It’s great to be in the midst of summer, the warm weather and the long days.  Things are different in the summer.  Schedules change.  We walk slower and notice more.  The air often smells sweeter with the fragrance of flowers.  The sounds are happier too.  Children are laughing.  And we adults often reminisce about our younger days.  I remember long summer days playing at a local park with the other kids from the neighborhoods.  We played until dusk, when the sun was setting and the air would cool off, and we’d feel like running. 

One of our games was called Red Rover. Do you know the game?  I used to play it and I think kids still play this game.  For those of you who may not know the game, it’s played with two teams of at least 3 (more is better, and makes for a longer game).  “Red rover, red rover,” went the sing-song invitation from one team to the other, “send Judy right over.”  I always had mixed feelings making the Red Rover trip, because you see the point was to run as fast and as hard as you could (I was neither fast nor strong).  You would run right into the line of kids whose hands were joined.  If you broke through the hands, you could return to your home team; if not, you then became a member of the other team.  At the time, I worried that I wouldn’t break through; after all it was a test of strength and speed and wisdom (the wisdom: pick the weakest set of hands).  If I didn’t break through, well that would mean I failed, wouldn’t it.  But more often than not, becoming a member of the other team was better than I expected.  A camaraderie began, a kind of community of like-minded people working toward the same goal – the goal of capturing all the remaining players from the other side.  So when you were called: “red rover, red rover, send Judy right over,” – you responded: you ran fast; ran hard; and adapted to the outcome.

Where in your life is God calling you to cross over? . . .

God has called me to cross to the other side many times.  Sometimes I listen and cross over; but I confess there are times when I want to run as hard and as fast as I can so that the cross over is as quick and painless as possible: so like in Red Rover, I cross over and break through quickly to return safely home.  But in my haste, I wonder what I may have lost . . .

This past year, I worked at a church in Newburyport (as my field ed site).  I knew what I wanted to do there, but God seemed to be calling me to cross over into the mission field of  youth ministry.  Now I’m a mother of three (2 teenage daughters, and a son whose almost 10).  I know about mothering children, I’ve even had experience teaching children, but ministering to kids turned out to be a vastly different matter.  I thought I knew about adolescents. I knew from my kids and their friends, I knew from my own experience as a teenager . . . and yet, I still had much to learn.  You see, I assumed that teenagers are NOT interested in God (an opinion that I bet a lot of us adults share). 

So I crossed over into youth ministry with my faulty assumptions and I was caught.  And I learned.  I learned that my assumptions had a negative consequence: assuming that teenagers were disinterested in the things of God tended to scatter the youth.  “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the Lord according to the prophet Jeremiah.  Woe to me if I minister to youth believing that they don’t care about God.  Our youth do care about God!  The young people I worked with wondered where and how God fit into their lives.  These kids didn’t always know how to articulate their questions, but I learned I was wrong to assume that they didn’t want to hear about God from me.  I learned that I needed to live God’s love to these kids.  I learned all this by responding to God’s call to cross over and allowing myself to be captured by these strangers who are the youth; so I lingered among these teenagers.  And I was changed. 

Upon reflection, it became  so clear to me that if I were really a disciple of Christ, if I meant to follow Jesus whom I claim as my savior, if I were to confess myself as Christian, I would have to spend much more time crossing over to the other side.

 Where in your life is God calling you to cross over? . . .

Reading through the Gospel of Mark, it’s evident that Jesus spent a lot of time in a boat crossing over to the other side.  The “other side” refers to different geographic territories of different ethnic people who were enemies: Mark intends to portray Jesus living among both Jews and Gentiles.  In his life’s work, Jesus ministered to both Jews and to Gentiles; and within each of those ethnic communities, Jesus was with the stranger, the sick, the outcast, with those who were socially invisible.  “And all who touched his cloak were healed . . .”– those who came to him were restored to live again in community.  Jesus was healing the breach.  He was bringing people into relationship: across ethnic, geographic, social, and religious borders.  Jesus was building the bridge between peoples, between those who were near and those far off, between those who were in and those who were out.  As followers of Christ, we are to cross over that bridge, again and again whenever we’re called.  Each time we cross over to the “other side,” we bring healing to those we touch and to ourselves.

