WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT PEACE, LOVE, AND RECONCILIATION?
Guest Preacher: Alan Olson
Philippians 2: 1-11
If then there is any encouragement in
Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion
and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of
you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the
same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of
God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became
obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Good morning! Thank
you for having me to share this time of worship with you today. I was going to
start with a really old joke: I just flew in from Africa, and boy, are my arms
tired—and my legs, and my back, etc. etc. But I’ve been for about two weeks, so
I think the statute of limitations on using that joke has expired. Mind you,
I’m not joking about flying in from Africa. I have recently returned from a
two-week mission trip to South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho.
Now I’m going to
guess that all of you are familiar with the nation of South Africa—especially
if you were alive during the 1970s and 80s and were paying attention to the
struggle to end Apartheid, the legal segregation of and discrimination against
black South Africans and other people of color. Chances are good that most of
you are familiar with South African leaders such as Nelson Mandela and
Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But I would guess that there are some of you who
aren’t familiar with the Kingdom of Lesotho. Let me confess that I didn’t know
very much about it, either, until about two weeks ago.
Lesotho is an
independent nation of about two million people and it is entirely surrounded by
South Africa. Lesotho is about the size of Maryland; it’s a very mountainous
country and it looks a lot like Arizona, but with green grass and trees. It is
a very pretty place, but it’s not a place that gets many visitors from the
United States. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard about Lesotho in the
news. It’s a poor nation, but it’s far from the poorest. Although HIV/AIDS is a
problem in Lesotho—as in all of southern Africa—I’m unaware of any famines or
wars in Lesotho in recent memory.
The main reason that
our team went to Lesotho was to work on a service project. We were in a little
town in the countryside called Morija and we were there to help build a latrine
at a nursery school. This is a very typical understanding of Christian
mission—a group of us went somewhere far away, to do something for someone who
really needed our help. It could be viewed, as the Apostle Paul described in
this morning’s reading from Philippians, as an act of “compassion and
sympathy.” But most of the work on the project was done by four experienced
masons; all of them were from Lesotho. At best, we were their helpers, but they
could have done all of the work without us.
Another common
understanding of mission work is to send a person or a group of people abroad
to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. But that wasn’t our job, either. In
fact, the town of Morija was founded by French missionaries in 1833! We missed
that party by almost 200 years! Today, 90% of the population is Christian. So
what were we doing there? Why did we travel some 9,000 miles to assist some
brick layers? Before I address those questions, I think we need to take a
closer look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians; it sheds a lot of light on
Christian mission.
Philippi was a
fairly large settlement in Macedonia. It was a Roman colony. That meant that
land in Philippi had been given to Roman soldiers after they had completed
their service in the legions. Think about that for a second. Many of the
Philippians were veterans. I imagine most of you know a few people who served
in the armed forces of the United States; perhaps some of you are veterans.
I’ve never met a veteran who was not proud of his or her service.
This must have been
true in Philippi, too. Imagine that you were a Roman soldier in the middle of
the First Century. Perhaps you were a Roman citizen, but you had little
property or chance of advancement. Or maybe you were a freeman, but not a full
citizen of the Empire. Service in the legions was your chance for moving up in
the world. The term of service in the Roman legions was typically twenty-five
years. So, after all those years of marching around the Roman world, sleeping
on the ground, in the cold, eating bad food, and fighting the enemies of the
Empire—where you might have been outnumbered five-to-one, or six-to-one, or
ten-to-one—if you made it through all that, then you got a plot of farm land
and you earned the right to be called a Roman citizen. You made it! Now, you
were someone. And you earned it! How could you not be proud?
Instead, Paul urges
the congregation at Philippi to be humble, to imitate Christ’s humility. That
must have been really hard to do. Paul urges the Philippians to do “nothing
from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than
yourselves.” But being a Roman citizen meant that you were better than most other people. So it must have been a tough
pill for the Philippians to swallow, when Paul told them to set aside their pride
and imitate Christ’s humility.
This is also how we,
as American Christians, must act when we engage in Christian missions.
Generosity is a good thing, but when we give to others, we have to do it in
humility. If we are not humble when we give, then the giving becomes about us.
We must, as Paul says, “be sharing in the Spirit.” Compassion and sympathy are
not acts of good will that start with us. No, this is the reconciling action of
the Holy Spirit. We do not do good works of our own accord. Rather, when we act
in accordance with the Holy Spirit, good works are accomplished through our
actions. Or maybe I should say God’s work is accomplished through our actions.
This is a fine line to walk.
Our mission team in
South Africa included sixteen people: two seminary professors, thirteen
seminary students and recent graduates, and the husband of one of the students.
It was a diverse group: half of us were white, half were African-American; the
youngest member of our group was 23, while the oldest members were in their
early- or mid-sixties. When we got to Morija, we were joined by another eight
volunteers. The new volunteers were college-age students from Lesotho, who were
also there to help build the latrine. As I mentioned before, there were four
skilled workers already working on the job site.
