|
Time to go International? Many instructions are given to the seventy recruits as they prepare for their journey, but one has a particular international flavour: "eat and drink what they provide." (Luke 10 7) - for heaven's sake, when you are invited out to dinner in Corinth or Athens, don't start a long inquest on whether the saucepan has been contaminated by bacon fat! For most of the early church, this was a monumental change in thinking. The idea of "going international" was a pretty hard sell, even outside of Israel. Take the church in Galatia. At first, Paul had been received there with great enthusiasm. Indeed, a few folk thought he was the God Hermes incarnate (Acts 14). But as the congregation became established, missionaries arrived from Jerusalem, and they started making trouble - insisting that all converts must embrace the Jewish faith, and observe the laws of Moses. Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians to rebut such arguments. Some people think that Paul had trouble with his eyesight. Certainly, most of his letters were dictated. But he felt so strongly about the international destiny of the church that he wrote the Galatian epistle himself, using, as the text puts it, very "large letters" (Galatians 6 11). He wants to transform Christianity from a narrow sect of Judaism to a world-class religion. He insists that the mystery of union with God is experienced through faith in Christ, and living an ethical life. Nothing can come simply from observing historic Jewish rituals. It is wrong to brag about converting people to a Jewish way of thinking; the only source of pride should be the death, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Christ has freed Christians from the many constraints of the Jewish law. Crossing an international border is still a big decision for many people, especially with new passport regulations and no fly lists. Think of the line-ups at the Peace Arch this summer. At the corporate level, how many well-established Canadian corporations have either floundered or been bought out when they have decided to "go international." Think of Canadian Tire and its purchase of White Automotive in New York State, or the swallowing of Tim Hortons by Wendy's International. At the personal level, an international boundary is equally daunting. I can still remember a grey day in the November of 1964, as our small family stood on the main deck of the Queen Mary, and waved what we thought might be our last farewells to parents and friends, clustered on the fast receding pier at Southampton. But our move was much easier than that for so many new Canadians- we spoke English, if not Canadian. We had a house and a secure job awaiting us, and cultural differences were relatively small. In contrast, many immigrants know little English; they have no idea how Canadians think; they have no capital, and no job; and they can expect at most one or two nights of free accommodation in some local flop-house. For many people, one's native turf has a vital, even a sacred significance. The memorial concert for Diana highlighjted the new Wembley Stadium. But back in 2004, when developers decided to demolish the old stadium, the hallowed site of both football cup-finals and Billy Graham crusades, 30,000 sods were sold to Londoners who wanted to conserve this sacred turf! Attachment to the ancestral soil goes way back into early history. The Etruscans were forbidden to leave the sacred lands where their forefathers were buried- although they sometimes got around this ordinance by burying earth from their old city beneath any new construction. More recently, Count Dracula decided to emigrate from Translyvania, and author Bram Stoker suggests the Count was brought to London in a casket of Transylvanian earth; somehow this was essential to his survival; and the ship he chose for his voyage was the Demeter, named after the Greek God of Earth. If we carry the story of Namaan on for a few further verses, we see the same phenomenon. As Namaan is leaving the city of Samaria, he asks Elisha for a parting favour- "By the way, would you mind loading up two of my mules with earth from the banks of the Jordan?" Namaan recognizes that he stands on holy ground. And he wants to import some of this hallowed earth into Syria, so that he can worship the God of Abraham and of Isaac, the God who has cured him of his leprosy. As he puts it “I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel." But he has the misfortune to live in a foreign land, and if he is to worship the true God, he must take the soil of Jordan with him. Look also at the Psalmist today. Near to death, he feared that his illness would carry him to Sheol, the pit or underworld, a terrain where no one, not even God, would be able to hear him. Many of us still have a strong attachment to hallowed ground. Bottles of Jordan water or stones from the Mount of Olives are jammed into over-packed tourist baggage. Terrorism in the west or wars in the Middle East are fuelled not just by our greed for oil, but also by disputes over a small slab of rock in downtown Jerusalem. And here in Canada, disputes with aboriginal peoples often revolve around sacred burial sites. What message does this have for us? Most of us dismiss the superstitions associated with particular holy sites. Water from the river Jordan may be a powerful symbol, but it is by no means essential to the rite of baptism. The God of a myriad universes cannot be bound to one small piece of territory. The creative word is omnipresent. The peripatetic John Paul recognized this early in his papacy. As his plane touched down in country after country, he quickly descended the gangway, and kneeled to kiss the tarmac. There was no need to import holy ground from Palestine or from the Vatican- wherever he went, he stood on some part of God's earth. We accept the omnipresence of creative power, but many of us still cling to the belief that our church or our nation has God’s special favour. Our church may indeed be blessed and chosen- but so is the worship of every seeker after truth. Every land has its rich cultural contribution. So, it is wrong for us to lord it around, seeking to impose on others the peculiarities of our beliefs and our culture. The British Prime Minister made an interesting comment on the war in Afghanistan:– “Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own." This is not a quote from Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. These are the words of William Gladstone, and he was speaking about the 2nd Afghan war of 1879. But the truth remains. Whether we are talking about downtown Squamish or the barren mountains of Afghanistan, we are talking about holy lands, inhabited by chosen people: God’s places, and God’s people. And they are to be treated with the respect that holy things deserve. As a Church, should we have ambitions to go international? I am old enough to remember the excitement of Missionary meetings. Field workers told packed congregations about African villagers flocking to new churches in the bush. The offering plate was passed, and the talk was of converting the world to Christ within one generation. People in Kenya and the Sudan were puzzling eagerly over the strange hymns of Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts. And in punishing heat, traditional loin cloths were exchanged for black suits and top hats as the African people sought to honour the British or the Canadian God. Like the Galatians, how eager we were to push our customs and our culture as a pre-requisite of the Christian experience. Fortunately, this aberration has passed. Going international is no longer a one-way street. Western churches are beginning to learn not only from overseas Christians, but also from other groups that have found their own paths to the Sacred. The Good News of God's love is not rooted in a particular national soil, nor is it limited to one group or class – it is for all people everywhere. In our local context, we are currently re-evaluating our own sacred space, at 4th and Victoria. Many of our congregation have strong emotional attachments to this particular building. But God may be calling us to move to new territory, to embrace new partners, or to consider new forms of worship. One final comment. International understanding of the sacred carries an ecological punch. We don't dump rubbish on our communion tables, and our over-consumption should not pollute other parts of God's planet. How can we desecrate a land, where every atom speaks of God’s presence? Perhaps we can learn from Edgar the Peaceful and the Benedictine monks. Unlike other mediaeval religious orders, the Benedictines were self-sufficient. They cared for the land that surrounded their monasteries. They found a continuity between spirituality and the husbandry of God's resources. In similar vein, Dr. Dan's favourite philosopher poet and ecologist Wendell Berry describes the traditional agriculture of the Peruvian highlands, the deserts of southern Arizona, and the Amish farms in Ohio; in all of these places, cultivation of the earth is a sacred task: “To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skilfully, and reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness and others to want.” (from “The Gift of Good
Land.” San Francisco, North Point Press, 1983).
There is nowhere on earth which is not a part of God’s little acre. “Whither
shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me fast.” (Psalm 139 7-10).
Roy Shephard. |
| Sermon Listings |
Spiritual
Resources |
Home Page |