Where in your life is God calling you to cross over? . . .

Again I heard God’s call to me to cross over.  This time it was to attend a learning and serving trip for the high schoolers of my home church in Topsfield.  When I was asked to be a mentor for this mission trip, I knew I must go: (in my mind I heard: “Red rover, red rover, send Judy right over”).  So a few weeks ago, I traveled with 23 teenagers and 10 adults to Philadelphia.  My mission trip began by crossing over into the world of teenagers.  But this time I remembered that these young people are seekers after God, like all of us.  I was also aware that  these teenagers are more  at risk of being scattered.  So I dropped my assumptions about them, listened and watched, and tried to live my faith, remembering that God assures us that the Divine hand will gather up those who are scattered: Jeremiah says that God will gather the lost and they shall not fear nor be dismayed and they will no longer be missing.  God will be with us, I reminded myself; and we knew God was there, even if we didn’t say this out loud. 

Our mission group from Topsfield crossed over to the other side in Philadelphia.  We went to work among the strangers, the city dwellers who lived in devastating poverty and crumbling neighborhoods, full of drugs, with an appearance of hopelessness; places that seem forgotten by those who built and work in the gleaming buildings downtown.  The people we encountered were battling poverty, some were homeless, some fighting addiction, and some just struggling to read.  We crossed over to the unknown, to places others had described to us as “dangerous.” But each day we left the relative safety of our home base at a local church, and we crossed over to the other side aboard public transit buses.  We entered the so-called dangerous neighborhoods, and we were welcomed (did they recognize us as disciples of Christ?). 

More often than not, we were warmly received by those we worked with in the urban gardens, in the children’s daycamp, at the homeless shelter, and at the drug rehab house.  We saw the human face of God’s scattered sheep; and we also saw the shepherds among them whom God has called to gather them so they will no longer be missing.  People like Sister Margaret who embodies the love of God; like Ellen who has the energy of the Divine Spirit; and like Maylon who powerfully speaks the Word. 

We crossed over to the other side of Philadelphia (away from the tourist destinations).  We thought we knew where we were going, but we didn’t.  Some of us were anxious to get over there and quickly return – running fast and hard to break through the barrier without being forced to change, so we could return home as soon as possible.  But God was with us in a powerful way, and we were changed.  We were caught in the Divine Hands, just like Red Rover; as we became a part of the other side, we got to know those people.  And to the surprise of many, we discovered that we were more similar than we had imagined.  We developed a camaraderie, a kind of community in which we ate together, we listened to each other’s stories, we laughed, we read with children, we played, and for a blessed moment, we became friends.  And I saw God among us.

Where in your life is God calling you to cross over? . . .  

Where is the lost one who needs your hand?  Is there a broken relationship that needs healing?  Can you see the hopeless one that needs your encouragement?  Who is afraid and needs help?  Where are you being called? Are you being called across the street, across the room, or across the world?  What is it that God is asking of you? Stop, and listen . . . Can you hear your name being called: “Red rover, red rover, send [who? ] right over . . .”

But too often we hesitate . . . or worse, we disregard the call like a wrong number – because crossing over to the other side is risky and usually fills us with anxiety.

Don’t despair. For we have the antidote for fear and anxiety:

Christ is our peace.  Through the reconciling work of Christ, we who were scattered and divided by hostility and fear and hate have been united into one body – a new humanity.  Christ has broken down the dividing walls and proclaimed peace.  Even those of us who are far off, without hope in God, are invited to experience the peace of Christ.  We experience the  peace of Christ by crossing over to the other side.  It is in this act, the act of crossing over the bridge that was built by Jesus that we become one people. 

On the streets of Philadelphia, we became one.  We were no longer strangers but we were members of the household of God, held together by Jesus Christ; and together we became the spiritual dwelling place for God. 

 

May God give you the courage to answer your call to cross over to the other side to heal the breach.  May we continue to cross over, again and again, back and forth across the bridge built and maintained by Jesus the Christ.

 

AMEN