“skin deep”
|
A sermon preached Readings:
Romans
12:3-13, Mark 8:27-38 |
Rom 12:10
“Love one another as sisters and brothers should,
and have profound respect for each other”
·
Well, the man on the
top of the crane at the end of Magdalen Street
has come down and ended his protest
on behalf of fathers denied access to their children,
to be replaced by protesters on the Tamar Bridge.
·
Meanwhile Rev
Merfyn Temple has returned to England
following his protest to Robert Mugabe and imprisonment in Zimbabwe.
·
And violent and peaceful protestors each have their say
at the Cancun WTO meeting.
Each
incident has raised a deal of debate –
·
people stuck on the Tamar Bridge
saying that they were sympathetic to the protesters’ cause
until the got held up on the bridge –
but as a result have turned against them.
·
Did the violent demos at Cancun
undermine the moral authority of the peaceful ones?
·
And then Methodist leaders divided on Merfyn
Temple’s
confrontation with Robert Mugabe –
did it make a point or did it do more harm than good
for the work in Zimbabwe of people like our friend Graham Shaw?
‘Twas always thus.
And I suspect that when Jesus overturned the Moneychangers’ tables,
there was plenty of comment on his tactics
and whether or not they furthered his cause…
Then
as now, there will always be a debate about how to protest most effectively –
always a debate between political sensitivity and prophetic forcefulness.
Those
debates will always go on,
and we need to study each case on its merits –
what we must be always clear about is this –
it is not a matter of whether we protest about injustice –
it is simply a matter of how we do it.
The Methodist Membership Card commits us to
“challenge injustice”
As I remember it, the original wording was to “question injustice”
but the Methodist Conference changed the wording to “challenge” –
nothing less will do.
Now it is sometimes said that you don’t buy hair restorer from a bald man.
Or,
to put it another way,
if we as Christians are speaking about justice and equality and love for all
people,
we need to begin by demonstrating in our own lives
what we are calling upon others to do.
And
on Racial Justice
Sunday,
it is no good us protesting to the world about injustice and hatred
unless we practice love and justice in our own lives.
In Romans
12:10 Paul is talking about the Church community
and how it should be like a family - –
“Love
one another as sisters and brothers should,
and have profound respect for each other”.
The
word translated with the phrase
“Love one another as sisters and brothers should” is actually one word in the
Greek –
”Philadelphia”, meaning “in brotherly love” –
it’s a word nearly always used of the human biological family –
but here Paul uses it of the Church –
as Christians we are to be family,
treating each other with the warmth and the trust and the loyalty
and the love we’d show a favourite kid brother.
Sadly
the Christian Church over the ages
has all too often been party to what is now called institutional racism.
I was reading only the other day about white
European missionaries
going out to India in the 19th century.
They very properly insisted that converts to Christianity rejected the caste
system.
And yet many of these same missionaries would have been appalled
at the thought that white European and native Indian Christians
should sit together at the same table.
We
all need to make sure that our righteous indignation about others
does not blind us to our own prejudices.
Paul
calls us as a Church to be a family regardless of race or colour or
background.
We
have a particular opportunity to live out that message in the Mint at this time
as new members are joining us from all over the globe -
Then
we can say to the world –
See how our community is –
that is how our national and international family should be.
Did
you see the Last night of the Proms last night?
You only have to listen to Land of Hope and Glory
and Jerusalem & God Save the Queen
and see the Union jacks waving
to realize what a thin emotional line there is between
·
on the one hand true Patriotism
(the love of your people
offered up to be used as part of God’s overall purpose)
·
and on the other hand debased nationalism
(the glorification of my own people
over and against the well being of others).
As
Christians we are called to be brothers and sisters to all –
not just those wrapped in the Union jack. -
& that can sometimes be painful and difficult.
Our Gospel reading tonight is the set passage for
today.
You recall how Jesus says
“If any would become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me”
(Mk 8:34) –
Following
Jesus isn’t ultimately just about carrying a protest banner
(though it often includes that) – it is about carrying a cross.
During the 2nd World War, the Nazis
landed on the Greek Island of Zakynthos.
There were nearly 300 Jews on the island,
and the military authorities demanded a list of all Jews
so that they could be rounded up and deported to the camps in Poland.
Greek Orthodox Bishop Chrysostomos negotiated in vain
with the Nazi authorities
who insisted on a list.
In the end Bishop Chrysostomos handed over a list
in sealed envelope to the Nazi Commander.
Opening the envelope he read the list –
it contained but one name, that of Chrysostomos
himself.
In the end the Jews of Zakynthos
never were deported –
due largely to the witness of a saintly man
who knew that standing along side his brothers and sisters
of another race meant identifying with them, risking their fate.
As
Paul says, we must “love one another as sisters and brothers” –
and loving your brother isn’t just a sentimental thing –
it means standing in his shoes,
sharing his pain and his heartache –
putting your name alongside his on the list.
I remember reading an address from a victim of
sexual abuse
talking about the pain of her experience,
and about the need to minister to those who had suffered.
Describing how it hurt to get alongside those who
were hurting,
she said –
“Ministry occurs when the skin of the soul is rubbed
raw”
[Mary Pallauer
quoted by Margaret Kennedy in “Silence in Heaven” ed
Walton and Durber, SCM 1994, p.13]
Black
white brown or yellow skin, our differences are but skin deep.
If we
are comfortable and affluent white westerners
protected by Cancun politics
it can be tempting to stick with our own.
But
Christ is the one who shared with the poor and the marginalized.
Maybe
we need to allow our skin to be rubbed raw
until our common suffering has made our skin-deep differences
as nothing and we are at one as sisters and brothers.
We
weep for Israel and Palestine this week –
and it is difficult to cling on to hope in that place.
But here is a small story of hope.
Yoni Jesner was
a Jewish student killed in a suicide bombing.
His parents donated his kidney to a seven year old Palestinian girl named Yasmin.
Yasmin’s mother thanked the Jewish family.
She said "There is no difference between us, between Arab and Jew.
God willing, there will be peace between us."
Skin
deep differences.
Get under the skin and we are one –
“God
willing there will be peace” -
Let’s not blame God for our troubles –
he is willing – it is the so called human family which is unwilling.
Let
us as brothers and sisters live out a life of love and justice.
Let us protest and plead and suffer until that love and justice
is echoed not only throughout the Church but across the whole family of
humanity. -
So that beneath our skin-deep differences
we may find the one loving heart of God which unites us all in his eternal
love.