As a young boy in the late 90’s, fleeing the raging war in Liberia and weaving my way through refugee camps in Ivory Coast and Ghana for over eight years is a journey I am yet to understand. But despite my lack of understanding, I have learned many lessons that have become the core principles of my life today. The memories of war, suffering and destruction have refused to escape me despite every effort to erase it from memory. It reached a new height over the last ten months with the growing Syrian conflict and refugee crises. I have spent many nights trying to think and understand it all while replaying my own ordeal in the process.
I have asked God many times: why am I being put through this? I want to leave this behind me, but cannot afford given my realities, it is the essence of my life.
After much contemplation, I asked God to help me understand through one question; “What should be our response be as Christians? “
Here are four key points that God allowed me to analyze in understanding it all.
1. The people of God have refocused from a place of worship to an act of war and aggression.
We’ve taken things into our own hands trying to deal with our fears and protect ourselves in our human strength and knowledge. We have forgotten too soon that he is the “author and finisher of our faith” and it is only through him we can find true protection and solutions to our problem. Instead, we have turned to rhetoric at times very divisive and violent politics in the form of hate speech even in the church. The times that we haven’t been hateful, we’ve remained silent and our silence as the people of God have been deafening.
2. We are participating by endorsement or silence in the incredible cycle of violence where we have moved from the destruction of sworn enemies to the murder of unarmed innocents.
We live in a place where even the church has become immune to bloodshed, massacres and mass killing of innocent civilians. We continue to come to church and gather like it normal times, we go on with our business as a church as usual
3. We are caught up in a mess where revenge and payback are the driving forces of our motivation regardless of who gets hurt or killed in the process.
The blood and bodies of innocent children are washing up on the shores of beaches while we debate whether we should disrupt our comfort and privilege to do something.
4. We cannot keep supporting this incredible cycle of violence or maintain our inaction and silence.
Now we are justifying the fact that we are indignant at the helplessness of the innocent victims
In the end, violence begets violence and hatred begets hatred
But all hope is not lost! Thank God for his loving kindness and unconditional love no matter how much we stray off his guidance.
God has taught us to love unconditionally and continues to remind us through the Bible. It is not in our place to determine whom to love; we ought to love everyone unconditionally. That means also showing love and praying for the attackers in Paris, Lebanon, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places witnessing various forms of mayhem.
In my reflection, God brought to a point of realization that we have become too reliant on our own power and perceived versatility in this world instead asking for his guidance and wisdom to help ourselves. He opened my eyes to see that as Christians, our response should be one of self – examination in these critical times and war and despair where millions have become refugees.
It is time to examine and reflect on our relationship with God through the things we have done and the things we have failed to do as people of God.
It is time to reflect on how we took this very country Canada away from the natives by terror, yet they have forgiven us and even live with us even in the face of bigotry, repentance and denial.
Maybe we need to just take a step back, we have spent too much time examining others and trying to save everybody else except ourselves.
As I close, I employ all of you to follow the example of Christ, we must love unconditionally. As we prepare to receive thousands of Syrian refugees, let us share with them the best we’ve got. Let us not focus on what they don’t have or what they’ve lost, let us focus on our responsibility as people of God and appreciate the gift of humanity we all share as given to us by the same father. They are children of the same God and share in the same brotherhood and sisterhood that we all belong to.
May God bless us all and continue help us understand that it is his will for us to love unconditionally, regardless of religion, ethnicity, creed or race.
Amen
This Sunday, the Ascension welcomed The Rev'd Matthew Griffin, rector at the Church of the Nativity in Hamilton, as part of a preacher exchange, as Bishop Terry visited the Nativity.
I wonder what Pilate made of it all as he entered the headquarters and summoned Jesus. It’s early in the morning— Had he been pulled from his bed, still rubbing sleep from his eyes and inwardly cursing his subjects from dragging him from comfort? Had he been up early, wondering and worrying about what this festival, the Day of Preparation would bring? He comes out of his headquarters, his home, because the Judeans wouldn’t deign to come in— unwilling to be made ritually unclean and exiled from the Passover meal— He comes out and speaks to this crowd with their prisoner, bound and beginning to bruise, And says—what accusation do you bring? If he weren’t a criminal, we wouldn’t be bringing him to you. Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law. We are not permitted to put anyone to death.
If Pilate had still been half-asleep, he must have been awake now. This crowd wants this man dead. This crowd with influential connections including the high priest. This crowd want this man to be Pilate’s problem.
