Posted by stpauls on June 18, 2010 under Contributors, Webmaster Blog | 
We have a mission. How we should pursue that mission used to be clear: we had the light of Christ and our task was to take that light into the darkness. Successful mission meant full pews, well-appointed buildings, and money in the bank. Today, we know that strategy is no longer effective. More to the point, it is of doubtful validity.
Our recent synod meeting told us that we have to adopt a different strategy, one that doesn’t rely on marketing techniques. When we go out into mission we should no longer assume that we are taking God to God-forsaken places. We must realize that God is already there, ahead of us. Our task is to discern what God is already doing, and then to participate in that ministry. We will not know the needs before we get there, and even less know all the answers.
We must move back into the neighbourhood. We may have to learn from people who do not identify themselves as Christians, and find God in places that do not look like our church. We must not fall back into a mode of self-preservation. We should invite people to become fellow travellers not consumers, disciples not adherents. Looking back over the past twenty-five years or so, we can see that St Paul’s has already begun to do this. We must move ahead with even more determination. This is not going to be easy, but we have no alternative, and nor should we look for one.
by Leslie Buck
Posted by stpauls on June 13, 2010 under Sermons |
[This sermon was written and delivered by The Reverend Dr. Yazeed Said on June 13, 2010, the Third Sunday after Pentecost.]
It is very tempting when a preacher comes to a story like the one we heard today from Luke’s Gospel to use it as a way of thinking about the Church including strangers. Christ seems typically approving of the sinner and not the Pharisee. And the preacher might feel like emphasizing that the Church adapts itself to new contexts and new strangers. Though this may not be a bad thought in itself, the picture in the Gospel reading and in our second lesson from Galatians seems to me a bit bigger than this. Jesus accepts an invitation from the Pharisee. He is not wholly refusing him and though he is forgiving towards the sinner, she is still a sinner. It is not that what she did was OK. There is something deeper and more central for us to think about in this Gospel.
Compared to this division of sinner and Pharisee, in the letter to the Galatians we have a different kind of well-known division: “We are Jews by birth,” says Paul, “and not Gentile sinners.” But, the real question for Paul is not who is better, but more what faith really is and what salvation really is. In the Gospel, the Pharisee seems to be a strict believer who claims to know who is in favour with God and who is not; the sinner woman is obviously not one in his eyes. The Pharisee who keeps the law and who is circumcised thinks that by virtue of all of that he is counted among the saved. Paul, in Galatians is saying something different, and the Church ever since has followed what he said: “We are not justified by works.”
There is nothing that we do, or that is in us, that can make us feel justified. Do not look to yourself to find your own justification. Look to God, who, in Jesus Christ, assures us that we are loved and healed. If you are in the midst of sinful uncertainty, like the woman sinner in our Gospel today, or post-modern Vancouver uncertainty, and you want to find certainty, do not look into your self, or boast of your own actions, but look at God. We are not going to tick off all the boxes that could possibly make us feel better. Instead, Paul says, it is no longer that I live, but Christ who lives in me. Seek the love of God in Christ, and out of all the joy that comes from it, say: “it is not me”; it is Christ that makes me loved.
The letter to the Galatians was written in response to a division in the Church of Galatia about the nature and identity of the Church and its relationship to the parent tradition: Judaism. Paul is writing as the Church goes through a difficult and painful discernment regarding the place of the law; and he says to it: “it is not us, it is God.” We cannot assure ourselves or heal ourselves through the law. But, only God can do that in Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit. For, if justification comes through the law, Paul reminds us, then, Christ died for nothing.
We are called to come to him empty-handed, for we entirely depend on him. Salvation is through the grace of Jesus Christ, which is for us Jews as much as it is for them Gentiles. The grace of Jesus is the centre of the Gospel story. The Pharisee makes his challenge. How can Jesus allow this sinner? Jesus does not simply say she is better than you; rather: if you do not think that you need forgiveness, he says, then you will love less. If you think that your debt is less than hers, you are the loser. She has a bigger amount of debt, but given how much she is forgiven, she loves more, she gives more, and she pours out more of her treasures.
And there is our challenge.
As Jesus looks at each one of us, who of us can say: “we do not need your forgiveness”? If we think we are ok, perfect in all ways, and lack nothing, Jesus is saying, why are you here?
