Bearing the Cross, Not Wielding It

Transcript is AI-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Hi everyone. Welcome to the table. My name's Debbie Manning. Hi Charlie, you're back! it's good to be here tonight, although I have to say, in all honesty, I had a little bit of angst. I was on the schedule for preaching and it's been kind of a hard week, hasn't it? It's been a heavy week like a stomachache-inducing week. Soul wrenching and inhumane and horrific murder, brutality, massacre, evil. Those words are all true of what happened on the Gaza strip this past week. Those words are all true, but they're not adequate to describe the atrocities that the terrorist organization of Hamas did to the Israeli people living there in peace—many of them peacemakers, by the way. 

But there are other words that are well known to the Palestinian people. And those are words like dehumanization and death, expulsion, eviction from their homes, forced to live in refugee camps, open air prison, no freedom of movement, no freedom of water, being stopped at checkpoints, and treated literally like animals. 

All these words that I just talked about are true. And the reality is, the Israeli suffering and the Palestinian suffering, they are deeply tied together and vice versa. Those are two truths that we do know, and I think for us today, and the conversations Matt and I have been having all week is how do we hold these things together? How do we hold together the truth of these horrific atrocities that happened this past week that were committed against the Israeli people? How do we hold that? And then also hold the importance of the backdrop of this, the context of this, right? Because there are centuries—centuries—of Jewish people being dehumanized, anti-Semitic laws, targeted for genocide. 

And then there's been this 50 plus years of the apartheid policies put upon the Palestinian people in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Oppression, discrimination, daily terror. And while we need to understand that backdrop if we're ever gonna move forward to some sort of lasting peace, we can understand that backdrop and still stand in that none of it justifies violence, none of it, not for anyone. So in our grief and our fear and our lamenting and our feelings of helplessness, the question becomes what do we do? As people who follow Jesus Christ, what is our response when this happens in our world? 

In 2012, Matt and I at the time were pastors over at Christ Presbyterian Church. You can see this video overlooking the city. It was this amazing couple of trips we got to take. So the first one was with Christ Presbyterian. We partnered with an organization called TELOS, a peacemaking organization. Their whole goal was to form communities of peacemakers. And they were all about that. There's no us and them. There's only us. And that we always have to take a pro-pro stance, 'cause the minute we're pro one side, then we're anti the other side. So we have this opportunity to be with all—to spend time with peacemakers, both Israeli and Palestinian on this trip. 

But about a year later, in 2013, we had this chance to take a group from the table with an organization called the Global Immersion Project because something was moving in us that is followers of Jesus, we are called to be peacemakers. This isn't a side gig, this is core to who we are as followers of Jesus. And so Matt and I took a group of about, I don't know, Matt was there, like 15 people on the trip? Partnered with Jer and, uh, Jer Swigart and Jon Huckins who started this organization. 

And it was an amazing, amazing, I mean, we saw, um, the beauty of Israel. We met with peacemakers, both Israeli and Palestinian. We met with ex-Israeli military. We met with settlers. We were invited into the home of a Jewish family and shared a Shabbat meal. We spent a day on the Balata refugee camp. About a square mile meant for 5-6,000 people, I think about 60,000 people lived there when we were there. But we heard about the work of peacemaking that they were doing there. 

And after 10 days of meeting with Muslim clerics, Palestinian Christians, Jewish rabbis, spending time with regular people—you saw the picture up there of that sweet family who invited us over. A Palestinian Christian family living in East Jerusalem. And they invited us for dinner and we spent the evening with their friends dancing around a fire pit. Of course, their backyard butted up against the wall. But we got to know people and we got to hear their stories. And we got to see the amazing work they were doing, setting self aside, dedicating their lives. This is that family to the work of peace and at a great cost to all of them. 

We spent some time at a place called the Tent of Nations. And this Daoud Nassar, a Christian Palestinian, his family had owned the land for a hundred years, and the settlers were encroaching on the land and they didn't want them here. So he would plant olive trees, in the middle of the night, they'd come and chop 'em down. The IDF would put these huge, huge, um, boulders in his driveway. So even when we came, we had to park and then hike in to see him. But he was a Christian Palestinian, working for peace. And let me tell you, there were people equally on all sides saying “enough.” 

