Barriers
A sermon preached by the Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyc
on the Sixth Sunday after Trinity
19th July 2009
In the name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Many years ago, there was a woman in my (then) church congregation called Jane, who was particularly close to her own next door neighbour: the two women were of similar age, and had children who were at the same stages of life. They shared a lot of common interests, and they were an immense source of friendship and support to one another - particularly when the neighbour was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and Jane did a truly amazing job in accompanying her on the difficult journey that was to lead, sadly, to her eventual death.
But there was one complication in the relationship between the two of them: which was that the neighbour and her family were Orthodox Jews. And so, however close the two women felt, there were always immense practical and social barriers that conspired to keep them apart: I can remember Jane saying to me on one occasion: ‘It’s so difficult – sometimes I just want to say to her on the spur of the moment, “Why don’t you just drop everything and come round and have some lunch?” – but I can’t, and she can’t: the Jewish dietary laws simply won’t permit her to do that.’ On another occasion Jane wanted to take her Jewish friend out to a concert, for which she had a spare ticket: but her friend couldn’t go, because it was Shabbat - the Jewish Sabbath - and the timing of sunset that day made it impossible for her to do so.
Now, of course, the reason why Jewish religious law makes it difficult for Jews to socialise with non-Jews is that that is what it is supposed to do. The Jews have a real sense of their distinct religious and cultural identity, and their role as God’s chosen people, which brings with it both privileges and weighty responsibilities. This is why it is such a terrible thing for the child of an Orthodox Jewish family to marry outside the faith. I was hearing yesterday about a Birmingham man who used to take his teenage offspring down to London to do their socialising, simply because the pool of young Jewish people in Birmingham wasn’t deemed to be large enough for them to have much chance of meeting eligible marriage partners here.
And, of course, it was to this orthodox Jewish culture, with all its clearly defined religious practices, and customs, and rules, that Jesus, the twelve disciples, and St Paul all belonged.
It is important to remember this when we try to make sense of biblical texts such as the one we heard as our first reading this morning, from the Letter to the Ephesians. Because only then can we begin to recognise quite how astonishing, quite how mind-blowing, and quite how radical the Christian faith truly is.
St Paul was never in any doubt that the Jews were indeed God’s Chosen People - set apart from the other nations to take on a special role and a special responsibility in the outworking of the purposes of God. But Paul also came to realise, with alarming and startling clarity, that, with the death and resurrection of Christ, all of that was suddenly and dramatically blown apart: the boundaries that had previous separated Jew from Gentile no longer counted for anything. Because membership of the People of God was no longer defined by adherence to the practices of the Jewish Law, as had previously been the case – but through faith in Christ.
That is why Paul was so bitterly opposed to those Jewish followers of Christ among his contemporaries, who tried to argue that in order to become a Christian you first had to convert to Judaism, requiring you to adopt all the religious observances of the Jewish faith, including circumcision and food laws. In opposing this, Paul’s logic is devastatingly simple: it has to be the case that salvation now comes through faith in the crucified and risen Lord, rather than through faithful adherence to the Jewish law. Because if salvation were possible through any other means whatsoever, then Christ died in vain. So Paul had no objection at all to Jewish Christians continuing to observe the Jewish Law that they had grown up with, if they found it helpful – what they must not do is to require this of new Gentile converts. Because in Christ the distinction between Jew and Gentile that was once so absolute has simply dissolved.
This is why, in our reading from Ephesians this morning, the author, addressing a new church of Gentile Christians, writes this:
Now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace. In his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.
Jesus was supremely good at dismantling the barriers that separate people from one another. He does it all the time in the Gospels, defying Jewish law and Jewish custom by actively seeking out the marginalised, the rejected, the disreputable and the social outcasts – precisely those whom the Jewish law had defined as ‘unclean’ and untouchable.
But Jesus did far, far more than simply defying the boundaries of social convention to reach out to the friendless and the excluded. Because by dying a shameful, humiliating criminal’s death on a bit of wood, he himself became, in the eyes of the Jewish law, accursed. He actually became one of the excluded. He went to that dark, dark place and he made it his own.
The point being, of course, that, as we know, the story did not finish there. Because the death of Christ marked, not an ending, but a new beginning: the inauguration of a different kind of world in which things can, and should, happen differently. A world in which all the most powerful and insuperable boundaries that had hitherto defined human life have simply melted away. It was that very darkness that became the source of new light; it was that very shame that was transformed into glory; it was that very death that became new life; because ultimately love proved stronger than death: Christ had died, but death could not hold him.
And seen against that background, the barriers that separate us, one from another, can suddenly begin to look like the unnecessary and futile and damaging human constructions that they truly are. And yet, sadly, as a species, we can be very attached to our boundaries. After all, they give us a sense of identity; they help us to feel safe; they help us to know who and what we are; they give us status and a feeling of belonging, precisely by differentiating us from those who are not as we are. We are very good at putting up boundaries, often where none need exist. We like to distinguish between insiders and outsiders, particularly when it is we ourselves who are on the inside.
The Botanical Gardens, just down the road from here, first opened in the summer of 1832 for the benefit of a very small and select group of people. In 1844, the decision was taken to open the gardens one day each week to admit those who were deemed to be (and I quote) ‘bona fide members of the working class’, for an entrance fee of one penny. Unfortunately, the day designated for their admittance was a Monday, which, if you think about it, neatly ensured that none of them would ever be able to come, because on Mondays they were all very busy being members of the bona fide working class.
And it is shameful to recall that that same kind of class and even racial apartheid, has of course been just as prevalent within the life of the Church throughout its history. When I was in the United States ten years ago, I attended a fascinating and memorable service at a church in Alexandria, Virginia, which had been built as a slave church. Interestingly, even to this day, the vast majority of its congregation are black. And, much closer to home, as many of you know already, St George’s Church, just down the road from here, was built in the 1830s precisely to be the servants’ church. (The great and the good, were, of course, worshipping here!).
And, sadly, the Church of today remains just as good at erecting boundaries, even within its own ranks, as it ever was. Not only is the Anglican Communion currently tearing itself apart over who is and is not welcome within its structures, but last week a group within the Orthodox Church produced a manifesto entitled ‘Confession of Faith against Ecumenism’, calling on the Orthodox Church to resist all ecumenical ties with Roman Catholics and Protestants: to reject not only the possibility of what it described as ‘common baptism with heretics,’ but even prayer with non-Orthodox believers. How sad. How very, very sad.
In the Gospels, the crowds flocked to Jesus. They flocked to him because they were in need, and because he turned away no-one. Roman Centurions, women of dubious reputation, the demon-possessed, children, tax collectors and sinners, he was there for all of them, without question, without distinction, and without discrimination. Barriers of social convention and moral rectitude simply dissolved around him; which is why those who experienced his ministry found not only peace, and an end to the suspicion and hostility that had hitherto characterised their lives, but also healing.
The Christian faith is not about being good: it is about knowing that we are loved; it is not about being acceptable: it is about knowing that we are accepted; it is not about being blameless and faultless; it is about knowing that we are all fallen and broken human beings, and that nevertheless God still loves us, and loves us passionately. The challenge for us, and it is a very real challenge, is to strive to shape our lives, and our own relationships so that we too can make that kind of living a reality.
Amen.