Readings: Acts
8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Let us pray: May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight, O God, our rock and our sustainer.
Amen
It was a turbulent time in Jerusalem – this new sect causing
all kinds of disruption, making extraordinary claims about this man they called
Jesus the Christ, the Pentecost day that set the town in a uproar and changed
lives forever, the prison breakout that wasn’t, the establishment who responded
the only way they knew how – with accusation and threat and imprisonment, the
stoning of Stephen, the fanatical Saul dragging suspects from their homes, a
scattered community daring to continue to share the good news of Christ with
the world.
And so Philip, one of the seven along with Stephen
commissioned by the Apostles to look after the needy (our first deacons
perhaps), went to Samaria to proclaim the word.
And he baptised all those who believed including Simon the magician.
Peter and John, hearing of the response to the word in
Samaria too cam and, by prayer and the laying on of hands, opened the people to
the power of the Spirit.
This little passage in Acts, set in the midst of other
complex, detailed and dramatic events, is hugely significant.
By evangelising Samaria, Philip transgresses the boundaries
of race and religion, and Peter and John, by also coming to the ‘despised’
people, validate completely their belonging as full and equal members of the
Christian church by the receiving of the Spirit through those who are leaders.
“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is
no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer
male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[1]
In baptism, all people are created equal and are to be
treated equally. In the transforming
power of baptism by water and the spirit, we are to be one people across all
boundaries of ethnicity, culture and ideology.
The Christian church should be the most seamlessly integrated community
on earth? Yet we are not. We fight and bicker and find ways to diminish
and disregard those who we believe are second class citizens. Age, gender, socio-economic status, race,
belief are all used to make some less than others in the body of Christ.
Yet Ruth Duck, in her book ‘Finding Words for Worship’
suggests that the primary characteristic of the Holy Spirit is to forge unity
among the baptised and the not yet baptised in the midst of cultural, ethnic
and ideological difference and tension.
So it follows that our understanding of baptism is somewhat
flawed if we use it as a reason to divide or create inequality within the
body. I wonder if part of the problem is
that often we see baptism as a stand-alone event, a moment in time, rather than
as part of the ongoing journey of faith – a journey that is made in
relationship with the Holy Spirit and alongside repentance and
forgiveness. It makes it difficult for
us to continuously explore our relationship with each other if we think we
have, by an act of commitment, done all we need to do in our response to God’s
call. Baptism is to be a living
breathing commitment to the body of Christ, where all are one.
What are the implications for us here today? What are the ways that we maintain or create
inequality today?
To answer that maybe we need to look briefly to our past and
how we perpetuate some of these historical mistakes or, alternatively, how can
we change the way we divide and deprive?
On the Sojourners website, Jim Wallis in an excerpt from his
latest book ‘America’s Original Sin’ would suggest – and these are his
words: “…the political and economic
problems of race are ultimately rooted in a theological problem. The churches have too often ‘baptized us’
into our racial divisions, instead of understanding how our authentic baptism
above and beyond our racial identities.” He goes on to say “if white Christians
in America were ready to act more Christian than white when it comes to race,
black parents would be less fearful for their children”.
We look at the first encounters between Christian and the
tangata whenua here in Aotearoa – some came as brother and sister, God’s people
together, and others as conquerors and exploiters. John and other historians can tell us the
realities of the coming of Christianity to this country and the struggle of
those who recognised the oneness of the body against those who did not. The institutional church has taken a long
time to recognise and respect the approach of Maori to faith. As has much of the church throughout the
world as it shared the gospel message in the colonial era .
How did women get to be so excised from the church hierarchy,
and how did the power of life and death get into the hands of so few. How did we get to a point that we exclude
people because of their sexuality and dismiss people who do not think as we
do? Where has the oneness and equality
of the people of God gone we have to ask.
And, more importantly, what are we doing to perpetuate these
imbalances? This needs a lecture series
not a sermon – so here are just some of my thoughts.
Since you know I am probably going to talk about it anyway
let’s start with language.
I will not apologise for changing words that are blatantly
ignoring half of the human race.
A well known hymn written in the 1950’s ‘ With God as our
Father, brothers all are we…’ - I don’t
think so and easily changed to ‘and family all are we’.
And much more importantly hymns are still being written today
that use this language of exclusion – not good enough. Mind you we could say there are some places
where it lets women off the hook completely. A songwriter who is conscious of
gender inequalities in hymn writing speaks of an attempt to change the words of
one hymn that women are probably happy to be omitted from – ‘Through the eye of
sinful man thy glory may not see’ – but the trouble was it was changed to
‘through the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see’ – frying pan into the
fire really for that version says that disabilities result from someone’s
sin.
But we can’t fix every perceived slight for all people, and
we must acknowledge words were of their time and mostly meant for oneness when
they were written. It’s a minefield
really.
But it’s not just the hymns.
Every time we use the words in our liturgy we have to think of the
meaning and impact. When we pray do we
demand or intercede? When we confess do
we reduce ourselves to quivering piles of sin and when we praise do we use
words that separate us, distance us from a God who is both mystery and friend .
We had an example of how important this is recently. I may have said to some of you - before Christmas we had someone here who
hadn’t been to church for a long time, who said after the service that during
worship they waited in vain for the words and concepts and claims that always
got them bristling and angry and excluded.
Always before they had felt sidelined.
In consequence we had a deep and exciting discussion about faith and
God. We won’t always get it right for
all but we can try.
How about differing ideologies? Fine that we have them of course but how do
we view those who do not think as we do?
Within the church recently at least we don’t have a great track record
of respecting other’s viewpoints which differ from ours – in fact we often
attempt to impose our view on others.
And not just tolerate but engage – God comes to us in many guises and
asks us to continually reform our faith and our understandings. It is the views of others that help us do
this, is it not? Do you know the Bishop
of Wellington recently demonstrated that he understands Presbyterianism way
better than many within our denomination when he said in a Listener article
about his view on same sex marriage: ‘My
view is to help the Anglican Diocese of Wellington come to a point where we can
live together with our different views.
We need to find a way forward to live with diversity of opinion.’ He went
on to say that his personal view was less important that ensuring respect for
all opinion.
And so we ask as we contemplate those things that might
perpetuate inequality in the oneness of the body of Christ: does the homeless
person receive judgement before welcome, the unemployed censure before gift,
the immigrant required to show suitable thankfulness before acceptance?
Does the person of another culture have something to offer us
or is it a one way street? Will we adapt
our long held traditions to include the ways of others, or step outside our
comfort zone to welcome in the stranger?
Do we honour our children and our elders and have patience
with the newcomer and forbearance with the challenging who are part of our
family
People in churches
today experience a wide variety of faith experiences – we live a life of
unpredictable spiritual growth – let us
celebrate this, not deny it, as we continue to live out our baptism as the
lifelong experience of clothing ourselves with Christ and becoming one as the
body of Christ Jesus in the celebration of our amazing diversity. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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