And I think one of the most powerful, um, groups that we met with, and Matt, I don't know if you'd agree with this or not, but it was a group called The Parents Circle. Both would TELOS and Global Immersion. We got to meet with them. And it was started by a woman, an Israeli woman who lost her son, who was an IDF soldier. And he decided to sign up for another three years, you know, it's mandatory for three years. And he signed up because he was that presence at the checkpoints who saw the humanity, tried to give dignity to the Palestinians crossing the border. So he signed up for another three years and he ended up getting killed. And then there was a Muslim woman, they were young, young kids living in east Jerusalem and, and her husband happened to be out one night and there was a skirmish and he got killed by some IDF soldiers. And the two of them got together and they said, “enough, enough, we are done with violence. We are human beings, we are people we wanna see and know each other, and we want peace.” So I think we left that trip holding hope, moving forward into something that could be peace. 

But what we understood after spending time having these experiences is that at the core of all of it is when any one group takes an us-and-them or others another group of people or a person, that it's that what led to this world and this history we've had, right? of demonizing, dehumanizing, destroying people in communities. Antithetical to the intent, God's intent for us. 

Well, interestingly, we are continuing in the book of Mark, my assigned text for tonight I think actually has something that might help us continue the conversation, step into the what is our response as people who follow Jesus. And we're finishing up chapter one and it's a story about when Jesus healed the leper. And just a reminder, we've seen Jesus call the disciples. We've seen Jesus heal people call demons out in Matt talk last week about Jesus going into the woods, spending time rest, connecting with the divine. 

But here we are tonight in Mark chapter 1:40-42. “A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees. If you are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and he touched the man and he said, ‘I am willing, be clean.’ And immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.”

Now, what's important for this story is there's a whole lot of religious rules, norms, health concerns that would keep this leper from even approaching Jesus. And if Jesus's prior boundary-crossing, which we saw when he, when he healed Simon's mother-in-law, or he touched a woman who wasn't a relative of his, if that was something, him touching a leper was really blowing away those boundaries. 

Because anyone who was identified as a leper and just let me say in ancient times a leper was anyone with like a rash, ringworm, leprosy. But anyone identified as a leper was the lowest state of existence. And in addition to these physical ravages of the disease, the Torah law back then prescribed a very certain life that a leper had to live by. Leviticus 13:45-46: “The leper in whom the plague is shall wear, torn clothes and the hair of his head shall hang loose. He shall cover his upper lip and shall cry unclean, unclean. And all the days in which the plague is in him. He shall be unclean, he is unclean. He shall dwell alone outside of the camp shall be his dwelling.”

The system in place—that was put in place—had huge drastic consequences for someone considered a leper. Consequences that were medical, religious, social, even financial because the afflicted person was considered to be ritually unclean. They were required to live alone away from community. And they actually had to keep a distance of 50 paces from someone else. And if the leper touched another person or was touched, that person was considered unclean and they had to head over to the priest, be examined, and and either be claimed “you're clean” or “you're unclean.” A lot of power the priest had. 

But the afflicted person was also relegated—because he couldn't get a job—to begging. And often his family had to beg as well. And these consequences added a crushing weight to an already horrible life. But he had heard about Jesus's work and he came pleading. But I think what's interesting is he didn't walk up and say, “Hey, will you make me clean?” He said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” So he knows that Jesus is a miracle worker, but he just doesn't ask for it. He's like, “if you wish.” 

It was interesting to read up on this, the scholars had all sorts of thoughts on it, but mostly they landed on: maybe it was a simple plea from someone who had experienced a life without power or hope, who knew that every request he made was at the whim or the will of someone else. He doesn't ask to be healed. He asked to be clean because he was looking for far more than the cleansing from the disease, but a spiritual and a social cleansing. He wanted to be fully restored in all dimensions. 

This leper approached Jesus, truly believing that God was working through Jesus and could do this. So he begs Jesus to make him clean. And in this text, and this is important to this conversation tonight in this text, most manuscripts say that Jesus was filled with compassion. But the NIV that I use tonight as a translation says something different. But most, actually most translations say “being moved by compassion, he reached out and he touched the man.” The other translations use the word anger, angry indignant. So which is it? Because I think it's important to note. 

