Jerzy Kosinski’s novel The Painted Bird tells a nightmarish story of a young boy abandoned by his parents during WWII. It tells the story of the cruelty and brutality experienced by the boy as he moves from one village to another in Eastern Europe.

During his journey, the young boy stayed with a man who was a trapper and seller of birds. The trapper was well-respected in the community for his love and knowledge of birds, but he had a dark side too. He would choose a bird and paint it with many brilliant colors. He and the young boy would then go out to the forest and when the sound of the painted bird’s chirping would bring others of the same species, the bird would be let go to fly with the flock.

The painted bird would try eagerly to establish community with the other birds. The other birds, seeing the bright colors, would be confused and seemingly dazzled, but before long they would attack the painted bird until it would fall to the ground, dead or near death. Attacked by those who were its sisters or brothers; its community.

The painted bird is a parable for the story of the young boy. Dark-skinned and different looking, he was a stranger to the peasants of that region whose fear, suspicion, and hostility were awakened. The parable of the painted bird is a parable for all of us. Often in human society, those who are different, who are strangers, who threaten us, are avoided or driven off and even destroyed.[1]

Our love is often conditional. We like those who look like us. Who are from the same area. Who are familiar to us and nonthreatening. Scholar Miroslav Volf is Croatian. He starts his book Exclusion and Embrace with the story of another scholar asking him, “Can you embrace a Serbian?”

This was the winter of 1993. Serbian fighters were sowing desolation in Croatia; herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches, and destroying cities. Volf just spoke about how we should love and embrace the enemy as Christ did. It took him awhile to answer, but Volf immediately knew what he was going to say. “No, I cannot. But as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”[2]

Many of us aren’t faced with such drastic circumstances. We have no war here, yet our political parties cannot embrace one another. Neighbors aren’t speaking. There’s turmoil and conflict. Some worse than others, but it’s there. It’s in our life somewhere. People we don’t associate with.

As your pastor, I try to live as close to Christ and model that yet I want to be honest where I fail. I have made mention of a few homes here in Medina that fly the Confederate flag. I get so mad when I drive past. I struggle. I don’t think I could embrace them, but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.

My love is conditional. Your love is conditional. The parable of the painted bird is true for most of us in this room. Otherness is suspect. It’s a biological response. It’s the profoundly human view that “otherness is evil.” Yet Jesus comes with a different message.

Jesus often confounded those for whom acceptance was conditional–when it required making sure specific laws were being followed. This litmus test for love leaves little room for grace. Jesus chose time and again to seek out the intention of someone’s heart–to gather together and engage in conversation as a way of moving toward right relationship.

It reads, “For God so loved the world…” Not God so loved Christians. Or the Church. Or White American Males who are over 6’ and live off Reagan Parkway. For God so loved the world that he sent his only son. This means that at the core of Christian faith is that the fact that “others” is a category that doesn’t exist. God’s love shows no partiality. Jesus came for the whole world. Paul writes today, “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law… Love is the fulfilling of the law.”

This means that we don’t need to wait to perceive others as innocent in order to show love, but others ought to be embraced even when they are perceived as wrongdoers. Christ embraced all around the table and on the cross, died to embrace all. “Since all have sinned,” argued Paul in Romans 3:23-24, “they are now justified by God’s grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.”

God’s love is unconditional. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing you can believe. Nothing required from you at all. God took care of it. God’s got it. When we fully believe in the promise of God; the grace of God shown in Jesus Christ and try to put it into our heart… when we try to love as God loves, see one another as God sees everyone… Even you. Even me. With all our petty thoughts and judgments and ding-a-ling rivalries. It’s like a poem by Hafiz.

Even after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.”

Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky.[3]

It’s okay to doubt. It’s okay to look at those who claim to follow Christ and build a whole religion of requirements out of it and wonder. It’s okay. It’s hard to believe in such a love like that when all of our love seems to be conditional. It’s okay to doubt and wonder and question if you believe and if you ever get too down about all of this… Come here.

Just take a look around. “When two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus is here. Jesus is in stories that each of you have of love freely offered. Of someone paying for your coffee and other small acts of kindness. Christ is there. Christ is there in the stories of prayers sent up when a pet dies or illnesses both personal and in our families. Christ is there in casserole dishes and bread delivered to our doorsteps. In hugs offered. Christ is there in homes built in Costa Rica.

Christ is there in your life when you feel loved and when you show it. Gather with two other friends and ask them a story of when they most felt love and watch Christ show up. It works Every. Single. Time. No matter what.

We don’t share those stories because they are precious. They are our painted birds. Maybe others who were having a rough day would doubt and attack these painted bird stories. They don’t understand. Their world is too drab. The feathers of our stories too bright to be believed. Yet here is a safe place to tell those stories.

And I want to hear those stories! I want you to release your painted bird stories here and know that they won’t be attacked. So tell your stories at coffee hour! At our bible studies! Write them on our Facebook page and social media. Call the office. Any way you can lift up love and offer it to the world without condition…. Do it.

Surround yourself by people who offer their painted birds to you. And we’ll add our own. And soon we’ll have a whole flock and that flock with be present within our community and others will join! And they’ll join up and soon our community will be noticed by our state. And then we’ll go from Jerusalem, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth! Gather round this table… Christ’s table. Tell your story and maybe… Just maybe. You’ll start to see it in your home or when you go out to eat. How when two or three are gathered… any table, any time can become Christ’s table of love. Amen.

Works Cited

James M Childs Jr. Ethics in the Community of Promise, Asburg Fortress 2006, Page 61.

 Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace. Page 9

 Hafiz, translations by Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master. Page 34.