Sunday Sermon - 6 July

Many years ago, I was at a big Italian family wedding, and I remember that after dinner my dad and one of his favorite cousins got into a debate. My dad is from a small coastal farming town on the southern tip of Sicily called Pachino, right on the Ionian Sea. His cousin was from another small inland Sicilian town called Ragusa. Their “debate,” which quickly turned into a good-natured but heated argument, was about which town was better.

My brother and I sat there listening in disbelief — and amusement — as they volleyed back and forth: “Our soil is better!” “We have better art and history!” “We got running water and paved roads before you!” “Our soccer teams are better!” On and on it went.

What made it so funny to us was how similar their towns actually were. Both were tiny, both had rich histories, beautiful countryside — and not a whole lot else. Both were marked by the same struggles that many towns in southern Italy faced back then: high unemployment, poor infrastructure, and widespread poverty. Yet here they were, arguing passionately about who was “better.”

I hadn’t thought about that wedding in years but when I read today’s readings, especially the first reading about Naaman, that memory came flooding back.

Naaman, the powerful commander from Aram, comes to Israel desperate for healing but when the prophet Elisha tells him to wash in the River Jordan, Naaman bristles: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?”

Naaman couldn’t believe that something so ordinary, so different — a muddy, foreign river — could bring healing. 

The truth is, the waters weren’t all that different. Damascus and Samaria were rival capitals, but they were bound by a shared fate. Both were targets of prophetic judgment; both faced destruction for their arrogance. They were far more alike than different — just like Pachino and Ragusa — but their pride blinded them.

In our second reading, Paul speaks into the same human impulse: the need to feel superior. Some early Christians argued that Gentiles had to first become Jews — that is, undergo circumcision — to truly belong to Christ. In their eyes, Gentile believers were “less than,” outsiders who needed to cross an extra barrier to be worthy.

Paul challenges that position. He insists that what counts is not our tribal markers — who is circumcised or not — but that we are a new creation in Christ. “Bear one another’s burdens,” he says, “and work for the good of all.”

Whether you’re from Pachino or Ragusa, Damascus or Samaria, whether circumcised or uncircumcised, this feeling of being “better than” is a temptation woven deep into human history and it is alive and well today.

We see it in the subtle ways we fear or dismiss people who seem “different.” Sometimes we don’t say it aloud, but we think it: They’re not good enough. They don’t belong here. They’ll ruin what we’ve built. This is xenophobia in its simplest form — fear of what is not us. And it isn’t just somewhere else, it’s right here, in Peterborough.

Just this week, Peterborough City Council voted down continued funding for expanded services at One City’s Trinity Centre — a program that has been a safe overnight refuge for people experiencing homelessness and crisis. A program that we support through Faith Works and it just so happens that Christian Harvey, One City’s Executive Director, will be here to preach for us in the fall. Of primary concern is that council voted down the funding despite the fact that the city’s own report said ending this funding would “significantly compromise” our ability to care for our most vulnerable.

I won’t get into politics but it’s telling that part of the reason the motion failed (which was publicly acknowledged by at least one council member) was because of the pressure from neighbors who didn’t want the shelter near their homes — a fear that “those people” would bring discomfort, disruption - mess. 

This is Naaman’s attitude all over again: Our rivers are better. Our neighborhood is cleaner. Our soil is richer.

Yet when Naaman humbled himself and stepped into that “dirty” Jordan River, he found the healing he could not buy with his power and wealth.

Yes, the problems are complicated — addiction, unsafe use, violence — real challenges that demand real solutions. But the gospel shows us the deeper truth: God’s healing power flows through the places and people we might call hopeless, inconvenient, or unclean.

In our Gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus sends out seventy ordinary disciples with no money, no bag, no backup plan — only a message and their need for hospitality. They were told to rely on the welcome of strangers, to knock on doors, share meals, and bless any household that would open itself to them. They would look like wanderers, maybe like troublemakers or vagrants — unkempt, empty-handed, hungry, asking for help.

Jesus knew they would be rejected and some towns would see them as dirty or dangerous and shut the door. “If they do,” he says, “shake the dust off your feet and move on, but say to them anyway, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near.’”

Whether welcomed or rejected, the message stays the same: God’s Kingdom comes near, not through might or wealth, but through ordinary people crossing boundaries, sharing tables, bearing peace.

I ask myself — and I invite you to ask with me — if these disciples showed up at our door today, how would we receive them? Would we welcome them in, feed them, listen to them? Or would we dismiss them as loiterers, worry about our property values, perhaps cross the street to avoid them?

Naaman’s healing did not flow from the fancy rivers of Damascus, but from the humble waters of the muddy Jordan. God’s grace is not found only in the safe, respectable places, it shows up on our doorsteps, in the rougher edges of our city, in people we’re tempted to call “less than.”

Yes, the issues may be complicated but Jesus’ call is simple. We are called to stand with, listen to, and care for those who are pushed aside. To see not a “problem,” but a person — beloved, human, deserving of compassion and dignity. We are called to examine our hidden prejudices, question our perceived fear, and ask for the Spirit’s help to uproot them.

We are called to be the church, the visible sign that God’s Kingdom is near. Not a gated community, but a table open to all. A people who rejoice not in how we’re “better than” others, but in how we belong together as one loving family in Christ.

That’s what made my brother and I laugh at my dad and his cousin: they were the same people with the same blood coursing through their veins, arguing about who was better when they were family all along.

Our joy is not in our differences. Our joy is that we belong to Christ, divinely united as one human family. When we live like we really believe that, walls fall. Strangers become friends. The feared and the fearful become family. The Kingdom of God comes near — right here, in Peterborough, in Lakefield, in us.

I pray it may be so.

Amen.