Reaching Out (A Sermon for Outreach Sunday at St. Mark’s)
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL, Year B)
February 15, 2009
The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector
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Outreach. Reaching to those outside of our customary environs, our established, even sacred personal boundaries. Reaching out to “the other.”
Late in 2005, “the other” was at the heart of my contemplation of my then upcoming sabbatical – a contemplation that evolved into the catchphrase,
“Conversation, Not Conversion.” The idea being that in an increasingly pluralistic world, Christian engagement, even evangelism had to be less
about seeking to turn others into Christians and more about entering deeply into dialogue with others for the purpose of mutual sharing and
learning. All toward the aim of making peace. All for the purpose – if there is any conversion at all – of seeing “the other” as another sister
or brother.
From July 2006 through January 2007, Pontheolla and I literally went around the world, putting ourselves for extended periods in places
throughout Europe and in South Africa where we were “the – sometimes less, sometimes more – other.” We learned a lot. About others. Other
cultures. Other ways of being in the world. And about ourselves.
Now, two years later, it is clear to me that this idea of “the other” was no momentary fascination of the proverbial once in a lifetime
journey (although the sabbatical was certainly that). Rather, reaching out to the other is the central interest of the rest of my lifetime
and, therefore, as your rector, at the core of my call to us as a community.
Today is Outreach Sunday. We recognize and emphasize our efforts to reach out to others around us. Some near – those served by Capitol Hill Group
Ministry, the Church of the Brethren Soup Kitchen, and Samaritan Ministry. Some far – Action for Community Transformation and Honduras, where a
mostly St. Mark’s women’s group departed yesterday morning to spend the next 10 days in service and sharing with our Honduran sisters. We also
lift up those in our midst, the Outreach Board and program managers, who carry out these ministries in our name and on our behalf.
Today, I also advocate that each of us continue to find ways in our daily living to reach out to those unlike us. Those in need, who, as expressed
in this morning’s choral anthem, are the silent ones who wait when the blessing seems too late.[1] Reaching out is as
essential to each of us being an individual as reaching in. To the extent that we can and will reach out, we expand our horizons of relationships,
our knowing about the world and our very selves. To the extent that we cannot or will not, we isolate ourselves, becoming, more than metaphorically,
like lepers.
Reaching out, therefore, is nothing less than a quintessential act of enlightened self-interest, for it is the pathway toward authentic selfhood,
which can be known only by encounter with “the other” – the one who is external to us and, yet, is a reflection of us. Reaching out, therefore,
is the pathway toward our healing, our wholeness, our awareness of our connectedness with the larger humanity around us.
The lepers we encounter in our scripture passages show us the way…
Naaman, a proud Syrian commander, convinced of the superiority of his culture, nevertheless, driven by a desperate desire for healing, seeks out
the other – Elisha, a prophet in Samaria.[2] Notwithstanding the initial rejection of Elisha’s less than personal,
less than palatable prescription, Naaman swallows his skepticism and is healed – a healing that could come only because he reached out.
“A leper came to (Jesus).”[3] And only by reaching out – “If you choose, you can make me clean” – and risking rejection
could healing come.
Yet I believe something more was at work here, which I shall call the mutuality of otherness, therefore, the mutual necessity of reaching out,
and therefore, the mutual opportunity for healing.
“A leper came to Jesus.” Presumably both were Israelites, yet, the enforced isolation of leprosy made them each utterly other to the other. The
leper in reaching out offered Jesus a choice, a challenge to uphold or to violate the Mosaic Law that would bar any association with a diseased
person.[4] Jesus “moved with pity…stretched out his hand and touched him,” thereby honoring the person over the legal
prescription.
Even more, the Greek word, which we translate, “moved with pity,” is derived from another Greek word that refers to the viscera, the intestines.
With yesterday’s Valentine's Day celebration, we might be forgiven for speaking sentimentally of the heart as the seat of emotion. However, for
our ancient forebears, human passions arose from our anatomical depths. Jesus, deeply moved, literally in his bowels, reached out and touched.
And there was healing in that touch. For both of them. For in that encounter both of them were made aware of the commonality of their humanity
that no law can govern. The only law of any merit is that of authentic, unsentimentalized benevolent action. In other words, the law of love,
which, when embraced by us, can make the words of this day’s anthem not only heard in our singing, but incarnate in our living:
Lord of storm and heat and danger, deep inside and high above
break into (our) fear and anger, till you reign the earth in love;
till you reign the earth in love.
(Then we will) see the silent ones who wait
(and then act, so) the blessing (doesn’t come) too late.
[1]Lord of feasting and of hunger. Words by Herbert F. Brokering. Music by Cary Ratliff.
[2] The Hebrew scripture appointed for the day is 2 Kings 5.1-14.
[3] The gospel passage appointed for the day is Mark 1.40-45.
