people must assimilate to our way of doing things. Just a thought.
Rejoice! We are one in Christ. Whether we want to be or not, whether we know it or not, God has already made us one. It is up to us to live into that unity that is so precious to God, with God’s help of course. We have made a good start here at Santa Teresa Hills. We give thanks that our church and others in our Presbytery are beginning to reflect the culture around us that is so rich with diversity. God loves diversity – God did not make one kind of tree, but many; God did not make one kind of fish or one kind of bird, but many; sunsets and clouds reflect God’s glory in a different way each time. God rejoices in the diversity of humanity. Let us give thanks and join in that rejoicing. Amen.
©Deborah Troester, 2023