So there's a couple of reasons why most scholars actually lean toward that it is anger or indignation. And here's why. Because the first—and just hang in here with me for a quick second—the first principle of translation is that they say that the more difficult reading is probably the accurate reading. Because copyists in those times tended to try to improve the text, but with an easier-to-handle reading. And compassion in this case would've been far easier to handle. They wouldn't have been tempted to reverse it if it was actually indignation or um, anger. 

And secondly, Matthew and Luke, remember they got a lot of what they wrote about, Mark was their main source. And when they tell the same story, they actually don't even mention an emotion that Jesus had when he healed the leper. And it leads scholars to believe that if Mark would've said compassion, they probably would've used that. But if he used anger, they probably would've left it out. 

So why would Jesus have been angry? Because everyone across the board agrees he wasn't angry at the leper. He wasn't angry, that “hey, the leper didn't keep 50 paces. And he came right up to me.” And we know that because he reached over and he touched the leper. He wasn't angry because he was interrupted. Jesus was interrupted all the time. He never responded in anger when he was interrupted. 

But most scholars think, and this makes sense to me, that Jesus's anger wasn't against the leper, it was against the evil forces, the system that actually made this man a victim. But whether moved by compassion or indignation over the injustices, Jesus reaches out. He says, I will. And that changes everything. His I will is the power of the good news, the power that changes lives. And that in Jesus, this will and power of God is revealed in the story. And what I love about this story is that boundaries are crossed, power is addressed, the unclean becomes clean, and the sick become whole. And Jesus gets in a whole lot of trouble for that. 

And I think about what's happening in Israel and Palestine right now, and we ask this question about our own response, there is something that we can take from this text tonight because here's the thing, and for anyone who's new, like our mission statement is, you know, we are people practicing the ways of Jesus. So what are the ways of Jesus in this text? And I think first and foremost it's seeing. He sees the humanity, the dignity. He sees God in the leper, he sees imago dei. 

And secondly, he's moved maybe by both compassion and indignation at the system that would cause a man to have a life like this. But he's moved by compassion, by indignation and he's moved to do something. And in that something, he crosses all the social boundaries, the cultural boundaries, the religious boundaries. And in his “I will” what he's, what he's moving toward is restoration to wholeness, to reconciliation for all those that are on the margin, the lost the outcasts. I think that helps us with our response to what's going on right now. Not just in the Middle East, but in the city of Minneapolis, in our country, across the world, that this is the call.

So this Global Immersion Project that Matt and I have been involved with and many people from the table have. If you've been around a long time, Nicole, I'm sure you were here when Jer Swigart has come and spoken to us, and they truly are an amazing organization because it's never transactional with them, it's transformational. They have built relationships with peacemakers all over the world for decades now. And I think we have a lot to learn with our partnership. And one of the conversations that Matt and I had is we'd love to get Jer in a conversation with us here and not in this moment. 

Jer was actually there with a group when the bombs started going off last Saturday. He got safely home midweek. I think both Matt and I had some text exchanges with him just saying we were praying, grateful for the peacemaking that was going on. And then he had to go radio silent for a while because he was so shattered, so broken. And you could imagine the years of work and this peacemaking that has just gone backwards. But we will stay in relationship with our friend over there. And core to what they do is from Matthew 5:9 when Jesus is given the sermon on the mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called children of God.” 

There's four things that they talk a lot about in their organization. And I think there are things we can use in our families, in our communities, in this conflict, in this war that's going on right now. And the first thing they talk about is see: every day peacemakers see the humanity, the dignity, they see God, the image of God in every single person, everybody. And then the call is to contend, not by getting even, it's not about winning, but it's about getting creative in love. And then immerse: people that are peacemakers, they move toward conflict, they move toward conflict, and they do it with tools to heal rather than to win. And then the last piece is restore. It's about knowing one another. It's about sharing tables with former enemies. It's about celebrating the big and the small ways that God is moving in and amongst us all.

