“Body, Mind and Spirit” Sermon based on Mark 12:30-31 September 27, 2015 Mark 12:30-31

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ On these two hang all the law and all the prophets.”

A minister was trying to teach about all the things money can’t buy. “Money can’t buy happiness, it can’t buy laughter and it can’t buy love” he told the congregation.

He said, “What would you do if I offered you $1,000 not to love your mother and father?” A hush fell over the congregation. Finally a small voice near the front piped up “How much would you give me not to love my big sister?”

People were always trying to trip Jesus up with words – the Pharisees who argued long and often about interpretation of the law. This time it is a scribe who tries. “What is the greatest commandment?” he asks.

Jesus answers first with the Sh’ma, the Jewish prayer inscribed about every doorway in every household. “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One.” Nothing they can get at there. Then he quotes their own law to them: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

And he goes on… “The second is like the first. Love your neighbour the same way you love yourself. On these two hang All the law and All the prophets.”

In biblical research, there’s a sort of genre titled “Hard sayings of Jesus.” I don’t know is this one is included, but it seems to me that to do this is probably one of the hardest sayings, and should be included.

The expert in the law was trying to trap Jesus. Instead of giving them a loophole that allowed them to obey one commandment and ignore any of the others, Jesus gave them a commandment that encompassed all of the commandments, all 613 laws contained in the scriptures, in two simple sentences: “Love God” and “Love your Neighbor.” Five words!

You see how it works? Think about it. If you truly love God, then you truly love your neighbour. If you truly love your neighbour, you won’t murder, you won’t steal, won’t take your neighbour's spouse, or gossip against your neighbour.

With this simple answer to the Pharisee’s question, Jesus did not gratify their desire to prove themselves to be scholars. He didn’t even give them any wiggle room so that they might keep one commandment, while ignoring another. He didn’t let them off the hook, he actually put them firmly and squarely *on* the hook. Instead of telling them to keep all the 613 laws, Jesus has now condensed it to two simple commands. You could also say he boiled it down to just one word. LOVE. That is what God expects of us. That’s what we are supposed to be doing.  

Sometimes people say, “You know, that made me uncomfortable this morning.” Well, if anybody is uncomfortable or gets their toes figuratively stepped on, blame it on the Holy Spirit, and then be thankful. If the Spirit of God is dealing with you on this level, then hear what the Spirit is saying and act on it. That is a significant part of the process of becoming the person that God has called you and created you to be.

Problem is, we don’t want to be uncomfortable, we don’t want to do the hard work of being a Christian. But there’s a but, here, of course. The Word does make us uncomfortable sometimes, and if we are going to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – and love our neighbours the same way then uncomfortable is part of the process.

Jesus talks about loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That means everything you are has to be focused on finding the spots which need work, and working on them. Coming to church on Sunday morning is one part of that; Bible or book study is one part of it; reading and growing our minds is one part of it; expanding our spirits is part of it, broadening our hearts is part of it.

Spiritual growth is not easy. But this is about spiritual growth –  intentional learning, intentional work. It is not automatic. If it was there would be a lot more spiritually mature people in the church. Growth and maturity must happen on purpose. It happens as we remain open to God’s Spirit at work in our lives. Being a disciple of Jesus is hard work – and it is work. It calls us to be more than what we are now – to be constantly evaluating who we are and how we are. I like to think of it as building up our faith muscles, doing our spiritual exercise.

Everything grows from that. So when Paul speaks about all of us being part of one body, and how we relate to the other parts of the body, he’s really talking about doing our spiritual exercise, building up love in our hearts, souls, and minds, and then living that out with others around us. He’s telling us to expand our minds, to expand our ways of being, to be open to the moving of the Spirit in our lives. We cannot live a complete spiritual life without all the parts of the body – and this is the most telling, I think – that the one that usually gets the least respect should be given the greatest respect, because even those parts of the body which might be considered insignificant are important.

This spiritual development then expands us even further – into the world of creation. If we do not love ourselves – meaning spiritual maturity, not egocentric love – we can’t love our neighbours, and if we can’t love our neighbours then by extension we can’t love anything touched by God either. Everything is inter-related, everything is connected.

