Together

 Friends, there’s an old, famous, joke you may have heard before about a small town with several churches all on the same block who were all struggling with a squirrel infestation. Each neighborhood church, from their own cultural and theological lens, came up with a different solution.

The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will.

At the Baptist church, the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.

The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later, the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.

The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They sadly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.

But the Catholic church came up with a more creative strategy! They baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

In a similar vein, the United Methodists invited the squirrels to come serve on various church committees! The squirrels ran for the hills.

Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.

There’s no shortage of jokes that make a similar point, the squirrel one was just my favorite for the day. The point is this: despite all claiming love and devotion to the same God, people of faith, and particularly Christians, are much better at sewing division than we’ve ever been at bringing people together. Sometimes, the divisions are helpful: we can come up with lots of different ways to get rid of squirrels. But, 99% of the time, dividing the way we love to do–conservative vs liberal, traditional vs contemporary, old vs young, urban vs rural, hymns vs worship songs, wine vs grape juice, Calvinist vs Wesleyan vs Lutheran vs Anglican vs non denominational–only begets pain and isolation. 

We make a lot of problems in our divisions that division can’t solve. We splinter off in a thousand different directions, throw shade at every path that isn’t ours, and then have no one around to help when we’re in trouble because everyone is somewhere else. But, gosh darn it, are we sure that we have it all right and everyone else must be wrong! There’s a cartoon floating around out there with a man holding a flow chart of the origins of all the different branches of Christianity, then pointing to one tiny line in the corner and saying “see right there? That little line is where our denomination formed in 1968 and finally solved all the world’s problems!”

Joseph’s family has engaged in the most extreme form of this kind of divisiveness, the form where you don’t appreciate your little brother’s prophetic dreaming, and retaliate by selling him into slavery. The eleven older brothers, and one older sister, will never see their baby bro again, but hey, no more bickering over their religion at the breakfast table! The cost of division is rarely worth it.

The Ishmaelite slaver caravan that Joseph’s brothers sold him to was on its way to Egypt, where they put Joseph up for sale. Joseph was bought by Potipher, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. Despite horrifying circumstances, this puts Joseph on the Pharaoh’s radar, which stays important for the whole rest of this story. Joseph is a good, likeable person, and a hard worker, and he starts to earn Potipher’s esteem and trust the same way he did at home. But, the Bible tells us that, in addition to his easy manner and affable personality, Joseph was also very easy on the eyes. Mrs. Potipher starts to spend hours of her day at home watching the Brad Pitt of ancient Egypt water her plants, and suddenly she takes on a whole new passion for gardening. She’s hardly subtle about it, and she starts making daily advances on Joseph. He keeps turning her down, intent on staying out of trouble, but one day Mrs. Potipher snaps, attacks Joseph, and stages it to make it look like he came on to her. Joseph goes to jail.

And again, despite terrible circumstances, Joseph still manages to thrive. All of Joseph’s cell mates are people who offended Pharoah, including Pharaoh’s cup-bearer and his chief baker. While they’re in jail, they start having bad dreams, and, since Joseph is so passionate about the prophecy of dreams, he asks to hear about them, and he interprets them. Joseph sits in jail for two more years, but eventually that cup-bearer remembers Joseph’s talent for dream interpretation, and brings him to Pharaoh, because Pharaoh has started having nightmares. Joseph puts all the dreams together, and predicts, accurately, that a famine is coming, and that the farmers need to store up lots of extra grain now so that no one will go hungry when the crops dry up.

Joseph’s graciousness in sharing his gift, even with the people who held him as a prisoner, saves all of Egypt, and leads to him being Pharaoh’s right hand man. Eventually the famine that Joseph predicted reaches his family–his dad, mom, stepmoms, sister, and brothers, and his brothers come to Egypt seeking help from the only people who have a surplus of grain–all because of Joseph. It takes Joseph some back and forth, and a reunion with his favorite brother, Benjamin, to get there, but he decides to show mercy instead of holding a grudge. He puts the well-being of all ahead of his pain, and ahead of all the divisions–divisions of time, sibling rivalry, country, class, politics, and faith–and brings his family back together. Because divided, we fend for ourselves. Divided, there isn’t enough. Divided, we go hungry. But together, we eat. Together, we’re saved.

In this brief exchange in Matthew, we see Jesus come to the same kind of conclusion, and loudly struggle with it in front of his disciples, so that they can grow in the moment. A woman from the wrong side of the tracks–a Samaritan–asks for help. At first, Jesus feigns allegiance to division “no, no, I can’t talk to you because WE DON’T LIKE EACH OTHER. Right, everyone? Us Jewish dudes gotta stick together and leave everyone else out, right?” Jesus even goes so far as to imply this woman is a dog. Jesus gets nasty about it, but he does it to push this woman to proclaim her worth–she flips the script, and says that, even if she’s a dog under the good table, she should still sit at everyone’s feet and eat scraps. Division becomes unity. Separation becomes togetherness. Divided, we suffer. Divided, we stay sick. Together, we heal. Together, we grow. Gripping onto our differences with white knuckles ensures destruction. But letting go, even when that means letting go of long-held prejudices and cultural differences, creates hope. Because we find hope when we’re together.

I’m not saying at all that any of that togetherness is easy. We’ve been playing with bringing these three neighborhood churches together for the last 6 weeks, and we’ve discovered all kinds of gaps and problems. Coming together is really hard. And we were all neighbors in the first place. Imagine if we tried to collaborate with folks from other denominations? Other towns? Totally different worship styles? Different interpretations of the Bible? Imagine how chaotic and confusing it would be…before we grew? Together?

I don’t know what the big picture holds, God only tends to show me one pixel at a time. But what I do know is that, whatever problems we face, whether they’re squirrels or a bread shortage or a cultural clash or something even deeper–we’re better, stronger, and closer to Jesus, together.

Amen.