When we arrived, the
hole for the latrine had been completed. The next part of the project was to
lay the concrete block that would serve as the septic tank for the latrine and
support the upper walls of the structure. Only two people in our group knew how
to lay block. What’s more, the pit for the latrine could only accommodate four
or five workers at a time. In short, we had a lot more workers than work. At
first, this was really frustrating. I wasn’t the only person to ask, “What am I
doing here?”
Later that night, we
had devotions with the whole group. I was paired with one of my African
colleagues, a young man named Sechaba. He asked that same question. He said
that many of his friends had asked him why he was doing this service project
and he didn’t have a good answer. The truth is, Sechaba and I were both asking
the wrong question. It wasn’t about what I was doing or what Sechaba was doing.
The right question is, “what is God doing here?”
Of course it took a
long day, with too little work, for either of us to realize that something more
profound was going on. In fact, the lack of work created a wonderful space for
conversations to take place. The team from Lesotho got to know each other
better. The team from Pittsburgh got to know one another better. And best of
all, members of each team began to talk with members of the other team. God had
created a sacred space in which we were all invited to be in relationship with
one another. The work wasn’t just about laying block for a latrine; it was
about laying the foundation for relationships across the continents. My
friends, that is part of the reconciling work of the Holy Spirit.
I have traveled
overseas for a number of mission trips. One of the things that I have discovered
is that most people outside of the United States have never heard of
Pittsburgh. Can you believe that? Never heard of Pittsburgh? It’s strange but
true. But then, a great many of us had never heard of Lesotho, a nation that is
not well known outside of southern Africa. To the uninitiated, Pittsburgh and
Lesotho might seem like global backwaters, names on a map that few people ever
visit. Then again, two thousand years ago, Palestine was a little province on
the edges of the Roman Empire. Nobody expected that a humble servant born in
Palestine some two thousand years ago would eventually change the world.
Amazing things can happen outside of capital cities and the centers of culture.
We spent about a
week in Morija. And yes, lots of block was laid. We didn’t finish the latrine,
but we came really close. More than that, the people of the two mission
teams—the team from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the team of young
people from Lesotho—grew close to one another. We used the time to get to know
one another. At this point, you might be wondering what this has to do with
humility and the imitation of Christ.
That first morning
in Morija, when there wasn’t enough work to keep all of us busy, I found that
really frustrating. I felt that my time wasn’t being used wisely. I wanted to
be doing something. I wanted to be useful. I. I. I! In those moments of
frustration, it was all about me and what I wanted. It was only after I let go
of my own expectations—after I humbled myself—that I was able to move into the
sacred space that God had provided for me. It was only after I let go of my ego
and my attachment to the idea that I was doing something for someone else—let
me repeat that: my attachment to the idea that I was doing—it was only after I let that go that I could fall in
with the work of the Holy Spirit. I suspect that this was true for most of our
group.
After we let go of
our expectations, wonderful things began to happen in our groups. Many of the
older women in our group adopted the young people from the Lesotho team. One of
the young seminarians in our group felt compelled to give his Pirates’ hat to
one of the young men from Lesotho. Many of us became Facebook friends with the
young people from Lesotho. We began relationships. Before we met, the groups
from Pittsburgh and Lesotho were separated by distance and culture. Through our
time together, doing the work of the Holy Spirit and building relationships
with one another, we began to be reconciled to one another.
One of the more
interesting relationships that began there in Morija was with an older woman
named Ma’Pabello. Ma’Pabello was the administrator of the nursery school where
we were working. She is a wonderful witness to a life of faith in the service
of others. Caring for the young children of Morija is her mission. As we got to
know Ma’Pabello better, one of the women in our group asked what we could do to
help her out.
Ma’Pabello’s first
answer was to ask us to pray for the children, and then to pray for the school.
Talk about humility! We asked Ma’Pabello what we could do for her and she
deflected the request—the children were more important!
The women from
Pittsburgh were undeterred. They wanted to know if there was anything else that
we could do for Ma’Pabello, perhaps donations of money or equipment for the
school. Ma’Pabello gave the most amazing reply: “Ma’Paballo: I want your songs,
not your stuff!” She didn’t want a flat-screen, high-def TV for herself or a
library full of books for the school. She didn’t want computers or a new car.
She wanted to know our hymns of praise. She wanted to know what we sang when we
humbled ourselves before God! She wanted to share in our witness to God’s love
in the world!
As I said before,
the real question, the question we couldn’t ask until we let go of our pride
and arrogance and made ourselves humble, was this: “What is God doing here in
Morija?” For that week, God brought us together as equals, to learn from one
another and to be in community with one another. God brought us there to hear
Ma’Pabello’s wisdom, and then God brought us home safely so that we could share
what we learned in Lesotho.
My friends, you
don’t have to go to Africa to practice humility or to do mission work.
Christian mission is not just a committee! It is what each of us does every
day, when we fall in with the Holy Spirit. You don’t have to go halfway around
the world to do it. The work of reconciliation must be done everywhere: in
Africa, yes, and also right here on Chess Street and on Main Street; here in
Mon City, down in Donora, and Monessen, too! To do this, we must approach God
in prayer and humility and ask God to use us in the work of reconciliation.
Thanks be to God. Amen!