The goal is that we work to follow the example Jesus gave us, and to recognise that Jesus gave us one law – love – and on that hangs the sum of all of the law, and all of the prophets. There is only the one law, and that is the law of love. Everything else comes after that. May it be so.

Sources: 1. "Spiritual Exercise", Fran Ota
              2.  "The Greatest Commandment" Rev. Steve Greene, Church of the Nazarene.

“What is Wisdom?” based on James 3:13-4:8 and Mark 9:33-37 Preached at Keswick Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge September 20, 2015

James 3:13-4:8 Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom - it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.

Real wisdom begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because people want their own way, and fight for it regardless of cost to others. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.

You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way. You’re cheating on God. So let the Holy One work in you. Say a quiet yes to God who will be there in no time. Stop dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Get serious about how you live your life.

Mark 9:33 - 37

They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?” The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest. He sat down and called them to sit with him. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

 He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me – the one who sent me.”
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Several years ago, I encountered someone who had decided that the amount of vacation time the minister received was unfair. In that congregation, there was one month of vacation, plus a week following each of Christmas and Easter. The comment, made several times in public was “The minister gets too much time off and it’s just not right!! In all my 35 years of working I never got that kind of time off!!” Attempts to explain that I only took one day a week off whereas the other person would have had two days off, didn’t work. Attempts to explain that my average week was usually over 50 hours and that the educational requirements for my position were much higher didn’t work. The funny thing was, it was not actually really about me nor about the minister’s time off, but about that person. This was not a happy person, had never been a happy person, will never be a happy person – and the real issue was a comparison of our lives, with that life coming up short – in that person’s eyes. There were issues of power involved – mine set up against the congregation – in a contrived situation. I truly believe this person felt life had dealt an unfair hand. – and no attempt to have conversation which would deal with the obvious pastoral issues was ever allowed. There was a clear vulnerability which went unacknowledged, and unapproachable. 

Mark tells us Jesus was walking along the road and recognised there was some dissent among the disciples. Mark tells us Jesus got to his home in Capernaum, and asked them what the argument was about. They were competing for who was the greatest, or who had the most authority among them, or who was the wisest, whatever. Mark tells us Jesus says, if you want to be first, don’t compete with each other for who holds power. Mark also tells us there were children around – and Jesus took one of the smaller ones on his lap and said “Whoever holds a child like this holds me, and by extension, holds God.”  

Children, in Jewish thought, were not symbols of innocence, but rather symbols of vulnerability. Jesus literally says that both he and the one who sent him are found in the most vulnerable. So the ones who would ask to be the greatest must become as the least.

Just over two years ago, the world saw the election of a new Pope – Jorge Mario Bergoglio – known to us as Francis, a Jesuit from Argentina. Throughout his public life, Pope Francis has been noted for his humility, his concern for the poor and his commitment to interfaith dialogue. He is known for his very humble approach to his position as Pope, less formal than his predecessors, for instance choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the Apostolic Palace. Due to both his Jesuit and Ignatian training, he is known for favoring very simple vestments, and keeps the same pectoral cross he had when he was cardinal. He maintains that the Church should be more open and welcoming. He has continually held up before the media and the world, a picture of the most vulnerable among us, and a need for commitment to a way of life based in love – hence his commitment to interfaith dialogue, recognising that compassion and love are common factors in all world religions.

“What kind of love do we bring to others?: he asks. “Do we treat each other like brothers and sisters? Or do we judge one another?” Speaking of the issue of gays and lesbians he commented “Who am I to judge?”

Francis has argued that the Church’s purpose is to proclaim God’s merciful love for all people rather than to condemn sinners for having fallen short of rules, especially gender and sexual orientation. He promotes an inclusive vision of the Church centered on an identification with the poor. From this vision, theological and organizational innovations flow. It is a move to leadership based in invitation and welcome, in humility and compassion, wisdom and love.

Listen again to James: “Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.” 

The way you live, not how you talk, is what counts.

Rev. Gretta Vosper has been in the church media quite a bit lately. In 2008 her book was published, called “With or Without God: Why How We Live is More Important Than What We Believe”. Now – for me, married to someone who has no religion – that was pretty much a no-brainer. One doesn’t have to be religious, or be a Christian, to live with humility and wisdom. How many people call themselves Christian but don’t act like it? How many people behave in ways we would call Christian – but they are not people who claim the Christian faith? Kindness, compassion, humility, wisdom, love – are not exclusive to the Christian faith, at all.

