Dunbar United Church of Christ - June 20, 2010

I. Last Monday there were two suicide bombings south of Baghdad, just as factory workers were coming off their shift. In one incident, 45 people died. It was just one in a wave of attacks across Iraq that killed more than 100. One of the survivors said: "We are workers trying to earn a living -- why do we have to die like this?"

Since the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, we’ve discovered that there’s a civil war going on in that country between the Sunni Muslim minority and the Shiite Muslim majority. While the United States has been fighting insurgents, Muslims have been fighting Muslims.

II. Last week one of our members, Kara Peterson, traveled to Rwanda in Africa. Today, that’s probably a safe place to visit, but 16 years ago a million people died in a three month period between April and July 1994 because of a civil war that’s been going on there since the 15th century between two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus were there first and the Tutsis came from the Horn of Africa to breed cattle. Eventually, the Tutsis made the inhabitants, the Hutus, their servants. You can imagine the Hutu resentment that’s been building up for hundreds of years.

III. Recently, I saw a powerful foreign movie called Sin Nombre -- the Nameless -- about rival gangs in Mexico. Each gang has their territory and if one gang member is found on another’s territory, they are executed -- no trial, no questions, no mercy.

IV. Our own country was shaped by a civil war, and even though we call ourselves the United States, the union between different groups and states is often not so strong. We’re still a country of north and south, liberal and conservative, gay and straight, religious and atheist, Caucasians (old majority), and non-Caucasians (new majority). And white people are afraid -- they want their country back.

V. Generally, people feel safer in their own groups, their own families. We stay in our tribes and don’t trust -- foreigners -- people not in our tribe.

And into this world of civil wars, and gangs, and blue states and red states, Hutus and Tutsis, Sunnis and Shiites, north and south, tea partiers and progressives comes the apostle Paul saying: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Can you believe that? Can you believe that in Christ, there are no more tribes? No more whites and blacks and Asians and Hispanics? If we saw all of the “illegal immigrants” living in Hamden as our family members, we’d fight to keep them in this country. We’d want to take care of our family.

Well, if you believe what Paul says in our Bible this morning, they are our family. In Christ, there is no east or west, no Mexican or American or African or North Korean -- but we’re all one community of love throughout the whole wide earth. Can you believe that?