The Way of Love

Luke 14:1, 7-14

September 4, 2016

 Mark S. Bollwinkel

            Twenty-three years ago this month, I traveled for the first time to Sarawak, East Malaysia, on the northern part of the island of Borneo.  During my week there I met with church leaders of the Iban Conference of the Methodist church of Malaysia.  The Iban are the old headhunters of Borneo and I was there to research their rural development ministries.

            In Kapit, a logging town in the interior of the rain forest, I went out with an Iban church team to visit the long house church at Rumah Dari, six hours north, by dugout canoe.

            We traveled all day up a small river, pulling the wooden longboat over rocks when it got too shallow.  When the water was deep we would zoom by outboard motor under overhanging branches and orchids, vines and ferns, watching parrots and hornbills fly across our path.  It was as if we were in the Jungle Boat ride at Disneyland.

            When we finally reached Rumah Dari we were exhausted, hot and sweaty.  We arrived just as the 200 folks of this village on stilts were getting ready for their late afternoon bath.  Our team was eager to join them.

            It was quite a sight.  Everyone does down to the river, young and old, boy and girl, to bathe at the same time.  Men went down stream and women went up stream in two neat and distinct groups.

            Everyone kept some clothing on while bathing.  The Iban are modest and proud people.  The ladies bathe with sarongs tied properly around them and the men with trunks or briefs on.  It was a happy occasion with lots of water play and laughter, swimming and lots of soap.  The Iban are very clean people.

            I jumped right in.  I was desperate for a bath and the water felt wonderful.  My presence created quite a stir among the people, as I was the first white person to have visited Rumah Dari in six years.  Many of the children had never seen an “orang puteh” before.  Some were afraid I was a ghost, others though I was covered in paint.

            Never-the-less, the occasion of seeing a tall (in comparison to their average male), fat, red bearded, white man taking a bath in their river was the high point of their day.

            The folks quickly gathered around the banks of the river to watch me finish my bath.  They were very polite, and very curious, talking and giggling among themselves.

            My church teammates who had brought me to Rumah Dari got a big kick out of this and explained to me all that was going on.

            Then it came time to get out of the water.

            I asked my friends how I was supposed to get out of my wet underclothes and into dry ones.  They explained, by word and example, that one takes a dry sarong, slips it over the head, and while holding an edge in your teeth, you step out of the wet clothing, place it aside and then step into the dry clothing.

            It sounded easy enough.  I took a dry sarong, slipped it over my head, stepped out of my wet underclothing.  So far so good.  Two hundred people were watching me undress and all was going well.

            Then, with my back to the crowd on the riverbank, as I stepped into my dry clothing, I stepped down on the sarong and pulled it out of my teeth.  It fell to the ground and before I instantly pulled it up around myself again, a huge cheer roared out from the village.  They clapped and yelled, slapping each other on the back.  We all laughed together.

            That night after dinner at our community meeting and worship service, they lovingly gave me a new nickname, “Bulan Besai”, which literally translated means “Great White Moon”, the nearest thing in their experience to what they had seen that afternoon at the community bath.

            The story illustrates my clumsiness and Iban curiosity.  But I also like to think of the event as an example of “conspicuous Christianity”.

            I stuck out like a sore thumb in their world.  I had made a fool of myself in front of them.  Yet they also knew I had traveled 10,000 miles away from my family, to a strange and difficult land.  They knew I had done so for Christ and his church’s efforts to help feed their children.  In the end we became brothers and sisters.

            Three years later I would return to Sarawak with Bonnie, Matt and Daniel as United Methodist Missionaries, to discover that many more people than those at Rumah Dari had heard about the legend of Bulan Besai.

            One of the challenges of living outside of the United States once you return is getting used to the inconspicuousness of Christianity in our society.  Believers or unbelievers all look the same and act the same, for the most part.  North America is an easy place to hide one’s faith.

            How can you tell who is a Christian and who is not?  You can’t tell by one’s clothing, or one’s surname, or even by our bumper stickers.

            The only thing that distinguishes us as disciples of Christ is our capacity to love.

            Our love for each other and the world is not just an intellectual, personal or contemplative love but also an active way of life, a way of life that can be observed by all around us.

            Christian love is conspicuous; it stands out like a sore thumb.

            It is no coincidence that here at Church of the Wayfarer we collect clean socks for homeless men in Salinas, or non-perishable food items for the food closet at All Saints Church down the street or open our church for the I-Help rotating homeless shelters for men and women.

            It is no coincidence that the vast majority of prison programs in our nation connecting the inmate to the outside are run by faith-based organizations.

            It is no accident that our government counts on Christian organizations…such as Church World Service (CWS), Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)…to do the hands-on local work to resettle refugees from Syria, or Africa or Eastern Europe.

            Christian love is conspicuous.

            It’s conspicuous in the couples who fight to keep their marriages alive in the face of trails and temptations.   It’s conspicuous in the singles who with courageous efforts keep their families going in spite of broken hearts.

            It’s conspicuous in the many saints of the church, in this church, who generously share their time and money for Christ’s ministry of compassion and justice.        Consider our gospel lesson this morning, as Jesus teaches the rich host that he should not only invite friends and family to his banquet, but “the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind” as well.

            For Jesus, righteousness didn’t mean superiority or the right to condemn others who are different.  Just the opposite.  The truly righteous welcome those who don’t count to their tables.  Jesus describes a radical love, a love that includes not excludes, a love that is humble, not full of self-righteousness.

            This is not an easy or comfortable love, a romantic love.  In fact, this is a hard lesson to follow.  There are many, many folks we would refuse to have at our dining room table; the AIDS patient, the illegal immigrant, people with different sexual orientations than our own, persons of different races than our own, even specific members of our own families who we have written off, we would not welcome to our tables.

            But the love to which Jesus calls us urges us to invite even those who don’t count.

            That kind of love is conspicuous.  It stands out in contrast to the cynical, expedient world in which we live.

            We are about to be invited to the table of the Lord, the sacrament of Holy Communion.  All are invited.  It is a conspicuous act by those who choose to participate.  We will physically, publicly demonstrate our need for God’s nourishment in our lives and our commitment to respond to Jesus’ teachings.  We don’t do it passively.  We act to receive it.  We don’t do it anonymously.  All can see us as we partake.  And we don’t do it alone.  We share this symbolic meal in the community of like-minded people who seek the same promise as we do.

            A life where God matters.  In a world of accomplishment and acquisition we step forward to say that life with God matters.  It can make all the difference.

            It may not be as conspicuous as dropping your sarong in front of 200 people, but it is a conspicuous commitment to the way of love none-the-less.

             Amen.