Here is a brief bit from the chapter on ‘Reconstructing Christianity’:
“A Christianity that is worthy of continuing will be one that helps us to see beyond our own driving need for self-fulfillment, either spiritual or material. It will help us develop outside our own egocentricity to a transcendent awareness of all life and the complexities of our existence within it. This is the radically ethical living that I believe our values call us toward.”

On life-enhancing values: “…..beauty, forgiveness, delight, love, respect, wisdom, honour, creativity, tranquillity, imagination, awe, humour, truth, purity, justice, courage, fun, compassion, challenge, knowledge and trustworthiness. Remove any one of these from our communities or the world and we would radically alter our quality of life, the way we engage in  relationship. The message Christianity can convey is that these and all life-enhancing values are sacred. They make life worthwhile. They make us better when we employ them, when we seek to live up to them. And it is a message that we can share with those who do not call themselves Christian but name a different religious tradition or philosophical ideology. Indeed, it is a message all perspectives can employ when challenging the fundamentalist mindsets existing within them.”

I see a thread running through all these things – the comments of James about humility and wisdom, about living well and living with humility, about human relationships; the teachings of Jesus which hold up the vulnerable, and point to human relationships. The example today of a Pope who embodies wisdom and humility? and one of our own, grappling with how to make us relevant in the 21st century, and the message we can offer.  How we live, how we treat each other – aren’t those the very things Jesus taught? How to have good human relationship – and I have to point out that Jesus never ever said one had to be of his faith, to be a faithful person and live with wisdom. For me the whole message of Jesus was that how we live, how we treat each other, is so much more important than our words about what we believe. 

The words of James “Real wisdom begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.”

“Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.” 

And the words of Jesus – if you hold one of the children of Creation, just as he did, you are holding Jesus, and holding God.

May we walk in wisdom.

“But We All Speak the Same Language, Don’t We???” Sermon for Creation Time based on Genesis 11:1-9, the story of language. Preached at Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge September 13, 2015

 

 “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and be famous; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth and be nothing.”

God came to see the city and the tower the people were building.  God said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So God scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there God confused the language of the whole world. From there God scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:1-9)

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A while back, I got into a discussion with a colleague about the meaning of the word ‘eradicate’, in the context of diseases being eradicated. The contention was that once people had all been vaccinated, the diseases had been eradicated. I countered that since the diseases had returned when people stopped getting children vaccinated, the disease had not been eradicated at all.  The word ‘eradicate’ in its dictionary definition, means to remove so completely that it can never return. When something is eradicated, it is totally gone. So I argued that the removal of the human host from the process ensured the disease was not spread. Now, she and I are both educated people with a good grasp of our language; both speak English. Yet we have very different ideas and approaches.

Language is a funny thing. Even as it may change in our countries, it does not develop as quickly or in the same direction as it does in the parent countries.  American English, following its standardisation by Noah Webster,  became more phonetic – and it is the only version of English which did. As children growing up in Canada, we often joked that we spoke the Queen’s English, and Americans spoke American English. Yet that was also true.  Linguists will tell you that language in new countries tends to ‘ossify’ while language in the home country changes and evolves much more quickly.  My husband has now been out of Japan for forty-four years. When he goes back and is in conversation with younger people, he has been told that his language is quite “quaint”. He realised that it is still in some ways the language of his youth in post-war Japan.  He often complains that Japanese has changed so much, and as a linguist, he has found it necessary when he is back in Japan to try to bring his own language use up-to-date.

How we use a language, and how we understand a language, depends on so many factors. Where we were born, when we were born, where we went to school, how educated our parents were, how important education was, who our teachers were, how well we learned to read and how much we learned to read, whether or not we got advanced degrees in education, what the local dialects were, cultural and regional overlays, whether or not it is our native tongue.

Language involves absorbed and inherent understandings from within our family and social groups; nuances and local idioms are brought to bear. We can each use the same word, but depending on all those other accumulated factors we will understand it differently. Every single one of us understands and uses the same words differently. It isn’t possible to say “this is what this word *means*”, because each of us brings to bear all of the sum of who we are including our life experience to the words we use. That’s why when someone points to something in the Bible and says “This is why it means.” I have to say “But that may not be what it means at all.” Some of those words are translations of translations, and sometimes words which were made up because there was no corresponding word in the other language.

