01.30.2021 Homily

This gospel passage is about creating and crossing barriers. The passage begins depicting Jesus. Jesus is entering a holy place, the synagogue, and he's doing that on a holy time, the Sabbath. And then it is there that he teaches. Now, the scripture doesn't tell us what he's teaching, nor how it is that that teaching is authoritative. And yet Jesus' action with the man possessed with the spirit explains his teaching and describes how it is authoritative.

The teaching of Jesus today in that text has to do with what was known as the purity code. The people of Israel believed that if they were to be like God, they would have to be uncontaminated. And they were to be holy, they were to be pure according to the distance they kept from what was unclean. So to remain pure, to remain holy meant to do exclude, to exclude certain actions or to exclude certain foods or certain people.

Now the possessed man was regarded as unclean. He was contagious. And to be in his presence, to have anything to do with him, was to make oneself unclean. This thinking is rooted in fear. Jesus does not respect the holiness boundaries. He crosses them. The new teaching about which the people speak is really not what he says as much as what he does. And what he does, he does with a power, he does with authority. He does as no other teacher would do.

They are amazed because they see another way for dealing with fear. Jesus teaches them not to avoid it, but that they have the power to overcome it. The spirit of God who descended upon Jesus in the waters of baptism leads his mission and does not allow those who are close to God to be harmed.

Now, you and I create barriers to clarify responsibilities. It's an important way in which a society can operate, so we know how to proceed. We know whose responsibility is what? We know who can be accounted for what? And yet often, we create boundaries as well. We build walls, and we build fences to protect ourselves. Sometimes we establish boundaries out of fear.

Now people cross boundaries for a whole variety of reasons. In the gospel reading, Jesus crosses the boundary between clean and unclean. And this boundary has led to exclusion. And in Jesus' hand, he reaches out to those who in the name of holiness have been pushed away and excluded. He crosses the boundary, and he reaches out to those whom no one would reach out to. You see, it is the path of love and reconciliation in a deeply divided society that brings about unity and peace. The path of reconciliation is found in crossing boundaries. It's found in taking risks. It's found in stepping out from the limits. It's found in climbing the wall, in violating the convention, in daring to reach out in love as a witness to the truth that God excludes no one of his children, the truth that all of us are sisters and brothers.

People lament over and over and over again the polarization that exists not only within our society, but within the world, how lines have been drawn in the sand and how walls have been built and how exclusion is the norm and not inclusion. And there's a lot of verbiage spoken and written about bridging, about building bridges in the face of that separation. And it's not so much in the speaking or the writing as it is in the doing.

The fracturedness of a society, of a church, of a community, of a family, that can only be healed, that can only be breached, by someone crossing a boundary, by someone going some place where no one else goes or being seen with someone that no one else is willing to be seen with, or to enter into a partnership with someone who is regarded as untrustworthy and not to be engaged with.

It is only in taking the risk to go beyond the boundary. Jesus' disciples are called to do that. They're called to be those who reject the boundary, who tear down the wall, who bridge the chasm. And they do it not by talking. They do it not by writing. They do it not by fine speech. But they do it with courageous action. They do it by putting themselves at risk. They do it by willing to suffer in order to build that unity and that peace.