“Mixed Multitude” Exodus 12:33-42 and Acts 2:5-11, 41-42

I love our “We Cry Justice” reading today (#25 by Daniel Jones) and the hot take on “mixed multitudes.” I loved the MLK quote it started with too, including, Pharaoh ‘”kept the slaves fighting among themselves.” This “trick” of having most of the resources in a society “float” to the top while leaving the multitudes fighting for the crumbs is well known, and unfortunately still well used. Take a look at governmental budgets and then the people advocating for various just causes – who accidentally end up fighting each other to prove the imperative nature of their own concern AT THE cost of the others. (Fixable, it turns out, by fixing the regressive tax code so it doesn’t magnify inequality.)

Mr. Jones points out that Ancient Egypt was “an empire based on violence and injustice that sacrificed lives to the accumulation of wealth and its paranoia, viewed the murder of children as a fair price for keeping control.”1 I can’t decide if I should respond “OUCH” or “PREACH” to that one. He goes on to say that the mixed multitude – the Israelites and those who suffered along with them in the empire – built a new society based on God’s laws. “This higher law proclaims the accumulation of individual wealth to be immoral and demands freedom for enslaved people, forgiveness of debts, care for the environment, and the responsibility of everyone to their neighbors.” And THAT’s why we call it the Promised Land.

The holiness of this mixed multitude, seeking shared goodness for each other instead of competing with each other and creating community out of shared need is found in Acts 2 as well. We normally only focus on Acts 2 on Pentecost, but it is another example that when God’s Spirit is at work, people are bonded together across boundaries that might otherwise seem too impossible to cross.

God seems particularly committed to mixed multitudes.

Now this is funny thing to say right now I think. This week I’ve watched the incredible power of God’s spirit move in the intractable-until-now United Methodist Church and all of a sudden there is hope abundant! And, truthfully, that hope abundant comes BECAUSE of disaffiliation, it comes because we split. It comes because we BROKE bonds.

Part of me – ok, a really large part of me – wants to simply say that those who left identified with the oppressor and oppressed God’s beloveds and we are better off without them. But God has said to love our enemies, and I’m pretty sure being that petty isn’t appropriate for a preacher… while preaching at least 😉

We who value the wide diversity of God’s creation may find it easy to hear about the mixed multitudes and the amazing ways God’s work to overturn oppression pulls people together. But I also know that we who value the wide diversity of God’s creation sometimes find it really hard to deal with those who… don’t.

Right?

It’s OK, I know I’m right.

It turns out to be easier to be in a mixed multitude where people agree mixed multitudes are awesome than it is to be in a mixed multitude where there is a diversity of opinions about the value of diversity.

Or, maybe there is a bigger truth here. God’s amazing work to overcome oppression and pull people together is REAL. But it is hard to live in community – there are ALWAYS differences. I think often of the story a little later in Acts when the incredibly diverse Body of Christ in its infancy already had issues with food distribution being fairly managed. Humans come into community with differences. There is no community without conflict. There is no community without bias. There is no community in prefect agreement – except maybe those who all defer to a strong-man leader.

The truth is that God binds us together. And, I think sometimes we get to the point when the best choice is to let some bonds go. Because not everything is now as it should be. We know this about marriage itself – there are times when two people have hurt each other enough that the best, most loving way forward, is apart. This week showed very clearly that all the dreams I’ve ever heard God dreaming for The United Methodist Church are possible – now that we’re broken. And, to be fair, I hear from those in the Global Methodist Church that they think all the dreams they ever heard God dreaming are now possible there. The issue has ALWAYS been that we hear God differently.

So I’ve been thinking about what the moral, Christ-like response is to those with whom we have fundamental-values-level-differences. And I hear the echos of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” and I think that’s the actual start of it. I hear it in Martin Luther King teaching about the goal of his work being to bring everyone together, not to bring down the oppressor. Let’s hear him:

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. “love your enemies.”2

So, dear ones, I’m going to keep on loving the Global Methodist Church, because I deeply believe God asks me to. Further, I believe there are people in that church who need it, and others who will need it. And, apparently, we are supposed to love Christian Nationalists too – even when they misrepresent our tradition. (Pulling no punches today.)

I guess no one every said being a follower of Jesus was easy, huh? But, friends, it is the season of Easter and we are told over and over again that God is Love and Love wins and NOTHING, not even death, can stop God’s power of love. So, dear mixed multitude, let’s keep on loving on EVERYONE even when they don’t seem to know how broad God’s love is yet. Let’s be accused of being naive with our love. Let’s be radical, and a little too broad with it. Let’s be like God. Amen

1We Cry Justice #25, page 110.

2https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church