Rev Gav
How should we respond when we are rejected?
Are you a Harry Potter fan? My daughters were. I remember when they were about 17 years old, they undertook a Harry Potterthon where they watched every Harry Potter movie back to back, and it took them about 21 hours. I did catch them napping briefly at about 5am when I checked on them and they insisted they had only been asleep for 5 minutes!
In the Harry Potter movies there are those with magic that are members of the wizarding community and those without magic who are called Muggles. Then there are those that are half-muggle and half-wizard or witch, and they are called Mudbloods with the inference that their blood has been muddied. The Mudbloods are looked down upon by the wizarding community and they are the subject of ridicule and scorn. Like the Mudbloods, those that fit not into one community or another are often the most marginalised in society and it was exactly the same in Jesus’ day.
You have probably heard of the organisation called The Samaritans — the organisation that offers a helpline to those that are feeling suicidal. The organisation is named after a story that Jesus told, recorded by Luke in his gospel, that we call The Good Samaritan. The biblical Samaritans were named after the area in which they lived which was called Samaria, but here’s a thing, the Samaritans were Mudbloods. They were half breeds. They were a mix of Jewish and Gentile (non-Jewish) and because of this they were generally spurned by the Jewish community and considered inferior or second-class. The Jewish people only married other Jewish people and because some had intermarried with non-Jews it was felt that they had turned their back on Judaism, and it was for this ‘muddying of the blood’ that they were hated.
There’s an account in Luke’s gospel where Jesus wanted to go to Samaria to tell them about the Kingdom of God — and that in itself is amazing given the culture at the time — however, the Samaritans told him he was not welcome there. Jesus’ disciples were incensed and wanted to take revenge but Jesus gave his disciples a good talking to. Even though Jesus was rejected, he still did not judge or retaliate. He simply wanted to invite and welcome people into God’s kingdom.
Jesus was rejected by Samaritans — those he sought to invite into a new way of life — and we, as Christians, must not be surprised when people reject us and our message too. As we seek to proclaim the good news of Jesus and be witnesses to God’s love, not everyone will accept God’s invitation, and there can be a whole host of reasons why they say, “Sorry, it’s not for me.”
When people reject the God we know and love, or reject the love we bring, we are to do our best to be non-judgmental (i.e. not spiritually condemn them), and if they become hostile, hurtful, violent, oppressive, or abusive, well, sometimes we just have to be like Jesus, shake the dust from our feet and walk away. In such times it’s good to remember that we are not called to be a Christians on our own — we are all together in this thing! We have each other and our church family to lean on and provide mutual support and encouragement.
In today’s culture it is so easy slip into judging others; to collectively think of ourselves superior or better than another group of people. I remember back in 2019, in a recorded interview with the Financial Times, Vladimir Putin said that liberalism was dead and that multiculturalism had not worked. Personally, liberalism is something for which I strive, and I long for society and church to be truly multicultural. I want FAB Church to be diverse and filled with people from all walks of life — different genders, sexualities, ages, heritages, and abilities. Mudbloods are especially welcome! And like Jesus, whenever we hear one group of people dismissing another we need to confront it — whether it’s on the school playground, at work, or when we are socialising. There is no ‘them and us’. There is just ‘us’.
This week, Helen and I made friends with a transvestite. He was male but presented as a female, and we heard people calling them a ‘he’ which kinda grated on us, as we were referring to them as a ‘she’, and so we asked them privately what pronouns they would like to be called. They described themselves as living in a ‘grey area’ between genders, but thanked us and asked us to use the pronouns that best fit the way they presented themselves. Our new friend could not believe that I was a priest because, presumably, they had felt rejected and that rejection had been deeply embedded in their psyche. How wonderful to be God’s messenger of love and acceptance to those who have felt marginalised or spurned because they did not fit into societal ‘norms’!
So, whether you are a wizard, witch, a muggle, or a mudblood, or whether you do not identify or fit into any group at all, may you know that God does not judge you and that you are welcomed and invited into God’s Kingdom! Never stop loving and being Jesus to all you meet and encounter — especially if they are not like you.
Amen.
and then