A solidarity of life

 

Psalm 8
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
October 6, 2024 - World Communion Sunday

Photo of a brick wall painted red that has faded with a hashtag stenciled in white paint:
#LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND

So, how’s everyone doing? What? You don’t like pumpkin spice wartime election eclipse hurricane season?



Even without all that, solidarity is hard work and messy. It requires not only empathy, that feeling of having touched our own pain and thus can approach another’s pain with humility, but also the desire to make a material difference. Certainly, the devastating scenes that are coming out of the southeastern states, as well as from Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, from Israel a year ago, from Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine, are eliciting our empathy and our desire to be in solidarity with those who are suffering such catastrophic loss.



The Mishnah, the earliest rabbinic literature of Judaism tells us, that when it comes to being responsible with what we have, there are four kinds of people. There are some who say, “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours.” These are the saints, the ones who are willing to disrupt their lives for anyone, no matter what, generous to a fault. There are others who say, “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine”. When the scriptures refer to wicked people, this is who they’re talking about. This is how racism, White supremacy, all of humanity’s violent conflicts begin. The third kind of people are those who say, “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine.” This is world we want to live in, where everyone shares, everyone cooperates, this is the solidarity we long for.



But the fourth type of person says, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours”. You live your life; I’ll live my life. We think this sounds rather sensible, doesn’t it? This pretty much sums up a lot of American culture today, the average person on the street. But there are those who want to take it a few steps further. Homelessness has now been criminalized. Not only are there people who do not want to share what they have with anyone new to this country, they do not want people immigrate nor do they want to share with strangers passing through. Some even want to go so far as to make it illegal to offer hospitality, to give to charity that helps migrants, or to help an immigrant or foreigner. They want to take away the choice, the ability to do good. And according to the Bible, this is one of the worst sins.



There are some people who are spreading misinformation and disinformation about FEMA emergency relief funds and how limited they are, blaming immigrants for taking money away from American citizens. The reason the funds are limited is because Congress has not funded FEMA to the extent that it should be. But then taking money from the government would mean some folks would have to admit that what’s mine is yours and what’s your is mine is actually a good way to be human.



Psalm 8 reads that God has made us a little lower than God, given us dominion over the work of God’s hands, which should inspire humility, not hubris. Just because God has put all things under our feet doesn’t mean we get to step all over each other.



Today is World Communion Sunday, when Christians around the world, in Gaza and Israel, in Ukraine and Russia, in Congo and Sudan, and in our own country are celebrating Communion together, in solidarity with one another. This on the heels of having preached against White Christian nationalism last Sunday, I feel like this is a unity that we can no longer afford just for ourselves. What if we also had a World Community Sunday, a World Solidarity Day with acts of service, in which the rich go away empty and the poor are filled with good things and all of us working toward everyone having what they need?



Our world needs a radical global solidarity if it is to survive. For too long humanity has often operated with the attitude that if it hasn’t happened to us personally, we don’t have to care. What we need is a solidarity of heart that says there are things that no human being should have to live through and that’s why we care. I dream of an economy based on mutual care and care of the planet instead of a capitalism that worships billionaires and profits and vilifies and dehumanizes people who need help. You and I have more in common with a dockworker or a Mexican auto worker or a Palestinian soap maker than we do with a billionaire who needs to see the planet from space to figure out that maybe the earth doesn’t belong to us.



As we come to this Table, let us prayerfully commit to creating and joining tables where everyone is fed and cared for, and overturning the ones that exclude and withhold God’s good things. Amen.

Benediction


Children’s author Katherine Applegate tells us
That the earth is old
And we are not
And that is all we must remember.
Go forth with bold compassion
For the earth and all her creatures
Of which you are one
And to whom you will always belong

Amen.