I think the one thing we could never move away from, whenever we are—I can't even think of a good word because what happened a week ago, Saturday was so horrible—but when we are feeling destroyed, emotionally, not knowing what to do, I think we always have to pause and we always have to remember that there is no other, that every single person is created in the image of God. And it's when we know each other that it changes everything. And I know that all of you know people in Israel, know people in Palestine. You have friends that have friends. 

And this week I was talking to a friend of mine. For nine months, they had a young man from Palestine live with him just this last year. He went home in June. Jehad is his name. He came, he was a senior at White Bear Lake. Here he is. When he first came this Lori and Allen, when he first came, that's what he was so excited. They gave him a white bear for the white bear, um, for White Bear Lake. There he is in front of the Statue of Liberty. And their time was Jihad. He could not get over. He was, oh, by the way, lives in the Gaza Strip. He couldn't get over that. He could get on his bike and ride freely down the street. He thought it was amazing that he could go to Target and buy something. He went out for the swim team. He was a straight A student. He met with the professor of Muslim studies at Macalester College and said, “We'll give you a free ride.” But what he knew was after going home to the Gaza Strip, he couldn't come back. And they grew to love him. He became like a son to them. And when the bombs started hitting in the Gaza Strip, they were sent a picture of he and his grandfather on the, the, um, deck of their tiny little apartment overlooking the bombs going off. And the last they heard is that they were packing up. They lived in Northern Gaza and they were heading south. And his last words were, “This might be the last time I ever talked to you. I love you.” 

These are human beings, the Israelis, the Palestinians, the imagery, God and every single one of us. So Jer Swigart would say that those deeply, he and others deeply involved in this conflict, that this is a serious moment. That this is a level above anything that they've ever experienced. It's a severe moment. The geopolitics are different, the government is different. The policies, the stakes are higher. 

And one of the things that I thought was important for us to hear is that when we have theologies that inform policy that put one group of people, prioritize some over others, we have used our theology. We've used and abused our theology because that is not a theology of the God that we follow. This kind of violence will continue to happen as we fail to see the humanity and the dignity and God in every person. Because at the end of the day, what we do know, violence begets more violence, hate begets more hatred, that no one's gonna win here. People will be destroyed. 

And so what Jer has been saying now is that what we can work on is our messaging. Make sure we're not dehumanizing anybody, demonizing any side or issue. Make sure that we're truly lamenting the violence and in his words, throwing sticks in the cycle of violence. And we continue to deepen our resolve to raise up peacemakers. 

So what does it really mean for us tangibly? Because we can talk about these things, seeing the humanity in someone. What do we do today, now? I think there's a lot of things here you can do locally. I mean, certainly I believe in praying for the Israelis and the Palestine Palestinians, praying for peace, but know each other. Who are the Palestinians in our, the Muslims in our community, that we might partner with? Or the Israelis? Matt, I know, has a dear friendship with a rabbi in town that he's been talking to. 

One of the organizations that Matt and I are part of is something called Isaiah. And it's a organization for faith leaders that are Muslim, Christian, Jewish. And it's all about that knowing each other, holding hands, being about peacemaking. Tami Moberg, you had a great idea about calling our representatives. Call our representatives and tell them we don't want any more money going to war. The tangible things that we can do, have the conversations and we will continue to have the conversation here. We will continue to move forward. We will continue to be committed to the work of peacemaking. 

And one of the things that Jer Swigart was saying that I really resonated with is we have to choose to be either cross wielding or cross bearing people. And there's a huge difference in that. So that's my hope. We've gotta take the path of peacemaking. When dominant people oppress others, peace will be impossible and suffering will be constant and there will be no way forward to peace. That's heavy and that's hard. But it was a heavy and hard week and we still are called to stand in it because peacemaking is also not doing nothing. Peacemaking is active, gonna stand up and denounce evil and violence and war. We also stand with human beings. 

I'm going to close with this blessing. May the love of Christ compel us. May we see conflict no longer as a problem, but an opportunity for restoration. May we begin to see others the way that Jesus sees them. May we listen longer than feels comfortable. May we choose reconciliation over revenge and may we be ambassadors of the God of creative love, patience, healing, justice and peace. Amen.