And the truth of the matter is that Pilate is a flunky. A fairly fancy one, part of the lower aristocratic classes. Now the prefect of Judea, he’d have served in the cavalry for a time. As prefect he has three responsibilities: running a small-ish military detachment, some collecting the taxes for the Roman Empire, and some judging. His job is to keep life quiet in Judea, and keep the money flowing to Rome.
It’s not much different, really than what most governments in history have been about. Staying in power, continuing in privilege, discouraging change. That pattern is part of why recognition of rights and equality often seems to move slower than the glaciers: sharing power and privilege with those who haven’t had it can be seen as diminishing those who did.
In a democracy, the right to vote is one key indicator of who the state thinks is really a person.
As just a quick example in Canada, Manitoba starts letting some women vote in 1916; but Quebec holds out until 1940.
1947 – racial exclusions lifted against Chinese and Indo-Canadians
1948 – racial exclusions lifted against against Japanese Canadians
1960 – right to vote extended to First Nations People without giving up status
Slowly, so very slowly, the arc begins to bend toward justice. But generally the mighty want to stay in their seats; the rich don’t want to be sent away empty; and certainly not change just so the hungry can be filled or the humble and meek exalted.
And so Pilate comes into his headquarters, summons Jesus, and asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” There’s an odd exchange, as Jesus ducks the question—do you ask this on your own? Or did others tell you about me? Pilate is quick to point out that he’s not a Judean, and that Jesus’ own nation & chief priests have handed Jesus over to Pilate: “what have you done?”
What have you done?
What has he done? Preached good news, Brought healing, Invited people to draw closer to God through himself, Fed multitudes, And raised Lazarus from the dead.
Instead of mentioning any of this, we hear instead “My kingdom is not from this world.” My followers aren’t fighting to protect me. But I’m not that interested in being called a king: I came to testify to the truth.
And the gospel passage we hear this morning ends before Pilate asks him, “What is truth?”
I came to testify to the truth, Jesus says: And throughout John’s gospel, we’ve seen him testify, Not just in some very long speeches and teaching, but we see Jesus bear witness to the truth as time and again he brings healing that doesn’t just make healthy—but restores relationship. Jesus shares living water with the woman of Samaria at the well, and imagines a world where Judean and Samaritan can worship together. Jesus brings a man who’s been left invalid for thirty-eight years back into living instead of waiting. Jesus protects a woman who would be stoned.
Jesus notices the people who aren’t in power talks to them And shows them what it is to be loved and valued.
My kingdom is not of this world. A crown of thorns is not about grasping on to status but shows in humility something more valuable; My kingdom is not of this world; The cross is not about seeking the world’s power but instead shows its weakness. My kingdom is not of this world; Through death, abundant life is everywhere restored.
When we live out the upside-down-ness of the Reign of Christ, we live out the promises we have made to seek Christ in all persons to love our neighbours as ourselves to strive for justice and peace to respect the dignity of every human being we celebrate and make even more real and present God’s promise of the world as it ought to be and we reveal our true citizenship as being not of this world but nevertheless making God’s reign known now.
When we welcome the refugee, we help turn the world upside down.
When we leave aside our desire to cling to old ways of being, and find new ways of sharing in the governance of our Anglican Church with our indigenous brothers and sisters, we join in making God’s reign known.
When we sit with those whom the world ignores, we join in saying that the only kingdom we care about can be found here, with us, as we bring healing and reconciliation and welcome.
May God in Christ richly bless us to be citizens of God’s reign, that when the world asks us what we have done, we may point to how we’ve strived to make Jesus known in our words, our choices, and our very lives.
A sermon preached by Bishop Terry Brown on the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, November 15, 2015, Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario. Texts: Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25; Mark 13:1-8.
Friday evening, driving back from my retreat in New York, we began to hear news of the tragic bombings and shootings in Paris, horrific violence in the name of Islam by a small group of religious extremists. The day before there had been a bombing in Beirut, with many killed, Muslim against Muslim. So yesterday morning, I opened the Spectator, and there, in addition to the news from Paris, was a long story about a Christian anti-abortionist sniper, who had both killed and injured doctors, in the name of his Christian faith, first as an Evangelical Protestant, and then as a Roman Catholic. So I got out of bed to say my daily office. The first lesson was from the first book of Maccabees, about the beginning of the Maccabean rebellion against the Romans. The lesson recounted how one of the Maccabean young men kills an apostate Jew at the altar as he is about to offer sacrifice to a foreign god, and calls for all apostate or heretical Jews to be killed. The Maccabean revolt against the Romans begins.
