A Fourth Church Sermon by John W. Vest

June 14, 2009 | 4:00 p.m.

The Strangeness of Estrangement

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Genesis 1:26–28

A story is told about an old couple named Abraham and Sarah. They live in a tent out in the desert. One day Abraham looks out into that desert and notices that three strangers are standing by the oak trees near their home. Following the customs and expectations of his time and place, Abraham invites these visitors into the shade and provides them with water and a generous meal. So they sit down around a common table, breaking bread and sharing this common experience of life together.

As the conversation goes on, it turns out that these strangers are there for a reason. They are there to bring good news to old Abraham and old Sarah. It’s such good news that they can hardly believe it. In fact, old Sarah can’t help but laugh out loud.

What if God is like that? What if God is like those three strangers who come bringing good news? What if it turns out that the place we meet God is sitting around a common table, sharing a meal, sharing our lives?

According to the sacred stories that shape our community, there is something intrinsically communal about God and something intrinsically communal about being human.

For two millennia the church has talked about God as a mystery—a single divinity in three persons. Yet long before Christian theologians developed the concept of trinity, a priestly scribe in ancient Israel wrote down a story of creation that had been told and retold in his community. And when it came time to tell about the creation of humanity, this scribe did something rather remarkable.

There’s another story, of course, a story we need to unlearn in order to learn this one. The story we all remember, a story that is probably a little older, is about a man being formed from dust and then a woman being formed from one of his ribs. This story has a tendency to prioritize men, making them seem more important than women, because they were created first. Women, it follows, are somehow secondary and subordinate. For 3,000 years this story has implicitly or explicitly justified patriarchy and misogyny and by extension, I think, a whole host of other kinds of division and prejudice.

But this priestly scribe told a different story. According to this story, men and women were created at the same time. From this we might conclude that men and women were created as equals, a revolutionary idea at the time and perhaps in our time, as well. Yet even more than this, it is said that these two together—male and female—are the image of God. When these ancient people tried to imagine what God looks like, the image that came to mind was two people living together in community.

Do you see what that says about God? Do you see what that says about us?

There is something intrinsically communal about God. There is something intrinsically communal about being human.

Now when this intrinsic sense of community that is so central to both divinity and humanity is disrupted, we experience a strange feeling. Theologian Paul Tillich called this experience estrangement, and he said that it was the common experience of the human condition. According to Tillich, in our fallen and imperfect world we find ourselves estranged from God, estranged from each other, and estranged from ourselves. As we exist, we are not what we ought to be, not our true beings. To use the language of our biblical story, we are not fully reflecting the image of God.

Without using $10 theological words, I think we can all identify what Tillich meant by estrangement—a feeling that things are not as they should be; a feeling that something is missing in our lives; a recognition of the profound suffering that exists in our world. Catholic social worker and activist Dorothy Day called it the “long loneliness,” and I think that evocative phrase captures what we’ve all experienced, even when we’ve not known what to name it. When we are not living in community with each other, we are separated from God and separated from our true selves.

This separation, this loneliness, this estrangement is caused by so many disruptions to the way things should be. Men thinking they are better than women. People of one race thinking they are better than other races. Heterosexuals disregarding the experiences of those different from themselves. People striving for power at the expense of others. Unequal distributions of wealth and resources. People with money distancing themselves from people without money, and people without money resenting or distrusting people with money. Violence and hatred. Isolation and ostracizing. Self-denial and self-abuse. Illness and depression. All of these things and so many more separate us from each other, from God, and from our own selves. And in this fallen and broken world, there are so few places we can go to overcome this estrangement and so many unhealthy ways to compensate for it. There are so few avenues toward true reconciliation and so many ways to numb ourselves to the truth of our existence.

That is why there are few things more sacred than community. Community is more than just a place to socialize. Community is more than a place to be recognized or respected. Community is much more than a way to include some and exclude others. Community is the place where we encounter God in each other.

Dorothy Day once said, “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that loves comes with community.”

If God is love and love comes with community, God comes with and in and through community.

What if this communal God is inviting you to come to a common table, in this place, to break bread and share some good news, perhaps the best you’ve ever heard? What if this communal God is inviting you to sit at common tables next door with people from your community whom you don’t know and who might not be just like you? What if this communal God is calling you to be reconciled with your neighbors and your enemies? What if this communal God is calling you?

There is something intrinsically communal about God. There is something intrinsically communal about being human.

Three strangers come to visit old Abraham and old Sarah, bringing good news to share around a common table.

What if God is like that?

Amen.