One of my favorite films from my college days is “The Crow.” It’s kinda dumb gothic horror/action adventure/comic book movie, what euphemistically referred to as a “popcorn movie,” not the sort of place one would go to find anything profound or sublime. But it is a very quotable movie; It’s got some great scripting and some great one-liners. And as I was discussing the Scripture texts for this Sunday on Wednesday with my pastoral colleagues, one of those lines came into my mind. During the final battle between the hero and the villain, the villain turns to our hero and tells “Every man’s got a devil.”

The reason why that quote came to my mind will become clear shortly. Last Sunday we talked about how each one of us, baptized, called, and chosen as God’s children have been given a purpose, a task to do and also if we do that task, we bring this world one step closer to that vision of Isaiah where swords are beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. A vision where all the nations of the world, all peoples of the world, come to receive God’s guidance and instruction, and find therein peace both between and within themselves.

This week, our texts build on that idea and start to get into the nitty-gritty of what all that means. Paul, in particular, in writing to the church in Rome gets into one of the implications of that vision that maybe we hadn’t considered, namely what does it really mean to say that ALL nations and ALL peoples are to come together.

He writes to a mixed church, one made up of Diaspora Jews who had become Christian, but also of Italian Romans who heard the word and received Christ’s salvation. This reality is causing some tension between the two groups in the Roman church. The Jews didn’t think the Romans belonged there; They’re the uncircumcised, they’re the Gentiles, the others, those people. Paul is mediating between them, quoting Old Testament Scripture to point out that the Romans have as much right to Christ as Christ’s own people, the Jews. As I said last week in talking about the Jews as the chosen people, the ones who understand it and take it seriously know they are meant to be the light among the nations, to draw all the others to God. This is part of that, these Scripture quotes that Paul gives highlight this.

As we were studying and discussing this text on Wednesday, one of my fellow pastors raised the question, “Who are our Gentiles today?” Hence the Crow quote. “Every man has a devil.” If that’s true, then who is ours? Who is our devil? Who is the one that we believe doesn’t belong here?

Now anyone who’s heard me preach for any length of time probably knows where I’m going to take this. We are, as human creatures, creatures of prejudice and it may well be that our devils are people of another race, another culture, another sexual orientation, or any of those other large demographical or social divisions like the Jew/Gentile dynamic of old. That could be it. For all the times I talk about it, it isn’t any less true.

But most of us I don’t believe are all that bigoted; we are a long way from the white sheets and burning crosses crowd. For that I am thankful. If we harbor prejudices within ourselves, we have the sense enough to fight against them. We know better, we’ve been taught better. But what if that isn’t it. What if our “devil” isn’t some other race or group of people that is somehow different from us?

What if instead it’s someone just like us? What if it’s someone who actually has caused us harm? Someone who’s hurt us or hurt someone we care for? What if the person we think doesn’t belong here at the foot of God’s holy mountain is not someone who is black, or Muslim, or gay, or whatever the current devil of society might be? What if instead it’s our old bully from high school or that co-worker who stole our promotion or that thief that broke into our house or that spouse or significant other of one of our children that just doesn’t treat them right? What if it’s someone like that?

Our “devil” could be anybody, someone who’s done us wrong, who has sinned against us, done evil to us. And there are probably a lot of people out there in our lives like that. Some we’ve forgiven, hopefully most of them, but there are always those others, the ones we just can’t bring ourselves to forgive. What would we do if they walked in the door of this church right now?

I’ve given this a lot of thought, because I remember well that one of my “devils,” one of worst enemies in my life was Lutheran by religious tradition. What if he came here on vacation with his family? What would I do or say if he came here for worship?

In some ways, it seems such a silly thing; that even now after 17 years since I last saw him, the things he did still bother me and I still struggle to find the means to forgive. But I think that’s what Paul sets out to do with what he writes to the church in Rome and to us. Because while we may hate, and we may discriminate, and we may harbor our anger, justified or not, God loves and God forgives. And just as God called us to be his children, and just God sent his son into this world to save us by dying and rising, so too does he with them.

Our feelings about who they are and what they’ve done change nothing about how God feels about them. No, God’s not happy that they hurt us, but neither is he happy about the ways that we hurt others. You see, we may have our “devil,” but we may also be “devil” to someone else. And their anger at us likewise does not change God’s feelings, nor God’s plan for our lives.

You see, the simple truth of the matter is that we are all alike. While our appearance and behavior, beliefs and passions, are different, at our core we are all still human. We are all still sinners. People have sinned against us and we have sinned against them. And it is for that very reason that ALL of us need to be at the foot of that mountain.

And it was for that purpose that God sent Jesus Christ to us, to bring all of us devils together to one place where we could find redemption and forgiveness. Where we could be united not in our hatred and anger for one another, but by the love of our creator, a love so great that he became incarnate as one of us to die for us. Where we can find our hope that all the evils within us can be washed away in the blood of the one who comes to save. We all need to be at the foot of that mountain, looking up at a cross and seeing upon it the one who by his blood makes all of us no longer devils, but saints and children of God.

In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills.

All the nations, all people, shall stream to it. Amen.