What would it be like to arrive alone at JFK airport in New York city with $200 in your pocket, having barely escaped with your life from war, rape, and murder in your homeland? So begins the remarkable story of Deogratias Niyizonkiza, a twenty-four year old third-year medical student from Burundi whose experiences are related by Tracy Kidder in his recent book Strength in what Remains. The year was 1994. Fleeing almost certain death as civil war between Hutus and Tutsis raged in Burundi, Deo managed to make his way to the U.S. using a commercial visa obtained by a friend. His $200 soon spent, he worked as a grocery store delivery boy and slept in a tent in Central Park before being discovered by a kindly older couple. With their help and with much effort, he managed to enroll in and graduate from Columbia University. However, before Deo could complete his medical education, he began to work for Partners in Health, the organization founded by Paul Farmer to provide healthcare to the poorest of the poor in Haiti. Inspired by the work in Haiti and hopeful that he could help his country heal from the aftermath of the terrible destruction, Deo vowed to found a clinic in his home village. With the help of Partners in Health and many generous donors, the clinic opened in 2007, shortly after Deo became an American citizen.
During his long ordeal in Burundi, on the streets of New York city, and while enduring the stress of being an undergraduate again in a foreign educational system, Deo, a Roman Catholic, was sustained by his deep conviction that God would eventually bring good out of all the misery he and his people had endured. Surely Deo’s conviction was founded, at least parrly on the assurances in our psalm today. For Psalm 67, as well as our readings from the Book of Acts and Revelation, remind us that, in the words of Daniel Clendinen, “God is not a territorial or parochial god.” God is also not a capricious God who plays favorites among the nations, caring for some and not for others. Rather, God’s salvation extends to all, and God “judges the people with equity.” God gives God’s blessing to all, and God’s love and care extend to the “ends of the earth.” Although the Jews were a minor and marginalized people within the grand scope of ancient near east politics, the psalm nevertheless reminds us that God’s vision and care take in the entire cosmos.
Our reading from the book of Revelation reflects a similar cosmic vision. Although in its details the heavenly Jerusalem, with its twelve gates, seems particularly Jewish, in fact it is a cosmopolitan city in which all nations are welcome: “the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” More wonderfully, the leaves of the tree in the middle of the city, the Tree of Life, are for the “healing of nations.”
Our reading from the Book of Acts also reflects a vision of a God who cares for all. Last week in our reading from Acts we heard how Peter had the courage to preach to a Roman officer, a Gentile. In that bold action of Peter’s, the leaders of the earliest community of Jesus’ followers learned that, through Jesus, God had wrought salvation not only for the Jews, but for Gentiles as well, that God had welcomed all people into the Body of Christ. In today’s reading from Acts, we hear the story of how the early church took yet another step forward, from Judea into Europe. Impelled by the Holy Spirit through a vision of a man pleading for Paul to come to Macedonia, Paul crossed over from Asia Minor to Europe. Perhaps there were not the required ten males to organize a synagogue in the Roman city of Philippi, so Paul reached out to a group of women gathered by the river. The Spirit took hold of a wealthy woman from Thyatira, and so began the Christian community in Philippi, from whence Christian communities spread throughout Europe. Though the Christian community had come into being with a few disciples fearing for their lives after Jesus’ crucifixion, through Peter, Paul, Lydia, and many others, God’s love and care began to spread to “the ends of the earth.” Today, nearly one third of the world’s peoples are members of the Body of Christ, and Christians can be found in every country in the world.