The difficulty of the Gospel is that it does not simply go either with the legalist Pharisee or with the so-called “liberal.” The gospel does not grant you the grace of God through performing all the good works that one supposedly ought to perform. Neither does it say that the grace of God will not change you – a typical liberal illusion (that you are okay as you are and you do not need to change. If that were the case, then why are we here? Why do we need the Church?) The Gospel does not sit happily with the lazy and arbitrary nature of our modern culture with which we are so familiar here in Vancouver. The gospel does not work with lazy people. The woman’s sins were indeed things that are not simply to be accepted; and indeed, she is transformed. The gospel poses the question to us: Do you need grace? Are you hungry? Because, if you are not hungry but full, then go. You do not need to be here.
But, still I see that you and I are still here. We know that we cannot possibly survive, or have a fulfilled humanity if we did. We cannot face Jesus and say: “I am all right; I do not really need your forgiveness.” We have not yet lied that much. We are here seeking healing and aspiring for the food that is from heaven, as we eat at the table of the Lord. And the Lord sits at dinner with us in this place with all these sinful, disreputable, unhealthy, hungry, but also honest people gathered around seeking his grace, his healing.
And if Paul was talking to a divided Church in Galatia, then what about our divided Anglican Communion that made news recently again? If it does rupture apart at the end, we would not be good witnesses to a hungry divided world of our own hunger together. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of actions here or there, the point remains that we have a bigger mission in the world. For our primary calling is to tell the world that we all, from country to country, from culture to culture, we all hunger for Jesus. The point is not simply this identity or that, this culture or that, this language or that. The point is that we hunger for Jesus, who heals us all and invites us all to his table regardless of who we are.
In a world where the powerful take advantage of the weak, the world needs to see that this Church, this diocese, this Province, cares deeply with passionate compassion about the needs of the poor in Africa. We are not called simply to tolerate the presence of those who disagree with us. There are worst sins than that. But, it is more that we are saying that their hunger is in fact our hunger and we are hungry in as much as they are hungry and we need to show that together to a hungry world and divided world and a rather confused civilization. With Paul, we say: “it is not our righteousness; it is not our wealthy Western civilization that makes us good; it is God and God alone.” Do you need my forgiveness? Jesus says. If not, go. You will love less, even if you call yourself “a liberal.” Take your liberal arrogance with you and go. But, if your appetite for the truth is still there, then come and receive and open your hands, and the Lord will give you your heart’s desire.
May the truth and the grace of Jesus be the source of all our doings and of all our protests against divisions in the world and divisions in the Church, so that we may proclaim to the whole world with Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.”
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Luke 7:36-8:3 ~ Gospel Reading for June 13, 2010, the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.
Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him– that she is a sinner.”
Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.”
“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Galatians 2:15-21 ~ Bible Reading for June 13, 2010
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
Posted by stpauls on June 11, 2010 under Contributors, Webmaster Blog |
People might wonder what is it that we will hear today about Holy Land Politics that is not going to be just another routine analysis of the cyclical patterns of violence and injustice in Israel/Palestine. People in the Holy Land may have the sense that there is rather too much that we have talked about, and that we are suffering from issue-and-talk fatigue. I will not be very ambitious today to solve the problems of the Middle East with you in this hour. I will be sharing with you some thoughts and questions that are of wider concern in the region and the world. Jerusalem is where things happen that somehow seem to make a difference in other parts of the world. If you have been following the news in the last few weeks, they make it clear again that it is a tragedy that this ongoing crisis is yet to have the resolve of any firm policy declaration in the West, especially the State Department in Washington. So, perhaps it is not a bad thing to think and pray afresh about the quest for peace in that part of the world.
The question that a Christian should be familiar with in dealing with any kind of conflict is: Can we relate to a truth that is above everyone in conflict? Conflicts persists because we habitually encourage those around to agree with our version of the story, trying to prove that we are worse victims than those on the other side. The recent events in Gaza remind us again how we have a conflict where there is a massive self-delusion. It seems that the consistent line of Israeli policies has been based on an underlying delusion that military power and technological sophistication can guarantee the control of a conflict, let alone the power to continue expanding the settlements. It is as if power will allow diplomatic pressures to operate effectively as new realities are drawn on the ground. A Palestinian would reply and object suggesting that here we have a relationship in which the imbalance is enormous. But, there is also the idiotic politics that sustains the divisions among the Palestinians themselves, and the infantilism of the arms trade in detachment from actual international politics.