I thought to myself, I am not having a very good day: All three “religions of the book”, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, seemed to be advocating violence. The obvious subject of the sermon this morning emerged: religion and violence. The context of today’s Gospel reading is also violence, political violence. Speaking in a violent world of war in the Roman Empire, Jesus prophesies that the corrupt institution of the Temple will soon be brought down by military defeat but urges his listeners to be faithful, to continue to seek the Reign of God, and not be alarmed.
Perhaps it is good to begin with two presuppositions: First, virtually all religions, political movements and ideologies have extremists who are willing to pursue their extreme goals through violence and death, in the name of that religion, political movement or ideology, no matter how contrary those views are to the core beliefs of the religion, political movement or ideology. So the problem extends beyond the three “religions of the book” to all religions. For example, Buddhism, which we may think of as very peaceful, has produced torture and death in Sri Lanka and Burma/Myanmar. And Hinduism, apparently an exemplar of religious pluralism, can be ferocious in its opposition to Islam and even Christianity. But the problem extends beyond religions. All ideologies, even atheism, produce extremists – whether bloodshed of the French Revolution in the name of democracy or the death camps of Stalin. Extremists are very unhappy people, who see their way as the only way, to the point of being willing to kill and maim for the sake of their way, their faith, their ideology, their political system. Indeed, in the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century, Catholics and Protestants killed each other and one another in the name of purity of the faith. Today, we are friends. I shall come back to that theme of friendship.
Thus, and this is my second presupposition, it is really not possible to judge a religion or ideology by its extremists. In the wake of Paris, the social media has circulated many quotations from Mohammed in the Quran denouncing the slaughter of innocent people. Muslims around the world have condemned the Paris bombings. Likewise, as Christians we cannot let Christian extremists who would kill those they claim to love in the name of Christ be our representatives. Nor are Jews required to endorse the violent activities of Israel or of militant Jewish settlers today.
As Christians, we can simultaneously use two approaches:
The first approach is to use our God-given understanding to try to comprehend why people become extremists, whether personal psychologies or social conditions or broken relationships. People do not become extremists simply “out of the blue”. The extremism might be at the far political left or the far political right, it might be in any religious faith; it might be in any life-directing ideology. Often there is a history of alienation, of poor treatment, of being placed on the margins, of racism or some other form of discrimination. Such an approach requires listening and having friends across racial, religious and ideological boundaries, not just sticking to our small worlds. Because we realize that very few Muslims are extremists (despite what some on Facebook would say), we are called to try to build relationships of friendship with Muslims and not just write them off in fear. That Syrian refugee camps are being attacked and burnt following the Paris bombings and shootings shows that frustrated French victims have not made this distinction and not recognized that these refugees are victims too, victims of the same extremists. In Liberation Theology terminology, we need the right social analysis of what is happening. And for us as Anglicans, reasoning and understanding, rather than panic, is very important.
The second approach is to use the resources of our Christian faith. While this is not unknown in other faiths and ideologies, one very clear element of our Christian faith is that the principal subject of our faith, Jesus Christ, is not a perpetrator of violence but the VICTIM of violence, the violence of the Cross. Thus, as Christians, walking the way of the Cross, our solidarity is with the VICTIMS of violence, not the perpetrators of violence: the victims, whether the people of Paris, the people of Beirut, the people of Syria and Afghanistan (including their refugees around the world), those who have spent their lives in refugee camps around the world, the children of Central America amongst drug wars, Jewish victims of antisemitism, aboriginal women, black men in American prisons. The list of victims goes on; and many of them are potential extremists if we do not reach out to them with the love of Christ. And through solidarity with ALL victims comes resurrection.
We have a Saviour who was the recipient of violence, the suffering servant who did not cry out. He counselled “turning the other cheek” and returning hatred with kindness and love. Out of that kindness and love comes resurrection. Early Christians, frightened of shedding blood, did not serve in the Roman army or participate in decisions that brought about the deaths of others. Of course, with time, that changed. But the Christian biblical witness to creatively build relationships of love and friendship with both victims and potential (and, indeed, real) enemies.
