Difference: Diversity or Distinction

In the Luke passage we just heard, Jesus crosses into gentile country, where he meets a man in a cemetery. This is wrong on so many levels. For Jews, cemeteries were unclean places, gentile land was unclean, and pigs were unclean. Impurity heaped on impurity.

In the story I read earlier, people had stars and dots to put on other people. [You Are Special by Max Lucado] This man would have lots of grey dots – he is a gentile, he lives in a cemetery, he had demons in his life.

When asked his name, the man replies with the name of his demons.

I wonder how often we talk about people by their illness or disability.

The paraplegic, the blind woman, the alcoholic, the divorcee, the druggie, the dole bludger, the Muslim, the homosexual, the black man …..

And I wonder what demons we live with

Demons that keep us chained

Demons like fear, hate, and greed

Demons like racism, sexism, and homophobia

Demons that prevent us from living fully as the people God made us to be.

What demons do we live with?

Luke writes about demons and how Jesus healed the man, incorporated him back into society, and brought him back to full life after living amongst the dead.

And yet the villagers did not rejoice, they were afraid. Who was this man who could cast out demons, who could cause their herd of pigs to drown in the lake? What else might he do?

They urged Jesus to leave.

And the man who was healed?

He wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus told him not to, rather “he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him”

Do we speak about what Jesus has done for us? Not only salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Do we speak about our experience of Jesus, the way in which we have been changed, comforted, challenged by Jesus?

I was Dad’s girl. We had lots in common like colds and flu each winter. And Dad would read to me when I was sick – Henry Lawson short stories mainly. We are both sociable, more so than Mum and my brother. He was quick to tell me when I had done something wrong, and I felt like I never did anything right. Even after my dad died I was hoping to do something that would make him proud. In my head I could still hear him telling me how stupid and useless I was.

But one Easter that all changed. I let go of the striving to do something that would make my father proud, this was about 20 years after he died – so really how was I ever going to make him proud? J And after I let go of that sense of trying, there was a healing, and I don’t hear those words from him anymore.

We all have things from our past, and often our present, that hold us back, that stop us being the people God created us to be.

There is fear and anger and harsh words.

There is shame and guilt.

There are modern demons, demons that accentuate difference, not as diversity to be celebrated, but as distinction to be judged and ridiculed and wiped out.

Paul writes to the church in Galatia about unity in the midst of difference. While people are all different, Paul writes of Jews and Greek, men and women, slaves and free. Paul is reminding the people that those differences do not make us any more or less part of the body of Christ, we are all one in Christ.

Just as today, people are not all the same,
there are Christians, Muslims and Jews
Liberal voters and Labor voters
there are men and women
heterosexual and homosexual
Aboriginal and non-aboriginal
old and young
Korean, Tongan, Pakistani, Australians, …

Not all people are the same. In the news this week we heard about 50 people who died in a shooting in Orlando, and a British MP who was stabbed to death.  The young man who was responsible for the death and injury of so many in Orlando is also dead, so we will never know for sure what his motivation was, but it seems it may be something to do with his hatred of people who identify as LGBTQI or his concern that he may be gay that led to the shooting.

The killing of British MP Jo Cox, has shocked people in Britain. The police are still looking for a motive but in court, when asked for his name, the person replied: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain," suggests a possible political motive.

“The Brexit vote is dividing Britain down the middle and has been whipping up emotions on both sides. But cold-blooded murder? We just don't know.

Instinctively, both campaigns, for and against Brexit, suspended all activities as the full horror of what happened was revealed.

It was as if they feared there may be a connection, and no-one wanted to be seen carrying on with those questions unanswered.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-17/jo-cox-murder-shocks-britain-as-political-fault-lines-deepen/7519746

It appears at present that both these events were motivated by people who could not embrace diversity, but were threatened by difference.

I wonder how we feel about difference.

Do we fear people who look different to us?

Do we want to only be with people who agree with us?
act like us?
have the same dress and behaviour standards as we do?

Do we love people as we are loved in Christ? Or do we only love those who are like is, and think and act the same as we do?

From Galatians: “It is through faith that all of you are God's children in union with Christ Jesus. You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself. So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

What demons need releasing in your life?

Who do you need help loving as Christ loves you?