A friend of mine, a Presbyterian minister, was once called to minister to a Portuguese-speaking Presbyterian church. The logic of the Presbyterian national church was that since Portuguese was a common language to certain peoples, it made sense to have them all in one congregation. They didn’t realise that the Portuguese spoken in Mozambique, Brasil, Macao,  Angola, Goa, East Timor, Canada  and of course Portugal – are all different. Even if the words are the same, the acculturated and absorbed understanding of those words is different. Anyone who speaks French knows that what is spoken in Quebec is nothing like the French in France. 

Years ago, I remember seeing a movie in which the Greek gods were busy manipulating the lives of people. The people lived in a huge bowl-shaped earth – and the gods competed for their love and affection by causing deaths, destruction, wars, good things happening – love, affection, good fortune. It makes sense. Our scriptures tell us Greeks came to speak to Jesus, and the Gospel was taken into Greece, where there is no doubt in my mind the interpretation of faith was affected by the cultural and linguistic changes. – and indeed that happened in the translations from Hebrew to Greek. Those other cultural concepts found their way into our theologies.

In the 4^th and 5^th centuries Augustine of Hippo lived, wrote, and taught. He was and still is considered one of the greatest theologians. Among his teachings was that of salvation – that the number of saved by God’s grace was limited and predetermined, and if you weren’t on God’s list, you were doomed to eternal hell. Now, hell for the Jews was a state of being separated from God and in my mind that informed some of this theology. Yet there were those who argued against – those who asked why then bother doing good works, or going to confession and asking for penance and absolution; why enter religious orders and encourage others to good works? If the number of saved was limited, what was the point?

In the 12c, along came a philosopher, theologian and monk named Peter Abelard. At that time, the church believed that an infant was born into original sin, and if not baptised, would be forever damned. Abelard contended that children could not be born sinners, were in fact born in a state of grace, that baptism was in fact not necessary for them to be beloved of God  – but rather how they lived was most important. In the 12^th century, this was considered heresy, since it called Augustine’s teachings into question. Yet there were many who argued the same. There were those who did not believe in predetermined salvation. Abelard, it should be noted, was tried for heresy – something which was later reversed.

Fourteen years ago, on September 11^th,  two airplanes were hijacked, and hit the World Trade Centre twin towers. At that time we had no internet, no Facebook as we have now, but online chat groups and email groups. I was a member of a group called Organchat, a church musician’s discussion group. Someone on that group commented that the face of Satan could be seen in the smoke from the fires, and that Satan had caused this destruction. Then she went on to say that “God is in charge.” 

I rarely lose it. I don’t get wired up about a lot of stuff, but that struck at the core – for me – of the expressions of both language and theology. I said to her that if God was in charge, then God made Satan do those things, which meant really that God caused those events – and that if that were true, I did not believe in that God.  How often have we heard someone emerge from a horrific accident in which others were killed, and claim that God saved them, that God arbitrarily chose for some people to die, and others to live.

So, why am I going on about language and God? Because I think today, in the church, in The United Church of Canada, language is of critical importance. Consider this question “Do you believe in God? Yes or no?” For me that is not a “yes/no” question. There are as many concepts of God sitting here in this sanctuary as there are individuals, and every one of those concepts of God is valid for the person who believes it. For me rather than a ‘Yes/No’ question, it is more a ‘Yes…but….’ question.  Whose God, yours or mine. What God? Where? When? Why? How? And aren’t those the questions of faith? And aren’t we so limited in our understandings, by our language? What I say and you hear might be totally different altogether. Even if we speak the same language, we still don’t – and the possibilities for great misunderstandings arise. One person’s truth, one person’s expression of truth, is another’s heresy.

A friend of mine, Rev. Gretta Vosper, has been much in the media lately for identifying as an atheist – a non-theist. Gretta says, “I don’t believe in the god that you call God.” In other words, she does not believe in an arbitrary, interventionist, almighty manipulative God running human affairs both good and bad. That God removes free choice, and makes us puppets. I don’t believe in that God. Jesus didn’t believe in that God either. When he was confronted, he said the greatest commandment was to love your neighbour as yourself, and on that hung ‘all the law and all the prophets’. 

