Sermon 8.9.26 There Are Only Two Kinds of People in this World
There was quite a lot happening at this church yesterday.
We had a back to school parking lot carnival, where we hosted more than 100 kids and their families thanks to the amazing work of our ECW led by Vicki Washington.
After our Juneteenth Block Party, Vicki worked with Ebony Stone from Voices of Promise and Never the Less to give the neighborhood another fabulous event.
Kids were getting their hair cut and braids done,
Eating shaved ice and hot dogs,
Visiting community organizations,
And Bouncing in bounce houses.
St. Paul asks us the questions: How are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have not heard?
Our answer is: We’re going to bring them to the church, feed them, and show them how a community rooted in the love of Jesus can make the whole block a better place to live.
I want to thank the women of this church for showing up and representing us;
For walking the walk.
Now, there was also another group here yesterday meeting in our basement before the carnival got started.
Our neighborhood coordinator from Back2Back, Onice Gray, and our brother John White have been gathering young men for the past few months and teaching hunter safety training to young black men.
At the end of the training, they will be going down to Louisiana on an all expenses paid trip to go hunting together at the end of September.
The plan is to keep the group going and bring more young people into the group;
To show these young folks from the city a way of life that their grandparents and great-grandparents knew;
To help them build a relationship with other people their age and do things they might not have experienced otherwise.
Now, when I was approached about this project, I have to admit that my initial reaction was… I don’t know… queasy.
I mean, I’ve spent so much time and energy working with organizations that are trying to combat the gun violence epidemic,
(We’re even hosting a gun violence prevention event on September 18th in conjunction with Whitney Strong and AmeriHealth)
I mean, I have shot firearms before, I loved doing archery at church camp growing up.
But still, I had this little momentary voice in my head saying, “danger.”
What I knew, however, after this brief hesitation was that I trusted the people who wanted to do this program, and I knew that they had a good plan and proper training to pull it off.
And I realized quite honestly that I have been conditioned over these past few years to see firearms only as one thing, and the people who use firearms as one thing.
And so, I’m moved to preach to you this morning: There are only two kinds of people in this world…
Have you ever heard someone say the words, “There are only two kinds of people in this world?”
Sometimes it’s a joke:
“There are only two kinds of people in this world… those who hit the snooze button, and those who set their alarm 5 times.”
“There are two kinds of people in this world… Those who know how to wrap Christmas presents and those who don’t.”
“There are two kinds of people in this world… Those who dip their cereal so that it all gets milk on it, and those who eat dry cereal off the top.”
A lot of times, we do it subconsciously, more often we also do it unreflectively, we don’t think about the fact that we’re doing it, or interrogate our own reality enough to question our first instinct.
There are only two kinds of people in this world… us and them.
Republicans and Democrats
Liberal or Conservative
Pro-Life and Pro-Choice
Pro-Gun and Anti-Gun
Real men and woosy boys
In her book, Jesus and John Wayne, Kristen Kobes Du Mez maps out how the current trend of ultra-masculinity and the manosphere within Christianity has taken shape not just over the past few years, but over the course of decades.
The ideal of the warrior god, who blesses the strong, white man; protector of women, ruler of family life, king of the castle not just in camo, but sometimes in khakis.
She shows the overlap between the toxic masculinity of influencers like the Tate brothers, who were just arrested for alleged rape and trafficking crimes.
She makes a direct link between books on “Christian manhood” from the early 2000’s and things like the Defense Departments’ new plan to test our military men for low testosterone and give them hormone therapy, so they don’t lose their warrior edge.
This despite there being no medical evidence to support the efficacy of such a move.
(ironic how hormone therapy is suddenly okay, if it’s for people that you want it to be for, just like stolen valor is only a problem, unless it’s your person in an AI image pretending to be a General Officer with bonafide war heroes)
Now, although there is much insight to gain from this journalism, in typical fashion, the focus of the book is exclusively on how the manosphere has risen among white evangelical Christians;
As if there were only two kinds of people in this world… problematic white evangelicals and the rest of us.
It’s just not that simple. Life is not that simple.
There can’t just be two kinds of people in this world, because I’ve already listed at least 20 kinds of people and we haven’t even talked about sports or food yet.
The toxicity of the manosphere and toxic masculinity is not solely owned and operated by white men, even if they are some of the main contributors to its current rise in popularity.
White men have manifested toxic masculinity in a particular way and melded it with a theology that rejects the softer side of Jesus and makes a mockery of a man who would willingly allow himself to be tortured and crucified for our sake.
But, black men, latino men, African men, European men, Asian men, any one of us are at risk of accepting, or have accepted already the ideology espoused by white Christian manhood.
They didn’t invent it, and it doesn’t just affect one type of person by race, class, or even geography.
We all have to be ready to understand how broad cultural ideas work on all of us, or fall prey to a “there are only two kinds of people in this world” mentality, where we are righteous and they are the problem with this world.
I mean, we could easily look at our Scripture passages from today and say, there are only two kinds of people in this world… “People who believe in Jesus, and people who don’t.”
“People who would sell their brother into slavery, and people who wouldn’t.”
“People who would get out of the boat to try to walk on water, and people who watch.”
“People who confess with their lips, or people who believe in their heart.”
But, I think that what we are being invited to see, what we are being urged to see, in our Scripture readings for today is that there are more than two kinds of people in this world and that ultimately we are being called to become one type of people.
Hidden in these two-parted dichotomies there is actually a lot more going on.
In Genesis, we see that not all of Joseph’s older brothers are united in their thinking about how to deal with their annoying younger brother, who keeps getting special treatment from Jacob.
Reuben wants to make sure that his more aggressive brothers don’t go biblical in a repeat of Cain and Abel.
Judah, though he’s made to seem compassionate like Reuben by the narrator to make him look better, because he is the scion of the Judeans in Jerusalem,
His idea, unlike Reuben, is to make a profit off of his brother and not just to save his life.
And yet, God uses their diversity of opinion and motivation in order to save His people from a famine that concludes the Book of Genesis and that shows up in our psalm, Psalm 105.
In the end, they all become one people in the face of incredible need, Hebrews and Egyptians united by Joseph’s dreams and foresight to prepare for years of drought, to be provided for by God’s bounty and not their own schemes to gain favor and influence.
In the Gospel, we may think that there are only people in the boat and Peter who at least takes the first step in faith.
Likewise, we may think there are people who would have done better than Peter; people who don’t sink, because they have real faith, and people of little faith;
Or that there are those who do acts of performative faith and those with actual faith.
But, actually what we see is that Jesus unites all of them into one act of confessing him as Lord, one recognition that Jesus, our Hosanna in the Highest, our “Lord Save us,” will always reach out his hand when we are in need;
And will always stretch out his hand to receive our wounds and worries.
Finally, we see the culmination of Jesus’ work of unification as the Apostle Paul seeks to teach this lesson to the Romans.
It is apparent in Paul’s writing to the later church community that they have been arguing over who is doing things the right way.
There are two kinds of people, those who confess with their lips and those who believe in their hearts.
We have these discussions in contemporary Christianity too. People who lean one way and people who lean the other.
We certainly have plenty of Christian people, who want to bring Jesus up or down, so that they can know for sure if you’re going to heaven or hell.
But, as Paul intimates here and then expands in Galations 3, Jesus’ work is to destroy dichotomies like Jew and Greek, Confess and Believe, Man and Woman,
Things where we would usually say, “there are only two kinds of people in this world…”
And Jesus brings them into unity,
I was reminded by the men gathered in our basement to learn about hunting and the families gathered in our parking lot to celebrate the beginning of a new school year, there isn’t just manhood on this side with guns, and flags, and religion on this side,
And meekness, Marxism, and being woke on the other.
Manhood is important, especially for these young black men coming up and it falls to us, if we are given the opportunity to model and teach a healthy manhood, a healthy fatherhood, a healthy taking up of responsibility.
In the end, Jesus calls us to notice that there is one kind of person in this world, people who are loved by their Lord and Savior;
People whom Jesus wants to save from the callousness of human hatreds and divisions,
People for whom our Redeemer was willing to be handed over, so that he could atone for us and make us justified,
People for whom He still offers His Body and His Blood, His Blessed Assurance.
But people have to know.
They have to know that there are more than two options; more than two kinds of people.
We have to believe that we are one people
What I remembered a few months ago and was reminded of yesterday with the young men learning how to properly hunt with firearms and with all of our neighbors coming to our parking lot again,
Is that there are so many more than two kinds of people, and there is also - at the very same time – one single kind of people.
People that God wants to know and be known by; to love and be loved by; to receive prayers from and to answer prayers for.
But, how can they believe, if they have never heard?
How can people feel the Good News unless it is proclaimed;
Unless we are sent with the beautiful feet of messengers?
You don’t have to be a warrior man to be loved by God, you don’t have to dip your cereal all the way before you eat it.
It may be daunting, but…
Get out there and be a voice for Jesus’ unifying vision for humanity, listen for those times when people try to make the world us vs. them, or a dichotomy of two kinds of people,
And proclaim the vision of unity within our diversity of appearance and opinion;
Get out the boat, even you of little faith, because there’s only one type of person in this world; those who live, and move, and have their being because our God is a loving, righteous God.
Amen.
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