Fifty Shades of Rainbow

Some days I feel like there are two kinds of people, those who see the world in black and white, and those who don’t.  Some might see the world as divided into 50 shades of grey, but what if it’s more 50 shades of rainbow?  When a bus crashes in Ontario, when people preach hatred of immigrants from positions of power, it’s easy to reduce the world to black and white.  But that ignores the brilliant variations in color and tone that make up this big beautiful world of ours.  The kindness of strangers at the ATM machine on a chilly January morning, the choir that sings for the folks at Extendicare, the time when we go to pay for our coffee at the Tim Horton’s to find that someone has already footed the bill.  The glorious blue sky, the clear sharp sparkle of stars in a night sky, the glimpse of the aurora borealis are reminders that our world is much more than black and white.

John the Baptist saw things in stark terms, those who were hypocrites and those who were humbly repentant.  Most mentions of him in the Gospels has him shaking his fist at someone who doesn’t meet John’s standards.  They don’t measure up, especially those judgemental pharisees.  They get blasted and scolded by both John and Jesus and can’t seem to get the holiness thing right.

But lest we think that pharisees are a thing of the past, a recent poll did a survey of Christians in the United States and discovered something odd.  They asked questions like “I find it hard to be friends with people who consistently do the wrong thing, or it’s not my responsibility to help people who won’t help themselves, or If only people followed the rules, they would have a better life, or I prefer to serve people who attend my church rather than people outside my church, and I tell others the most important thing in my life is following rules.”  51% of Christians agreed with these statements.  The researchers based the questions on what Jesus and John said pharisees believed in.  Statements that were based on what Jesus did, eat with sinners, party with prostitutes and so on, didn’t go down so well.  That means that 51% of Christians are more like the Pharisees than we might like to think.  That’s pretty stark.  And the number one reason, that people give for avoiding church? They are afraid, survey says, of people judging them.  If most unchurched people are afraid of being judged and most church goers are likely to judge others, we have a serious communication problem!

Jesus had a different view of humanity than John did.  He didn’t see the world as either Pharisee hypocrites or saintly followers.  He saw them all as flawed human beings.  He could have looked down on all the folks he saw as inferior or lazy or silly or what have you.  Instead, his gaze was one of compassion that saw what fearful lives they lived.  But just like the words from Isaiah, Jesus wanted to help everyone raise above that fear.  Do not fear for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you!

God loves us just as we are even though we are fearful and anything but perfect, even when we are most like the Pharisees.  We may try to impress God with how well we follow the rules, but God sees us with different ways of knowing.  We may build up false images of ourselves or be stylish or busy with too many things, but in the end it’s not what we do or how we think that impresses God.  We really can’t earn God’s love.  God loves us just as we are.

How do we know that?  Actions speak louder than words.  Jesus didn’t have to get baptised.  He could have started his teaching and healing on dry land, which would have been the sensible and appropriate thing to do and would have impressed the Pharisees.  He could have stayed in the Temple, debating with scholars and pouring over scriptures.  In fact he could have joined the Pharisees.

But no, Jesus saw the folks in the muddy, dirty Jordan river, who were hurting or afraid or broken or guilty or tired or any number of 50 grey shades of reactions to the challenges of being alive.  When he saw all those folks hoping and praying and dreaming of a fresh start, a new beginning, a freedom and a healing, a rainbow of possibilities, well, Jesus went down to that muddy cold river and got right in just like the others.  He was there with them in all their hopes and fears.  He humbled himself in the mud and damp to be with the people.  And when he got down into the waters, Luke wrote, the skies opened up and the world changed.  No longer did people have to hide their bits of shame and fear, but they could experience that through Jesus the word made flesh, God went into the muddy waters with them.  God still reaches down to be with us in all our messy muddy lives.  That’s what we testify to here, it’s what we hope and pray, the ultimate scandal of Christianity, we are not alone, we live in God’s rainbow world, in life, in death in life beyond death, God is with us, thanks be to God.  Amen.