If I am asked about the nature of that great power, that great Other which I call God, I would answer that my God is Love.  Indeed, Love was the one thing Jesus consistently taught. How do we understand that Love? There’s another word, packed with meanings and packed with baggage. We heard a story last week of a woman who was not of Jesus’ faith or culture, teaching him a couple of lessons about love. We can think of a story about a Jewish man beaten and left by the side of the road, shunned by at least two of his own people, but cared for by a Samaritan – and man not of the Jewish faith or culture. A foreigner. And we are left to draw the conclusion about what constitutes love of neighbour. 

How do we talk about language, talk about what we believe, talk about how we express our belief, talk about our fears and doubts, questions and thoughts. I hope we can have some open conversations, recognising that we all bring our different selves to the discussion. I hope it will be done in the understanding that we don’t have a common language of faith, and openness to hear others without judgment or criticism. Language is important, and we have to be willing to engage in dialogue, in the language we think we hold in common, and yet which often can cause so many misunderstandings. May it be so.

“Even the Dogs…..” James 2:1-10,14-17 Mark 7:24-37 preached at Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge September 6, 2015

This week our world was rocked by a heartbreaking image of a three-year old boy washed ashore on the beach in Turkey – a small boy still completely recognisable, in his red t-shirt and brown shoes.  Isn’t it something that one image like this can galvanise nations into action, even though the refugee crisis has been building and building for several years. I remember another photograph which galvanised, and which in my mind began the trek to the end of the war – a child of 9 named Pham Thi Kim Phuc, running down a road burning from napalm, screaming in agony. There were far more horrific photos taken, but that was the one which finally permeated the consciousness of the west to the horrors of what ordinary people in Viet Nam lived with. There have been many comments n Facebook about how awful it is to publish such a photo – “we don’t need to see this” commented some “we know it is awful”. “I couldn’t look” commented others. And then there were a few like me who said “Yes, you really DO need to see this, you DO need to look. It is too easy for us to remain cocooned, and not recognise the desperation of daily life which the men, women and children of such countries live with. We DON’T know what it is like, unless we ourselves have seen it.”

My Professor of Homiletics (preaching) in seminary insisted that preachers always had to have the text of the Scripture at hand, and whatever other reading material we could find in the other. You could, he said, find good sermon material even in the sports section. We have to do two things with our scriptures – we have to put them into their own context – and then we have to put them into our own context, and see if there are fresh insights which the text brings to today.

So today we have a text in which a woman has come a long way to ask Jesus to save her precious daughter. We don’t know if she is an immigrant, or a migrant who has come for help. We can assume – that the distance was great. All we know is that she does not share Jesus’ ethnic background nor his religion. She is ‘other’. She asks him to save her child, and Jesus replies “it would be unfair to take the food meant for the children, and throw it to the dogs”. Now, to us this means next to nothing. We’ve grown up hearing it and it was just one of those sayings of Jesus. So here is the context – Jesus calls this woman a Gentile dog. He literally says that what he offers is only for the chosen people, no one else – and he uses a racial slur to drive home the point.

Part of the difficulty with this passage is that we have built up this picture of who we think Jesus was; we want him to be the simple, easy answer to all our problems and to all of society’s problems. When faced with the complexities of personal and institutional racism in our country and around the world, it is easier to have Jesus transcending everything, instead of looking at him right in his culture and context. Jesus was a man, and very much a person of his own culture and context – he was one of a people who believed they alone were chosen by God – and to the Jews of that time, people of other ethnicities and religions were considered unclean.

So when he is confronted with the Gentile pagan, he tells her that his message and ministry are only for the people of Israel. He isn’t interested in ministry to someone who is not of his racial background. It wouldn’t be fair to take the banquet prepared for his people – the children, the humans – and give it to Gentiles – the dogs, the less than human.

And she has the distinction of being the only person in the recorded texts who not only got the better of Jesus but also taught him something. She says even the dogs get to eat the crumbs left by others. Even those considered the least are deserving, she says. Even we who are largely invisible are human beings and equally deserving, she says. 

