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When does “all” really mean ALL? Recently our Bishop, Eugene Sutton, wrote in his column for the Maryland Church News about another bishop’s comments at our triennial General Convention two months ago. During a discussion about some of the more controversial issues of the day, that other bishop kept asking a question: “what is it about ‘all’ that we don’t understand?” Do we really walk our talk when we say, “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You”? Just HOW welcoming are we? To make these questions more local: Just how welcome does everyone feel here at All Saints’ today? When does “all” really mean ALL? I think that’s a 21 st century version of the question Moses was posing to the Israelites in today’s reading from Numbers. They’ve been pretty content for the first ten chapters of their wilderness journey. But in chapter 11 and for the next fourteen chapters after that, their wandering has an accompaniment: murmuring. “If only…,” their murmuring begins, as murmuring so often does. “If only we had meat to eat!” If only they could go home. Fish for free – and what about all those great summer vegetables?! Now they’ve got nothing but yucky manna, a pretty pitiful substitute for real bread. The Israelites weep day and night, grieving for the good old days. All they want is to go back to Egypt, the devil they knew, rather than this wilderness, about which they are clueless. Their murmuring, we hear, makes God angry. Moses is displeased, which is a polite version of anger, but not with those murmuring people he’s leading. Moses is murmuring, too – murmuring to God. Why me? he asks God. What did I do to deserve this? “Did I conceive all this people?” he cries, feeling like both father and mother to them all. It’s all too much for him. He feels like he’s dying under the burden of leadership, and he begs God to put him out of his misery. So God does just that. Of course, God, being God, does it God’s way, not the way Moses suggests or expects. God does a brand new thing. God takes some of the Spirit, the ruakh, that has already come upon Moses, and God shares some of that same Spirit with seventy other spiritual leaders or elders. Then God does something even more radical: God shares that same Spirit with two elders, Eldad and Medad, who aren’t even at the meeting tent. They aren’t anywhere near the same place as all the others. Moses has to adjust to having seventy new leaders. And the seventy new leaders have to adjust to having two more leaders. “Stop them,” says Joshua, who eventually inherits leadership from Moses. But Moses says no, because now, he gets it. “All” leaders might actually mean ALL. For Moses, for the other leaders with him that day, spiritual leadership takes on new meaning. It means sharing God’s Spirit with other people – first seventy, then two, then…how many more? Who knows? Maybe the Spirit is supposed to be shared with ALL faithful Israelite people who want to follow the God of Moses! Rather than worry about who’s “out,” maybe, Moses says, we should be thinking about who’s “in”? When does “all” really mean ALL? Jesus had something to say about this question, too. His disciples, those apostles, the church’s first elders, aren’t too happy with someone who was obviously not a member of their little disciple club. This man was also ministering, casting out demons in Jesus’ name. But, like Eldad and Medad, he was nowhere near the disciples or Jesus. “We tried to stop him, because he was not following us,” they murmur. The operative word there is “us.” The disciples followed Jesus, but John and the others wanted anyone else who followed Jesus to follow THEM, FIRST. It’s been a fairly short time since John and the others became followers of Jesus, and already, there’s a pecking order. If you’re not with us, you might be against us. And until we figure that out, you must follow us, you must get in line behind us. Because we’re the REAL disciples, we’re the elder elders, we’re the ones Jesus chose first. I am the oldest of five children, and growing up, I was always “in charge.” Does that pecking order sound familiar? Sometimes it made me think, like that old line from the Smothers Brothers, that mom and dad loved me best. Oldest daughters and sons can make great leaders, because we’re so used to being in charge, and we’re often pretty good at it. But there’s a problem with all that natural-born leadership. Sometimes, like with Moses and even with Jesus, it’s all too much for us to bear. Sometimes, leaders need to learn how to receive help, even to become followers. Sometimes, most of the time – well, OK, ALL of the time – we need to remember what we learned in kindergarten: how to share with others, how to share even our leadership. This is hard work, and we do not do perfectly. Whether we are clergy or lay leaders, new or old leaders, 8:00 or 10:30 leaders, we need to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church. We need to get beyond sibling rivalry, to get past thinking about how mom or God or Jesus loves them best. In order for us to be true disciples, real followers of Jesus, we need to be open to the leading of God’s Spirit. We need to keep asking the question: who else needs to be at this table of the Lord, this table of manna in our wilderness, this table of Eucharistic fellowship, this table we share? Who else needs to be asked to lead, along with us? Who else might want to follow Jesus? Who else? Who else? Who else? As a priest and as a person, the most important lesson I may have ever learned on my journey with Jesus is this one: true, authentic, real spiritual leadership means being led by God’s Spirit. Everyone I meet has something to teach me about following Jesus. Everyone I meet has something to teach me about leading others to Christ. Anyone and everyone of us can be led by God’s Spirit. Who else? Who else? Who else? Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. For me, as I pray my way through things, it’s the old “ready, willing and able” test. The questions are: Am I willing to be led by God’s Spirit today? Am I willing to follow Jesus? Am I able to let go of all that gets in my way, so that I can be an ever more ready and willing disciple? How about it? Are we willing to be led by God’s Spirit today? Are we willing to follow Jesus? Are we able to let go of all that gets in our way, so we can be ever more ready and willing disciples of the one who reminded his first followers that “whoever is not against us is for us”? Who’s in and who’s out? Jesus warns his disciples about those of them who might cause little ones to stumble, those who do not help the children, the orphans, the women, the sick, the poor, the oppressed. Those who are “in” are those who act in the name of Jesus. That would be, it seems to me, anyone who offers even a cup of cold water to someone else, bearing the name and the life and the Spirit of Christ. Those who are “in” with God, in the name and the spirit of Jesus, might just be a member of this parish. Or someone who will never be a member here. It might be a Mahatma Gandhi or a Nobel Peace Prize nominee or a singer of peace. It might even be your neighbor. Would that all God’s people were prophets! Because if anyone is not against us, they are for us. Let us pray. God of all compassion, help us to ask the hard questions of life, trusting you will help us live into those questions until you help us answer them. Teach us through Jesus to seek your will in all things and to pray these questions: How WILL we get beyond sibling rivalry? How WILL we be at peace with one another? When WILL we know that “all” really means ALL? It is in the name of Jesus and in the power of your Spirit we pray. AMEN. - The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg In this Gospel account, Jesus was interrupted. For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com |
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