PENTECOST 6C – JULY 8, 2007 (PROPER 14)
2Kings 5:1-14; Ps 30; Galatians 6:7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
 
 
When European missionaries arrived on the continents of Africa and the Americas, they were shocked at the tribalism that they found there among the various peoples.  It was, they observed, the source of a great deal of violence and lack of progress.  As Christians motivated by Christ’s great commandments to love God and love neighbour, these missionaries preached fervently in opposition to such unhealthy divisions.  However, they also quickly learned that this tribalism could be channeled to their advantage.  Alliances with the right tribe could aid greatly in the advancement of the missionary agenda, particularly in the face of the arrival of rival missionary groups from Europe.  The stories of the colonial wars between the Huron and the Iroquois allied with the French and the English are part of our Canadian history.  The tragedy of the Rwandan genocide in our recent memory was a legacy of similar alliances in Africa.  The great irony is that individuals inspired by the Christian vision given voice by St. Paul, where there is no longer male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile, saw no contradiction in the borders, rivalries and national hatreds they had constructed for themselves in their developed societies and reconstructed on the shore of colonial empires.
 
Current events in the Middle East find many North American and Europeans aghast in the manner of the early missionaries.  In Palestine we have been watching the two rival factions of Hammas and Fatah fight to the death to expulse or exterminate each other.  A good study of the region will reveal that most of the violence we see every day in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq is not essentially an East against West war, but the warring of two parties of Islam – Sunni and Shia -one of which happens to be allied with the USA and its allies.  We tend to find this kind of tribalism shocking.  Yet this tribalism does not lurk far below the surface of any human society.  It is not peculiar to the Middle East where mystery and passion run deep in the darkness of human behaviour.  In the West it has taken on new names but with the same result.  Borders, rivalries and hatreds based on some classification are used to determine who is in with us and who is out. Tribalism almost seems to be inherent to human society, as herds and packs are to the animal kingdom.  Perhaps it is a confirmation of the theory of natural selection. There is a need to exclude that which is weaker or which does not belong in order to protect the strong and weed out that which is not us.  We divide ourselves up into parties and look for ways to purify the stock and emerge at the top of the food chain.
 
What is the result of Jesus entering into this reality?  For those who say they belong to Jesus, have they simply become the members of a new tribe?  Is it then their duty and, perhaps, privilege to defend that tribe and oppose those on the outside as threats to security and purity.  Sometimes it sounds like it, depending on the ears with which we listen.  Jesus’ instructions to his disciples concerning their sojourn in the world seem straight forward: “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”  These words can be, and have been, used to argue for the exclusivity of Jesus.  This is certainly what lies behind the conservative evangelical fervour to save all and sundry by bringing them into the light of Jesus whether they want it or not.  For, if we are engaged in a struggle for the survival of the fittest, then we must bring others onto our side or else stamp out their potential to weaken our tribe. 
 
But Jesus’ instructions for the mission of his disciples might well be interpreted in light of the rest of his life, death and resurrection as trust in the work that God is doing.  Perhaps the disciples do not have to be so taken up with personal responsibility for seeing that everyone they come into contact with is brought into the inner circle.  As Jesus lays out the scenario of the world where some will welcome them and others will not, the onus appears to be on the receivers to be open to the approach of God’s realm by entering into relationship.  God’s realm will be making the approach regardless: “Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”  If the relationship is embraced then the benefits of that relationship will ensue.  The work is God’s.  The disciples’ job is simply to announce it and let God go to work.  In the end, Jesus has not come to form a new tribe around him, but to actually remake humanity – or, bring humanity back to the vision proclaimed in the paradise of Creation: no tribes, but a “family of faith”, as Paul calls it.  In Galatia, Paul is engaged in the encounter with the ongoing propensity for tribalism upon which he lays the experience of the Cross of Christ. “For neither circumcision or uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” Some continue to assert that there are outward ways to define who is in and out of this circle of Christ – some still do.  Be circumcised or be damned.  For Paul, this is the old humanity speaking and antithetical to the cross of Christ, which has exploded all of the divisions keeping the children of God at a distance.  It is not the task for the followers of Christ to simply create new ways of defining who is on the inside.  Again, we are called to announce and trust the work of God and “whenever we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially those of the family of faith (those open to a relationship with God no matter the status of their circumcision, or anything else.)
 
The king of Israel works himself into a state at the approach of the request of the foreign commander Naaman.  Immediately, he assumed that it is connected to the competition of the tribes.  It is a test to pick a quarrel.  After all, if he comes looking to be cured and isn’t then the King’s reputation will be affected.  But Elisha, confident in his personal relationship with God, isn’t compelled to protect it: “Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” His task as a prophet of God is to show God to any who come seeking.  Naaman too shows a bit of the defensiveness that tribalism naturally creates.  Elisha is surely holding something back from him or perhaps is ridiculing him.  Again it is up to the prophet of God to invite Namaan beyond the boundaries of the tribe and into the universal healing grace of God.
 
In a world increasingly polarized into tribalisms – politically, nationally and ideologically around social issues, the last thing we need is another tribe, whether it has Jesus as the poster child or not.  That is not what we have in Jesus.  We have the Cross, by which, in St. Paul’s powerful image, “the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”  Upon the frame of our humanity, Christ lays the world’s violence and divisions and unites us to that world in the expectancy of God’s Spirit to act with new life and healing.  We are not opposed to the rest of the world nor threatened by it. We are called to be in it as the messengers of healing and the hope for a new humanity without borders, rivalries and national hatreds.  This job of the disciples of Jesus has never been so urgent.