The Jews themselves were refugees – escapees from slavery in Egypt, who fled their captors and went to a new country for a better life. Jesus’ parents fled with him back into Egypt – not migrants but once again refugees, and illegals at that. Yet here is Jesus putting aside someone not of his own race or faith, as ‘not worthy of the crumbs’.  She asked for healing, for some touch to make her life just a bit better by the saving of her child. So there is Jesus’ context. I wonder if that woman was in fact a migrant, a refugee, an illegal.

Today’s context. Migrants, immigrants, refugees – and the crumbs from under our tables.

Migrants, immigrants and refugees are not the same thing. Each word has a different meaning.
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According to UNESCO a migrant is someone who travels freely to another country for reasons of personal convenience and without intervention of an external compelling factor.
They travel freely, of their own accord, to make a better life for themselves. Once they decide to migrate, or to emigrate, they become immigrants to the country of their destination. Interesting that most news articles seem to think that all those poor people in boats just want a change of scenery. Some media would have us believe they are coming to sponge off our country, getting health and benefits, taking all our jobs. So we see an attitude that the poor want to get away from where they are for foodbanks and a life of being lazy.

But what about the word Refugee? We aren’t hearing that word quite so much in the press, when we should be. Refugees are compelled to leave their homes, because they feel there is no other choice. But who would risk drowning just in case, unless the conditions at home are so horrendous that to remain is certain death. Refugees have no choice. They live with the fear of persecution (or worse) because of their religion, race, nationality, or political opinion. They live with the daily threat of death from bombing, shooting, or starvation. They have no choice but to escape for their lives. They leave looking for some crumbs of hope, some tiny sign from under the tables of the very comfortable. They ask for so little – a place of healing and food.

Those are the people of Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Armenia, people forced into being on the move seeking some healing, some respite, some few crumbs, and the saving of their children.

God loves the rich and poor. Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity.
Those who are generous are blessed. Do not crush the afflicted at the gate,
for God pleads their cause.

Following the publication of the photo of Kim Phuc, in 1972, the reality of the war was brought home hard. Children were being denied even the crumbs from under the table; children being denied healing and hope. When the war ended in April 1975, the exodus began and hundreds  of people fled – too late for many – and yet between 1975 and 1978 close to two million refugees were accepted by other countries. Some had left sooner, those who could pay their way out. And while it should not be, it is the children and their plight which most touches our hearts in a ­­way nothing else can. The picture of one little boy – a beautiful child of Creation – denied not only healing and hope but even his life, even the chance to find out what else there is, outside the table. And we begin to examine ourselves and our faith, and wonder if we have been holding it just for ourselves, instead of truly putting it into action. I say we, for I am as guilty as the next.

James says to us today “What good is it, my sisters and brothers, if you say you have faith but do not have works?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

“It is not fair” he said, “to take the food for the children of Israel and feed it to the dogs.” Jesus, amazingly, was incredibly wrong. At least he realised it. Hr was forced to examine his prejudices and biases, and make change. So are we.

This is why we need to read the bible with our newspapers in the other hand – or our ipads or phones or radios, however you hear the news. But what can we do?  Faith communities… can play a significant role in making the human issues of forced migration and displacement central, challenging misleading language, highlighting unjust or victimising policies, and opening up space for alternative perspectives and conversations. We can work to sponsor families, find homes and work for them. We can. Yes it isn’t easy. But we can.

In particular, we need to remind ourselves that we too are the product of people movements – some forced, some voluntary, some hopeful, some fearful. Irish immigrants were refugees, from poverty and starvation. Jews, refugees from persecution and death. Bosnians from persecution, death and starvation. Vietnamese from war, famine, and political upheaval.

The images and the people we are seeing are desperate refugees. We, like Jesus, need to learn. The commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves doesn’t mean only the people we think fit the pattern we set. Our neighbours are clamouring at the gates to get in.  Our job is to open our arms and welcome the stranger. 

Essentially we are Jesus. We are the ones now being told that even the dogs get the crumbs from under the table. There are people crying out in pain, looking for a simple hand of hope, and a chance for healing. If we truly are followers of the Way, then we are called to reach, as far as we can, in any way we can, to our neighbours who we are called to love. Our neighbours are on the shore. How do we respond?

1.      Teaching Jesus a sermon by Rev. Fran Ota

2.      Sermon on the Refugee Crisis, by Rev. Ruth Dudley, Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia