Hidden in Christ + Proper 13C + August 4, 2013

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

Proper 13, Year C (8.4.13)

“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." (Luke 12:21).

“Whoever is wise will ponder these things, *
and consider well the mercies of the LORD.” (Ps. 107:43).

Security. Being physically safe and being financially secure are important in our society. And with recent thoughts about race or rather different ethnic groups and how they get along in our society, fear abounds. Young men of color are afraid that other people will fear them and react accordingly. White people fear that people of color are going to think that we are all prejudiced. How do we interact in today's increasingly multicultural society?  And we, at All Saints, Oxnard, how do we find ways to create a community that is led with cords of love, with cords of human kindness?

I think it saddens the heart of God when we are afraid of each other, because God created us to be in relationship.  We are created to be in relationship with God but also with each other.

Here in the Hosea reading we hear a heart-sick God. God says: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  The more I called them, the more they went from me (Hosea 11:1 -2a)."

And what else separates us more from each of us and from God, than fear?

This week I was reading the articles in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times and read one called "Are humans hard-wired for racial prejudice?" by Robert Sapolsky(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-sapolsky-brain-and-race-20130728,0,2153443.story).  And what he said was very interesting. Yes, there is a place in the brain that reacts faster in stressful situations, so that you do often want to react as if you are in danger the first time you see someone of another race, or rather, of another ethnic group.  So in a sense, racial prejudice can be an automatic physiological reaction.  But there is good news. You can change this instinctual reaction. You can do this by living in multicultural places and building friendships with people of other ethnic groups. When you think about it, a church like ours is an experiment in a more advanced form of humanity, right here in little Oxnard!

If you think about it, we are trying to live out putting our trust, our security, in God, not in wealth unshared nor in the absolute security that comes from interacting only with people from your group, people you perceive to be safe.  To never interact with anyone different is a very safe life, but it is a prison.

There is isolation in wealth. Look at the man in the reading from the Gospel of Luke today. The rich man has everything he needs to eat, but he has no power over his life or his death. His life, like all of ours, is in the hands of God. And he doesn’t have a clue. But we have heard that our "life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3 b)."  Not to alarm you, but note: we have died! In Colossians says that we have died. Literally? No. We have died to what matters in our world. We have died to greed as an idol and a force that determines our lives. We have died to the idea of physical safety at all costs. Preparing a video that I was showing the youth online on Friday, I saw an ad for a video game.  The main character, a young woman, said, more or less: "living in this world, you have two options: hold onto your morals and die, or survive at all costs."  This is the world’s wisdom imparted to our youth, if we don't take care to share something different. They hear that moral values ​​are important but if it's a matter of survival, forget them and do what you gotta do. Wow.

But here when it says in Colossians that our life is hidden in Christ, the original Greek word comes from "krupto," meaning "hidden for safe keeping."

God has saved us in Christ as if we were his most important bank account; his most precious treasure. If you look up the gospel passage in your Bible, you will notice that on each side Jesus says, in effect, "Do not worry about the things of the world." All these things like storing food, wealth, and absolute physical security, are not the focus because our security is in Christ. In a way, we are dead to the life of our world.  We are tucked under the wings of a loving God.  Our future is vouchsafed to us in Christ.

But, to be practical, we can't live on air. We need safe communities for our children. It is not acceptable for a young adult fight to end in death on the first day of our annual County Fair. God weeps for him. God weeps for our lack of love, for breaking the bonds.

But I have noticed something interesting. I have spoken with faithful people who have told me that they do not worry about economic security, because it is in God's hands. And this is something I've noticed  in a lot of faithful people, not just Christians. That if you trust in God, and are as generous as you can be (not as the rich man who thinks only of protecting himself and his food supply), God tends to provide what you need. It's not magic. It is not easy. We still have to do our part. But to take the risk of love instead of fear, the risk of sharing even if you don't know for sure if it will be there tomorrow, usually leads to a surprising result. 

God tends to open your life and your heart to a wealth that is larger than that of any millionaire isolated by her money and possessions, who lives in a jail to protect himself from what people want from her.

And speaking of race relations and physical security, it strikes me that the only way to heal our deep social rifts is to create friendships. To do what we do here at All Saints. Because our bilingual services, dinners, Dodger Night and other activities, build a community which is a mixture of languages, cultures, and ethnic groups. Even in our individual, single language worship services, we have great variety. People from other countries, people from the country and urbanites, people whose education is from a university and people who were educated on the streets. Native people and people whose people have not been near their place of ethnic origin for hundreds or thousands of years.  People like me, a big mix!  What in the UK they used to call “Liquorice All-Sorts.”  The body of Christ here at All Saints, Oxnard, is made up of various splendid parts. But we are the stronger for it.

I believe that our nation, our community and our church will only heal when we focus on our security in God.  When we lose the mirage of absolute physical or economic security that the world promotes.  A saving grace happens when we remember that we are saved in Christ, that our security is with God. The promise of scripture is that when we put our trust in God, he does provide us what we need.

Not what we want, but what we need and with our cooperation.  But the real gift is freedom. Freedom from the exaggerated concerns we have with maintaining and acquiring the stuff of this world and the riches of life in community.

“Whoever is wise will ponder these things, *
and consider well the mercies of the LORD.”

Amen.