On my retreat one of the books I read was entitled Friendship. It is written by an anthropologist and natural history museum curator who argues that in human evolution and the development of human society, ourselves as homo sapiens, all is not “survival of the fittest” (crude popular social Darwinism) but that the human beings we are today, living in society together, are as much (if not more) the product of human cooperation and friendship. Human beings need each other to grow and develop; the species need each other to grow and develop. And friendship is the way forward rather than competition.
Perhaps if we concentrated more on global friendship than economic profit, we could stop the flow of weapons and money to ISIS and other extremist groups. If we concentrated more on global friendship, we could seriously attack global warming, global poverty, global drug wars, and global disease. It is this commitment to human goodness that is encouraged in today’s reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews: “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together … but encouraging one another”.
Last week, reflecting on the side of the Hudson River amongst the beautiful Fall colours, I noticed that from time to time the river flowed in opposite directions. The original Algonquin name of the river meant the-river-that-flows-in-both-directions. Of course, the river is tidal, and twice a day the tide comes in and reverses the flow of the river. Talking about this with one of the brothers, he commented, yes, but in the end all the river’s water eventually goes to the sea.
As Christians, we are on a way of love and service, a kind of a river of love and service, a way of dedication to the victim and to peacemaking. From time to time, our way, our river, will be hit by forces going the other direction. They will stimulate us, mix with us, threaten us, or anger us. But it is up to us to persevere in the way of peace, standing in solidarity with the victim and encouraging and participating in relationships that build up the human community with love and justice, even it means countering extremists who call themselves Christians and befriending those of other faiths and ideologies who are also committed to peacefully building the human family in love and justice. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “do not be alarmed”, the End has not come; do not become the oppressor but stay faithful.
Let us pray: Lord, we remember those who have been subject to violence. May we be with them in solidarity, empathy and love. Help us to reach out to those different from ourselves, that all the world may come into the embrace of God’s love. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today we gather to celebrate the Feast of All Saints. I am going to approach this subject by speaking separately of the two words, All Saints.
ALL – “All” speaks to the millions and millions of so-to-speak ordinary Christians who have lived lives of faith and love over 20 centuries: lives for the most part not known to us but known to God. They are not in any way lesser than the apostles, evangelists, and martyrs we know by name. We all have the capacity to be among that number. Their names are on our memorial boards and in our histories but moat are unknown. It is a sainthood derived from faithfully living out our Baptisms and our baptismal ministries.
We are reminded that we often have no real insight into the personal histories and struggles of persons we meet day by day, including fellow Christians and even fellow parishioners: what way God’s grace has worked and is working itself out through their lives; indeed, that we may be in the presence of a saint. I hope we are in the presence of many saints here.
All of us have had lives that have been shaped and blessed by the lives of others – the lives of parents, grandparents, teachers, spouses, mentors, and friends – those who have passed on to us love and kindness. These are people who have been saints to us in our lives. And they are innumerable – that great company of saints with whom, in the words of today’s collect, we are knit together – not a select few or an elite – but that ever-increasing crowd that will praise God in the Kingdom (Isaiah) around the throne (Revelation). So that is what I wish to say about the “All” side of All Saints.
But what of the other half of the title – SAINTS? Is everyone claiming to be a Christian automatically a saint? I suppose the short answer is that if everyone is a saint, no one is a saint. It is hard to ascribe Christian sainthood to the person who is deliberately cruel, to the abuser, to the murderer, to the complete egoist, to the one whose only goal in life is accumulation of wealth for their own pleasure. If someone told me Donald Trump is on the path to Christian sainthood, I would question that assertion, even if he claims to be a Presbyterian and read the Bible every day. Christianity has some minimum standards of behaviour – such as respect, empathy, compassion, restraint, forgiveness and, most basically, Christian love.
What do our lessons today say about those standards? Both the Messianic Kingdom passage from Isaiah and the heavenly Jerusalem passage from Revelation remind us that sainthood is corporate and relational, not an individual charism or gift, but a life in loving relationship. Indeed, if a person takes on the personal identity of a saint in this life, or is regarded by others thus – a “living saint”, so to speak – there immediately emerges the problem of spiritual pride or elitism, whether expressed or internalized. (Mother Theresa, sometimes regarded as a “living saint” did not embrace that title herself but let it be known how very difficult her spiritual life was.) A Christian community that divides itself into saints and sinners is in trouble. Even in the best of all possible worlds, we are all both, saints and sinners. But we pray that our natures, our relationships and our ministries are growing from strength to strength through God’s grace. Sainthood, then, comes through God’s grace, that enables us to be in good relationships and good ministries that conform to God’s mission in the world in the love and justice of Jesus Christ. Sainthood is about “we” and “us”, rather than “I”.
However, the single theme that cuts across all three readings, including the Gospel, is the triumph of life over death. Saints are on the side of life rather than death. In the Messianic banquet in Isaiah, the Messiah will “swallow up death forever” and “wipe away tears from all eyes”. In the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation, this very passage is quoted: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And, of course, the raising of Lazarus is about giving back life. Jesus says to Lazarus, “Come forth!” and to the crowd around the revived Lazarus, he declares, “Unbind him and let him go!” Jesus’ ministry is consistently about giving life and giving freedom.
Thus, as saints, or would-be saints, we are called to be life-givers, not agents of death. We are created in the image of God, “the Lord, the Giver of Life”, in the words of the Creed. Saints offer and give life, in the face of sin and death.
We life in a world of death. Sometimes it feels like a world of ever-increasing death: violent governments and militant movements, violent religions and violent conflicts, producing much suffering and millions of refugees. (Never in the history of the world has the number of refugees been this high.) We live in cities of an increasing gap between rich and poor, where poverty, racism and loss of hope produce shootings and death. Unfortunately, Hamilton, too, fits that description. Death is often not physical death, but also spiritual death: death to hope for housing, employment, meaningful relationships and financial security including a secure retirement. There is no shortage of death in this world.
Yet the Messianic Kingdom, the heavenly Jerusalem, the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, and our ministries (as we are called to be amongst all the saints) are on the side of life, life “in all its abundance”, to use John’s expression. Whether it is our relations within the parish, whether it is our outreach vision for the neighbourhood and the city, whether it is our global outreach to the poor and oppressed (including support and sponsorship of refugees – and we’ll be hearing more about that from this pulpit in coming weeks), we are called to be on the side of life: to offer and give life, whether in the simplest word of encouragement, or the most exhausting project; whether in the smallest sharing of material resources or in the most generous gift.
Likewise, as a nation, we are called to be life-givers to Canada’s aboriginal peoples, not agents of death as has happened so often in the past as we know. It is unconscionable that Canadian reserves still do not good water supplies after so many years. And, on the global scene, we are called to be peacemakers, not combatants with those we do not understand and cannot see. We are called to diplomacy, rather than military conflict. We are called to be life-givers to minorities in the world that other despise and forget, for example, Palestinians in Israel/Palestine. And all our acts of ministry, friendship, creativity, and generosity are to be on the side of life. Sainthood is always on the side of life – the generous word, the generous gift, the generous ministry.
Finally, the Gospel today suggests another quality of sainthood: giving freedom and autonomy to others. To the group around the newly resurrected Lazarus, Jesus declares, “Unbind him and let him go!” And we are mindful of the phrase of the collect, “Christ whose service is perfect freedom”.
Sometimes we bind ourselves (we say that we “tie ourselves into knots”); sometimes we are bound by our addictions or habits we cannot shake; sometimes we are bound by memories of the past or unhelpful traditions. Sometimes we bind or try to bind others, whether to ourselves or standards we set for them. Radical freedom in Christ is sometimes very difficult. And the institutional church often gives very mixed signals – “Risk for the sake of the Gospel, be brave, take a chance!” – “but do not get us in trouble with the insurance company or the police or the bishop.”
How do we grow in Christian freedom? Let me make some suggestions: through self-awareness of where we are unnecessarily bound, whether by the past or by our own limitations, and where we have bound others; through prayer and meditation, corporate and individual; though study in Scripture of Christ’s perfect freedom; through discernment with others (as a parish or with friends) of where we are called to grasp our freedom and act with love, for the sake of life. And even if we feel we are not much free because of our material circumstances, health, age or other limitations, we are called to realize that our Christian faith, our call to be amongst all the saints, gives us a deep spiritual freedom – a deep freedom from fear and anxiety – and the capacity to pray, to speak, to be in friendship and (even if it is in only the smallest way, as appropriate) to act for life, justice and love.
So, in short, we are all called to sainthood and it is possible. Pray that we may continue in loving relationships; that we may be life-givers; and live in the perfect freedom of Christ, that frees us and frees others. And we too shall be amongst that great company of All the Saints. Amen.
