Sunday, April 21, 2013

Facing the “Other”

Sermon preached at Prestbury Methodist Church
09h00 21 April 2013.
 
Isa 56:1-8 
Act 15:1-11 
Mat 21:12  Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
Mat 21:13  He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers."
Mat 21:14  The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.
Mat 21:15  But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they became angry....

Textmy house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. (Isaiah 56:7) 

On Monday a bomb exploded in Boston.
This was at the end of the Boston marathon:  3 people were killed, and 140 injured.  Tragic / horrific / and completely unjustified. We weep with the families who are affected.
At the same time I was fascinated with the reporting:
Within hours, the news was telling us that the Taliban had struck. This soon became a Saudi national, a Muslim, an Indian-American[1] and an African-American[2]. Glenn Beck reported that the bombs had been set by people from the Middle East, and a Boston doctor who had emigrated from Syria was attacked in the street and accused of being a bomber. At present it seems that the police have identified two brothers from the former Russia – and now independent country of Chechnya.

So how does this happen?
It is called prejudice. It begins by asking: “Who are the people I fear the most?”
And then I blame them for my misfortune.
As South African this is actually very familiar to us:

Ø  Who do we blame when we struggle to find work? : The foreigners are taking our jobs

Ø  Who do we blame when someone breaks into our home? – It is the blacks.

Ø  Who do we blame when we have potholes in our roads? – It is the ANC.

Ø  Who do we blame when there is no petrol in the car? – It is the children!

This is called prejudice... and it is pointless me preaching a sermon against prejudice because we all know that we should not be prejudiced!
But the fact is – we are prejudiced.

For many years I was the minister of a congregation that was split down the middle: the one half of the church was English, and the other half was Afrikaans. When I preached in English the one half loved my sermon – and the other half complained. So I then preached in Afrikaans: guess what?
Well I had one of the old members of the church come to me and say:
“I wish our church could be like the Early Church. Unlike us, they all loved each other!” I was able to say to him: Uncle Cornus: the Christians of the early church were also divided by prejudice.

Remember the story I read from Acts: Paul and Barnabas found themselves in a disagreement with other members of the church. Some believed that in order to follow Jesus you needed first to be a practicing Jew:
Act 15:1  Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."
If you were not born Jewish you had to be circumcised before being baptised a Christian.  Paul, Barnabas disagreed with them.
Act 15:2  And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them,
“Dissention and debate”....Sounds like a church leader’s meeting?
Division has been there since the beginning of the Christian church: Can we learn from them – and how did they get out of it?
Acts 15:7: Peter stood up and said to them, "My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.
Act 15:8  And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us;
Act 15:9  and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us.
Act 15:10  Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
Act 15:11  On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will."

 1.     Admit the prejudice.
Acts 15:7 tells of Peter standing up to tell his story. If we read Acts 11, we see that Peter was prejudiced. He could not stand the Gentiles. But God taught him a lesson and he has had to admit his bias.
I am tired of people saying “I am not prejudiced”. Let us face the fact that we are all prejudiced.
2.  See God in the people around us.
Act 15:8  And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us;
We are all uniquely made. Each of us is made to be different. And each one of us is especially made!
3.  Accept that God has made us all to be brothers and sisters
Act 15:9  and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us......
Act 15:11  On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will."
Let me take us back to the dream of Jesus – Matthew 21 tells us that Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem and saw how the religious leadership were keeping the people from praying: so he quotes from Isaiah 56:7
My house shall be a house of prayer for all people
This place is for everyone: but somewhere our own personal preferences get in the way:Allow me to ask you – what is your prejudice? Who would you rather not see in here?
Foreigners
          Beggers
                   Black people
Someone of a different faith? How about Jehovah’s Witnesses or Muslims?
Perhaps your prejudice is against women preachers
Or is it homosexual people?

I am inviting you to join me as I admit my frailties:
I am inviting us to recommit ourselves to allowing the Holy Spirit to heal that fragile place.  And to make this a place where all are welcome!
Once we have done that we can then begin to practice a life where we show the love of God to all people outside of this place!

 

 

 



[1] Sunil Tripathi
[2] Mike Mulugeta

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