As he is prone to always do, Willimon said some challenging things in his sermon. I think my favorite two sentences were:
Everybody here was an undocumented immigrant until Jesus Christ. Everybody here got naturalized by what He did on the cross.
As the only Gentile writer of Scripture, Luke probably knows better than his Bible-writing colleagues how it feels to be an outsider. It's not like the early church described in Acts instantly figured out how broad the welcoming mat to the Kingdom of God actually was. So it isn't too surprising that it is Luke who quotes Jesus as saying, "And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last." (Luke 11:29, 30. ESV)
Those words are at the end of the story sometimes called "the narrow door" where Jesus makes it clear that the long-term "insiders" are risking being cast out as long-term "outsiders" from the north, south, east, and west are welcomed.
That's a pesky little story for us privileged insiders!
And speaking of pesky, Paul could have gone forever without saying "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." (Romans 15:7, ESV) That is said right in the middle of Romans 14 and 15 - two rather challenging chapters when it comes to living out the gospel on a daily basis.
The text for Willimon's sermon was the end of 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul talks about being a "new creature in Christ" and accepting "the ministry of reconciliation" on behalf of Christ. But as he was preaching - appropriately on this text - I kept thinking of the two texts I've mentioned above. Put those three texts together and one might be subject to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit as Jesus describes it in John 16:8-10.
Unfortunately both the political left and the political right have so politicized their theological ideas that it is all but impossible to have an authentic kingdom-like conversation about important issues in our culture. But those of us who truly want to be "kingdom people doing kingdom things" have to find a way to have such authentic conversations within our culture.
No doubt people reading this will view, for example, the issue of immigration differently. I'm fine with acknowledging that the government of any country has some role to play in deciding who can come in and who can't - but that is hardly the issue for me as a follower of Jesus. Hand that over the "Caesar."
The problem is that when our conversations about immigration become so coarse and intense that it sounds as though we see ourselves as so much better than others (we're "first") or that we actually hate them - then that Jesus story from Luke 11 is more than merely pesky. Do I really want my conversation about a political issue to become the reason a lost person continues to reject the Jesus story?
I'm grateful to live in a country where I can urge the government to be just, merciful, and treat people with human dignity. What I'm nervous about is that it is so easy to let the government try to do what Christ has called me - as a kingdom person doing kingdom things - to do - or, even more seriously, to allow my allegiance to the government to somehow be more important than my confession that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord. Early Christians were martyred over that very issue.
God has been in the "exodus business" at least sense He sent Abram and Sarai on their boundary- crossing journey somewhere around 2000 BCE. That "north, south, east, and west" line from Jesus seems to suggest He still is in the exodus business.
Perhaps we really do need to sit down and start having some authentic conversations about things like racism, immigration, sexism, and a host of other issues, lest "the privileged first become the stunned last."
Everybody here was an undocumented immigrant until Jesus Christ. Everybody here got naturalized by what He did on the cross.
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