Edmonton Area Service |
Beloved in Christ, I am glad to be home with you and in this place.
On Monday I was part of a gathering of Christians from more than 60 countries. I had an agonising conversation with the Bishop of the North Caucasus who had come straight from the city of Beslan in his Diocese. “I offered to mediate but they refused. They came to die and to kill. Some of the children were present in school for the very first time in their lives. One of the terrorists at least was disguised in a nurse’s uniform.” One 13 year old girl who was buried on Monday had 34 bullet holes in her head and body. Some very deep laws were broken in Beslan. Like every father I imagined my own children and wept with my Russian brother. Then again on Tuesday I heard the story of a young Huttu who was studying for the priesthood when the axemen came to kill the members of the Tutsi tribe who were fellow students in the college. He was told to take part in the killing, refused and only survive wounded by pretending to be dead under a pile of bodies.
It is terrible what hatred and fear can do and what happens when you cannot even see the other group as human.
Tired talk about tolerance from places in the world which have done quite well out of history has very little power to help or heal. I am glad to be here because I believe from what I have heard about your work that you have gone beyond talk and have really walked the walk.
Your answer to fear and suspicion has been to build a community of faith in which people can support one another. But even religion can be bent by an unconverted mind. Some of the terrorists were heard reciting prayers.
We need to build up a community life in which the Spirit of Christ is active, nourished by deeper understanding of the way of God revealed in the Bible. We need a strong Christian faith and identity to withstand the battering of daily life but we also need to live by the truth that the Holy Spirit nourishes us as we embrace our neighbours who differ from us.
Actively seek as you have done other Christians and see what can be done together to help in the needs which you understand because you live here. Don’t try too hard to cut everyone into the same pattern. Enjoy the different gifts and opportunities of the various parts of the Christian family. Unity will come as we look together in his spirit of compassion at the suffering and need which confront us rather than by minutely examining one another.
Don’t stop at the Christians. There are other people of faith here and some of them are feeling very vulnerable now is the time to befriend them, accept rebuffs and be hospitable.
Don’t stop at the people of faith. There are many people here who do not know what to believe but try to live a good life. Be inviting, respect them and don’t immediately ask them to jump through Christian hoops.
All this is in the Bible readings tonight. Let me pick out a few words which speak to us.
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. That’s very personal. There is a struggle to put our own lives in order and the more we ask Jesus Christ into our lives to help us the more we find ourselves able to trust and move out to other people. It is the people who have not dealt with the shadows inside themselves who project that darkness on to others. A sacrifice is something you hand over to God. We all know how hard it is to do this for real and all Christians need a healthy dose of humility.
We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think says Paul. Humility has got a bad name. I am ever so humble says the conniving Uriah Heap in David Copperfield but he is masking the very opposite. We need to be humble in the sense of being close to the humus. Knowing ourselves to be frail and wobbly people but knowing also that the first step in becoming a human being is to refuse to be a little god.
Right conduct, no lying, no cheating, no violence, humility but also a renewing of the mind. This renewal does not of course mean simply acquiring more fascinating facts like what in Wonderland an Amice might be – good trivial pursuit question that. No it is not more facts but knowledge which is related to the purposes of God. Knowledge of God’s love and promise is properly called wisdom. Part of what we are doing tonight is congratulating those who have completed their Christian studies course. We need Christians who can give reasons for the faith that is in our community and also Christians who are aware enough to interpret the signs of the times. As I said some of the terrorists in Beslan were reciting prayers. We must always be on the alert for the perversion of faith into fanaticism. Humility comes from taking seriously the mystery expressed by Jonathan Swift author of Gulliver’s Travels – “How is that we commonly have enough religion to hate one another but not enough to love one another?”
We live in a time when so many people are confused about what they believe themselves and what they ought to be passing on to the next generation. There is for some much to live with but less to live for. How do we celebrate without escaping from ourselves in a bottle? How do we re-inspire people with a sense of the sacredness of life and our responsibility to the children of our community? How are they to grow up to be lovers of what is good and true and beautiful? How do we help people to enjoy the creation and simple things in a world in which the rich are drowning in their waste?
This is some of the challenge which surrounds us which can only be met not by theories but by a strong and convincing community life. We are called to clean living, humility and humour about ourselves, a renewed mind, mindful of the needs of others and this is how we grow into being members one of another in a community worthy of the name. We are working to build real con-gregations and not disguised aggregations.
Churches are not supposed to be spiritual MacDonalds catering for people’s religious tastes and needs but living spiritual organisms capable of transforming the place where they live and not just wagging a finger at it. “We who are many are one body in Christ.” The words are so familiar but the reality when you meet it is thrilling.
The community is of course built not on what we share by nature, blood or race or class. The gospel makes it very clear that the basis of the new community is learning to live like Jesus together and accepting the way which does lead to suffering and through the cross. The gospel says that we cannot know the depth of the love of God unless we have a relationship with the human face of God Jesus Christ. No one knows the Father save the Son “and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him”.
Many people experience the church as stale but here you have experienced the living water. May God bless you as you build a community in which people can taste and see what human life can be like when it is lived in the spirit of God. May God bless you as you struggle to open your wider community to the sense of the sacredness of life which was so tragically wasted in the hatred and moral vacuum of Beslan.