What does this mean for us in Southern Ohio? To begin with, Christians are, as Clendinen tell us, “geographic, cultural, national, and ethnic egalitarians.” We acknowledge that God’s love extends beyond our parish, our county, our denomination, our nation, even our faith community. Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Jews, African Pentecostals, Hindus, Episcopalians, and even atheists, can rely on God’s love and care. Nor do we put our country – or any country – at the geographic center of God’s world. Although love of one’s country is an honorable emotion, we do not put our loyalty to our nation above our loyalty to God, for we know that, as Paul reminded the Philippian Christians, “our citizenship is in heaven” – eventually in that heavenly Jerusalem depicted in Revelation! And we do not think that our own country has a special claim on God’s love, or that our own country is somehow more beloved of God than other countries. Rather, we know that all nations have a place in God’s heart, and that all nations will eventually be part of the glorious company of the redeemed.
What is more important, if we understand that God’s love extends to all nations, then we also know that we must care for people in other nations as much as we care for our own people. We must grieve the deaths of Iraqi civilians as much as we do those of American soldiers. We must mourn Chinese earthquake victims as much as we do victims of the floods in Tennessee. We must bemoan the pain and terror that the people of Burundi experienced as much as we grieve for those killed in the twin towers. If all of God’s people are precious in God’s sight, and if Jesus is our model, then all of God’s people must be precious in our sight as well.
What is most important, if we understand that God’s love extends to all nations, then we must also find concrete ways to reach out to other communities and nations. Of course, we have an obligation to care for those around us, the poor, the needy, the destitute, the victims of flood and fire that we can see. Of course, we are called to support food banks, diaper gifts, and shoe gift cards. But we also have an obligation to care for those whom we can’t see, those of other nations who are equally deserving of our love and concern. Certainly, we can’t care for the whole world, but we can care for at least one square inch of it. Can we adopt a school in Haiti, perhaps Lekol sen Trinite, where my daughter worked, or an orphanage in Honduras, perhaps El Hogar, where teams from this diocese have visited. Can we provide scholarships to nursing students in Liberia, as one parish in this diocese does? Can we support the work of Christian peacemakers? Can we provide mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Africa? Can we support the work of Partners in Health, International Child Care, or Doctors without Borders? In fact, look up Doctors without Borders on Facebook, and find out all the places in this world where they are at work!
We can also care for others through our purchasing power. Have you ever wondered about the working conditions of all those people in China, Mexico, Viet Nam, Jordan, and Romania, just to name a few, who make the clothes, electronics, and other goods we consume? Have you ever considered buying only fair trade coffee and chocolate, so that coffee and cocoa growers can earn a living wage? How about buying your Christmas and birthday gifts from Ten Thousand Villages or other similar organizations, to help support crafts people overseas?
In the early 1990s, Lynne Hybels, co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, visited refugee centers in Croatia . She heard the stories of women who had lost their homes, their husbands, their jobs, and their futures. Praying on the last day of her visit, she asked God, “Am I my sister’s keeper?” “Yes, yes, yes,” came the answer, “you are your sister’s keeper.” “God, who then is my sister?” She could sense the answer: they are all your sisters. On a recent trip to the Holy Land, she talked to women, Muslims , Jews, and Christians, Israelis and Palestinians, who are actively trying to better their lives and work for peace. Reflecting on this latest visit she reminds us that “I cannot possibly meet the needs of every member of my huge global family, but neither can I thoughtlessly dismiss their suffering. I have to pay attention. I have to care. And I have to pray, ‘God, what is mine to do?’
At the end of our service today, we will sing Isaac Watts’ grand old hymn, “Jesus shall reign.” I ask you to pay special attention to the fourth verse: “Blessings abound where e’er he reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains, the weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blest.” My friends, may God enable us, as members of the Body of Christ, to share his love for all his children, from Americans to Zambians. May God help us to see his Spirit at work among all people, and may God enable us to be his partners in loosing his children’s chains and freeing his children from want.
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1. Kidder has told Farmer’s story in his Mountains beyond Mountains.
2. The quote and the inspiration for this sermon come from Daniel Clendinen’s essay this week on his site Journey with Jesus, at http://www.journeywithjesus.net.
3. Lynne Hybels, “This Changes Everything,” Sojourners, May, 2010.
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