In Some Ways, We Are Different—John 13: 3-5
One of the most beautiful phrases in hymnody is from our anthem, “All things bright and beautiful, all things great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.” It’s a bright and cheery reminder of a Loving Creator during a week filled with sadness, pain, and terror. Some of you, I know, have struggled with bad news and continued issues of great difficulty. And in the backdrop of the daily routine of surviving, we watched the unfolding of yet another school shooting, this time far too close to home. In the time the church has had Facebook, I’ve posted close to ten times some form of thoughts and prayers following a mass shooting, and that’s just the ones where I was able to post.
There are many dozens of ways we can respond: rage, sadness, blame, fear, becoming despondent. But at the root of it all is a sense that life is a cheap commodity. [SLIDE] In a 1999 acceptance speech for the TV Hall of Fame Induction, Fred Rogers had this to say: “Last month a 13-year-old boy abducted an 8-year-old girl, and when people asked him why, he said he learned about it on TV. ‘Something different to try,’ he said, ‘Life’s cheap; what does it matter?’ Well, life isn’t cheap. It’s the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that … to show and tell what the good in life is all about.”
But now I want you to focus in on the young man who is with him—Jeff Erlanger. And I want us to watch the first time he and Mr. Rogers met on the set of Neighborhood. [PLAY CLIP]
The truth of life is that in some ways we are all different. We have different types of “raising,” some different ideas and beliefs, personal tastes. Some of us have differences in ability be it physical or cognitive. Some of us are different colors, ethnicities, from different countries. And each time we encounter the ways in which we are different, we need to remember that song, “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”
There is no one and nothing on this planet that God did not create, consider, and call good. There is no human outside the love of God, and there is no soul that is unable to find redemption in his or her Creator. What we struggle with in our modern world is understanding the value of life, and the kind of respect and maturity of faith it takes to value life over believing that life is cheap.
This was no different for what Jesus dealt with. Look at the Disciples—a tax collector, gruff fishermen, Peter the denier and stubborn one, Judas, a betrayer. They were a very different and unique group of twelve in the context Jesus lived in. But Jesus valued those who were different and outside. He spoke with and blessed Samaritans and the Gerasenes, and others who were not quite as close to the fold. In many ways those who sought Jesus the most were all very different people.
And how did Jesus handle them? In our Gospel for today, we read how the Savior of the world, the Prince of Peace, the Son of God took off his robe, put a towel at his waist, filled up a basin with water, then washed the feet of his followers, then dried them off one by one. [SLIDE] And I have to wonder, that if the Son of God can stoop down and wash the feet of his followers, why can’t we? The problem in our day and age is that too many people pick up a weapon instead of stooping to wash feet. The single goal of any weapon is to kill and destroy, but no one ever died from a little humility and grace in life.
In seminary we talk about two types of sin—our own personal shortcomings, and systems of sin in this world which we can’t escape. A perfect example is an entire world fueled by greed. If we don’t participate in that world in some way, we’d starve. One of the most devious types of sin that permeates our world is this belief that difference is something evil, or something we must categorize and segregate or isolate. It makes us believe that people different from us are going to somehow harm us or take from us. But I’m going to ask the question, if we encounter someone very different, radically different from us in this life, who created them?
The hardest thing to accept in this life is that the same God who created the victims in this tragedy Wednesday also created the 14-year-old who killed them. Now, this idea doesn’t mean we ignore or fail to punish bad and evil behavior. But it calls on us to ask ourselves some hard question: how many times have we picked up weapons, whether it be a gun, a pen, or our words, instead of stooping to wash our neighbor’s feet?
I remember an old judge went on a rant one day. We were close enough I could fuss and debate with him outside of court. He hollered one day about participation trophies, and how all the kids are ruined because they get participation trophies instead of actually working for something. So, I looked at him and asked, “And, Judge, who gives a fourth grader a participation trophy? Because I doubt that child bought it themselves.” Children will mirror what they see. A child doesn’t just conceive of taking up a gun and killing people one day. He or she has learned violence from somewhere.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The same God who created you created the human who is different in every way from you. The same God who created each and every living, breathing thing on Earth and called it good, calls upon us to recognize that life is not cheap. It’s a beautiful gift.
In 1984, Mr. Rogers wrote a song that speaks directly to this. You heard a version of it with him and Jeff Erlanger. Here are the original words, “It’s you I like, it’s not the things you wear, the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like. The way you are right now, way down deep inside you, not the things that hide you, not your toys beside you, but it’s you I like. I hope you’ll remember even when you’re feeling blue, that it’s you I like.”
Until we agree with one voice that a child should not be bullied or taught violence, mental health struggles should be discussed and treated appropriately, that violence is a sin and not an answer, and that all of God’s creation is beloved and made in the image of the Creator God, we will continue to see evil done. We will continue to see weapons taken up, more weapons than any human society could ever need. We will continue to see violence plague us. The answer to life’s struggle is not to see who is stronger, a better fighter, more powerful, and who can exact pain and suffering with mastery because life is cheap.
As Mr. Rogers said to a full audience, life is not cheap. Life is a precious gift. And that means every single life no matter how amazing or how wasted the potential may be. God created every single one, and God loves each and every one. Suffering in our time and day will not end unless we are willing to make a radical change. It’s past time for us to put our weapons away and choose to stoop down, tie a cloth to our waist, fill a basin with water, and wash the feet of our neighbor. I pray we all make the right choice.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/3836078396612062