Sitting with the broken

 

1 John 3: 16-18
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 25, 2021

There’s a story about anthropologist Margaret Mead that has become almost apocryphal, but the story conveys truth nonetheless.



During a lecture, Margaret Mead asked the question, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” Was it some kind of technology? One would think it might be the use of tools or the creation of clay vessels or perhaps fishhooks or spears for hunting. Was it iron or agriculture?



No, she claimed. Though all of these have contributed to the evolution, to the forward movement of humankind, the earliest sign of civilization is a healed femur, the largest bone in the human body. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You can’t get to water, you can’t hunt for food, you can’t escape from oncoming danger or other predators. You become the next meal for another animal in the food chain. No animal can survive long enough for the bone to heal.



In the archaeological remains of competitive, violent societies, signs of such healings have not been found. Evidence of violence was abundant: skulls crushed by clubs or pierced by arrows. A healed femur indicated that someone stayed with the injured person, fetched them water, gave them food, protected them from danger, and carried them to safety. Violent societies cannot afford such pity or charity, for then two are now vulnerable instead of just one. Helping someone through hardship is where civilization starts, is when community begins.

The first letter of John was to a community in crisis. Early Christian communities were helpful, charitable societies living within a competitive violent one, namely the Roman Empire. Many of these early Christian communities had difficulty living according to the gospel in such an environment. Pastoral letters were written by Paul and others, like this one, encouraging the people toward unity in the love of God and God’s justice. Just as now, these early communities stood more of a chance at survival if they were about mutual care and covenant.



This first letter of John was mostly likely written to the same community or communities that produced the gospel of John. Even as these verses focus on love, the chapter and verse, 3: 16 and following, were to remind this community, and us, of another passage about love: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”



In order that the world might be saved through love; and not just love but sacrificial love. A love that moves us beyond self-interest to the wholeness and healing of others. A love that puts ego aside in order to sit with that which is broken. And the author of this letter gets pretty specific as to what that love looks like with this question:



“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees someone in need and refuses to help?”



I will go even further than that. How does humanity abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees someone in need and refuses to help? How can you call yourself a human being and refuse to help someone in need?

It was American psychologist Abraham Maslow who, in 1943, theorized that it is basic human needs like food, water, and shelter that must be satisfied before anything else. But did you know that his theory was based on his time spent with the Blackfeet Nation in Alberta, Canada? In an article I read written by Teju Ravilochan, without giving any credit to these first people, Maslow misrepresented their worldview and turned it upside down.



The Blackfeet people believe that we enter the world self-actualized, that is, with divine purpose already embedded within us. The community then cares for us and loves us into belonging. Everyone receives the same basic care and safety of food, housing, clothing, and protection. Everyone is taught how to survive on the land and to share their knowledge for the good of the community. When everyone has what they need and are sure in their trust for one another, they are then able to manifest their gifts and purpose with one another for the building up of the community. Community actualization. This then gives way to cultural perpetuity, cultural actualization in which the Blackfeet way of life is handed down from one generation to the next.



The purpose of wealth in Native cultures was to be a safety net, something to be given away so that everyone could thrive. Leaders saw their role as ones who closed the gaps. Therefore, inequality was rare. Maslow may have turned this hierarchy of needs on its head because of our privileged, individualistic colonizing Western culture. As a psychology major, I never questioned a pyramid that has ultimate individual achievement at its apex. Funny thing is, none of us gets where we are without help and support, without healing and community. Everything, from our clothing and food to our technology and energy, our entire infrastructure is as a result of a communal effort. And yet we also set these entities against each other, in a competition for profit share and market domination. We pit human being against other human beings, as empire does.

We can see how this hierarchy is built into the very fiber of our society. As church we help provide for basic needs for those who need help, and yet how do we acknowledge the divine purpose in every person we help and provide them with belonging and community care? Though we have friendships with some of the folks we help, they are different than the relationships we have with each other. How do we become a community, how do we become a city that lays down its life, that helps to close the gaps between rich and poor, between Black and brown and White?



Rapper DMX who died earlier this month wrote these lyrics for his song “Prayer”:



And I fear that what I'm sayin' won't be heard until I'm gone
But it's all good, 'cause I really didn't expect to live long
So, if it takes for me to suffer for my brother to see the light
Give me pain till I die, but, please, Lord, treat him right



Are we ready to sit with what’s broken in our world, in our society, in each other, in ourselves, as Jesus would, with mercy and kindness? We pray for God to do something and yet Jesus said the kingdom of God is within us. Author and Sikh Valerie Kaur reminds us that one day we will be somebody’s ancestors, and if we get this right, they will inherit not our fear but our bravery. And not only our bravery but our love.

What if centuries from now, humankind survives and sifts through what remains of our lives to find that we made our way together? In it together, no matter what. We are the manifestation of divine love. Christian and Muslim, Jew and Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist, atheist and humanist, Black and brown, Asian and Pacific Islander, White and Indigenous, no one alone, everyone together, with plenty and no want, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, and this is how we lived.



Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted)


The Spirit of Christ rises to meet the needs of a world in pain -
a world threatened by violence and exploitation,
by a refusal to change,
by condemnation and greed.
The groans of the earth,
the precious lives of all people,
the possibilities of genuine cooperation and collaboration -
they depend on the manifestation of a radical love:
Embodied and bold, in truth and in action.
May it become so within us and among us.