A Word to the Remnant Community

A word to the remnant community

A few years ago a young friend of mine became incredibly incensed by a discussion that I led entitled, “Resurrection, So What!” He sent a long, late night email bewailing his shock of my non-orthodox ideas. As I read his email I was more than surprised – I was stunned, because he was an avowed agnostic. Finally, near the end of his multiple page diatribes he said that the reason he was so dismayed by my thoughts was that I, as a chaplain and priest, must maintain the consensus orthodoxy of the Church, in order that he could be against it. In other words, I had to stay in his conceptual box so that he might be able to maintain his own. And that box he wanted me to stay in is filled with lots of historical and institutional baggage that actually drives people away from Christianity.

Some of you have told me that you are afraid to call yourself a Christian because you don’t want to be lumped into the assumptions of my young friend. That leaves you and me outside the box of what is considered normal by mainstream Christianity. Paradoxically, the Bible repeatedly calls this ‘being outside the box’, “The Remnant Community.”

Today’s readings offer us, the remnant community, some words of encouragement and instruction.

In Genesis we hear the continuation of the story of Joseph. Remember, his brothers sold him to the Ishmaelites because the brothers hated his arrogant behavior and dreams. Then the Ishmaelites took Joseph to Egypt and they sold him as a slave to the Pharaoh. Eventually, because of Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams, he made his way in the Pharaoh’s court and into a seat of power.

Now a famine had devoured the land and because of Joseph’s shrewd management of Egypt’s food stocks, starving people were coming from neighboring lands begging for food, including Joseph’s brothers. The brothers had no idea that the man standing before them was the brother they sold into slavery. Joseph was overcome with emotion and love for his brothers. He told them not to be afraid. He didn’t seek revenge. Instead, Joseph thanked God for sending him ahead of his brothers, in order that he might preserve them as a remnant community.

Joseph is the Jesus figure in the story – sold into the death of slavery, he is resurrected, and through forgiveness and unconditional love, he saves the remnant community.

Then also this morning we heard this strange story about Jesus. This isn’t the kind, gentle and loving Jesus we are familiar with, is it? Jesus wanders into Tyre, the land of the Canaanites. The Canaanites were idol worshippers and ancient enemies of Israel. The Canaanites were also the people of Jesus’ lineage, according to Matthew. Tamar, Rahab and Ruth were in Jesus’ family tree.

And now, a woman, a Canaanite, whose daughter was demon possessed, was confronting Jesus and the disciples. They ignore her, but she won’t go away. She is verbally persistent. And what is she saying? Keyrie eleison, Lord have mercy. Keyrie eleison, Lord have mercy. Keyrie eleison, Lord have mercy!

And what is Jesus’ response to her begging for mercy? He says, “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Jesus is telling her that only the children of Israel are to God’s holy people and that she, a Canaanite, is doomed to be a worthless mongrel dog.

The story could have ended there – the woman could have crawled away wounded by Jesus’ words, or she could have taken up stones and hurled them at Jesus. Instead though, she participated in Jesus’ conversion of thinking. She says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Of course, those are the words of our Rite One Eucharist, known as the ‘prayer of humble access’.

Her humility converts Jesus to see that the kingdom of God is universal. And that puts Jesus outside the box of orthodoxy.

Finally, we heard in Romans this morning that this theme of universal salvation became the hallmark of Paul’s message to the remnant community. His message is that salvation is about the full inclusion of Jews and Gentiles into the same worshipping community. A community that is grounded in the grace of God where there is no longer Jew or Greek or Gentile or Canaanite, no longer slave or free, no longer male or female, but all one in Christ. Paul says that God’s call into this remnant community of grace is irrevocable.

Karl Barth writes that this theme of universal salvation by grace is the unique Gospel of the Remnant community.

But, we are keenly aware that being a Remnant community has a cost. Being a Remnant community means that we are often invisible. Our views of forgiveness, unconditional love, and full inclusion are the disturbing ideas of subversion. Holding to the concept that conversion is a lifetime process that includes the reality of suffering is not popular to the masses of Christianity, but it is the narrative of the scripture.

As a Remnant community we are not called to follow popular Christianity nor to offer a marketable form of Christianity that will be attractive to new members. No, instead, we are called to practice our irrevocable gifts of grace – our gifts liberate us from worrying about whose saved or whose lost, who agrees with us or who disagrees with us, whose orthodox and whose a heretic, and whose going to heaven or hell – none of these things matters because our gifts of grace call us to love others as God loves us – with fully inclusive unconditional love and forgiveness.

Yes, we are Remnant community. Obscure, invisible, tiny and even marginalized – but we are walking in the ways of the God of Joseph, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Jesus and Paul. And they were all outside of the box. Amen.