Tribes

I've been thinking about this sermon from a few weeks ago and decided that it was time to post about it...better late than never. The sermon, entitled "The Mosaic" can be found here in our church's message archives. It's a great sermon and covers many areas, but in particular a few bits spoke into my life and have caused me to pause and take stock in different ways.

This particular sermon was also timely because election time is drawing near, and with it the campaign ads and the debates and slander and the radio talk show hosts who make me want to near pull my hair out. And I could go on and on about how people aren't giving Obama any credit and how livid that makes me and how I'm so sick of the Tea Party that I could toss them along with Sarah Palin and her Fox News into the Boston Harbor myself...and, oops, I digress. So, anyway.

I am challenged by this sermon on tribalism. Because, truth be told, I like being with people who I feel like are part of my "tribe." I like being with people like myself - alot. I like sitting around and talking with people who agree with me on politics, and religion, and the "right" way to raise children, and so on and so forth. I like being with people like myself because it makes me feel justified in what I believe and the way I live my life, and because it makes me feel good about myself. Being with people who agree with me makes me think "yes, I have it together." It makes me feel safe and comfy and generally wise. And aren't those all nice ways to feel?

But really, I know better. It's nice to dream about how perfect the world would be if everyone saw things from my perspective, from the "right" perspective. But deep, deep down I know that this world would be a pretty horrible place if we all approached life from one angle, and if we didn't have different theories and ideas and perspectives - as it is these that challenge us all to rethink our auto-pilot beliefs and patterns from time to time; and in turn, possibly to even learn something from a different perspective.

This sermon reminded me that I don't need to feel like I have to subscribe to what others believe, and I don't even have to respect what they believe (I probably should, but I'm just being realistic here about my abilities), but I do need to respect them as individuals and human beings - respect their right to believe things that are different from what I believe, as challenging and even infuriating as that may be at times. It reminded me that I sit next to people in church who vote absolutely opposite from me on every issue, who interpret the Bible differently than I do, and who are raising their kids differently than I do. And at the end of the day, that's what makes the whole experience richer. That is what makes me a better person - a person who keeps learning and searching and thinking - much more so than hanging out with clones of myself all of the time. It is amazingly hard to grasp sometimes how things that are not easier are all the more richer. And I'm still learning how to live it all out...enter Grace (another topic for another day...).