The analysis of the historical situation has not been lacking, and I will not go over that with you. You can ask questions about it later. These sources will confirm to us that there have been few moments in the history of the land that we call holy that have been less hungry for a hopeful future than today. The land’s possibilities and its hope for change have, across the years, shaped people’s rhetoric. The history of bloodshed, of dramatic tragedy, seems to be part of the land’s own destiny. This of course can nurture a sense of pessimism as well. Nothing will change, they say. Therefore, those who feel they are part of its mess are either unable to do much and succumb to a sense of helplessness, or they claim to have the answer to its problems, and begin actively to pursue what they feel to be the true path for peace. Yet soon they discover that their proactive attempts to work for a solution only add to the many layers of “fighting for space,” which shows how controversial the assertion of reconciliation is, when reflected upon simply by those who are unable to relate to a truth “from above” everyone. Many who speak of reconciliation today in the Holy Land have an exhausted impatience about them. They think they have the answer and regard reconciliation the expression of a quick, magical solution, cutting through a labyrinth of tact.
How are we to relate to such a fabric of deceit? Usually, political analysts, activists, and international leaders of all kinds have related to the conflict, not surprisingly, in political and sociological, and even at times psychological terms. In good Western fashion, they tend to relegate religion to the realms of the private in an attempt to achieve peace, because religion for them can never provide for a solution, but always for conflict. Religious fervour and coercive power is taken to be a dangerous mixture. Their differentiation, by the creation of the modern secular state, was seen to be the only way to secure peace. It is a complex matter for another lecture, but suffice it to say that it is a view that has been challenged as well, and I will take a different approach for the purposes of thinking about the Holy Land today. Other critics have argued that this founding myth of the modern state is historically and theologically inaccurate, showing that the distinction between politics and religion “was not discovered but invented1.”
But, this distinction between religious and secular spheres underlines the way we look at societies today. So, if you look at the website for World Religion Database, it will give you statistics of different religions in different parts of the world. This kind of division is again based on Western tendencies to understand religion as a distinct system of beliefs, which each religious group employs to connect to God, who is not provable, but is part of the different religion’s private habits and traditions.
Now, the history and the reality of the Middle East, however, give a different, more complex picture from this neat secular picture of society. And in this regard, there is much ignorance in certain Western circles, in the USA, and indeed in the UK; even, dare I say, at the level of government, which usually assumes that it has the answer to the difficulties and atrocities committed by Muslims. There is also something seriously odd about the picture some Texan Christians, for example, have of the Holy Land, and the total unawareness of the ancient Christian presence in Palestine and the Middle East, which has sadly encouraged certain policies taken in an atmosphere of unreality to be implemented.
I was once invited to speak at an Episcopal Church in Texas in the United States, where many of those who came to hear me were astonished to learn that I was both a Palestinian and a Christian. Therefore, they were keen to ask about how and when I converted. For many of them, a Palestinian meant only a Muslim, and therefore, only a terrorist! In reply, I said that I converted in 33 AD. Then, they were beginning to wonder how old I was. The effect of this story for us here is twofold: first it reminds us that when we think about Palestine, Israel, and indeed the Middle East, we should not assume that it is a monochrome culture; rather, at its best, the Arab world has been a pluralist world. Second, though I could not have an accurate date as to when my ancestors became Christian, the Christian presence in Palestine is as old as the Church.
If you visit Jerusalem today, you will find that every conceivable Christian church has a place there, from the ancient Orthodox Churches, the Greeks, the Armenians, the Copts, the Syrians and the Ethiopians to the different branches of the Catholic church, and the Western Churches that were established in the nineteenth century during the period of Western colonial interests in Palestine, like the Anglican and Lutheran Churches. These communities today are mostly comprised of what we call Palestinian Arabs. To this Christian presence, Islam was the greatest major development in the history of the Middle East, which, seems to have been welcomed and preferred to the rule of the Empire of Byzantium, given Byzantium’s heavy hand and the constant divisions between Christians, with different groups being suspicious of the theology of others.2 Today, the great Dome of the Rock stands as the most significant landmark of Islam in Jerusalem, and is the biggest among the many domes of the old city, which, with its beauty and the masses of the faithful found at prayer there, in many ways reflects the consolidation of Islam’s rule and presence for centuries, regardless of what this Israeli government or that would argue.
For these different groups, religion is not an optional extra. The seasonal celebrations of the Churches and the colourful liturgies that take place in the different churches, not least the Church of the Resurrection, commonly known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, are not an extra bit to what you normally otherwise do in life.
I am not sure if you have ever had the chance of attending an Orthodox liturgy, which normally takes hours. Not every Orthodox church has pews, for instance; people go in and out as the liturgy goes, so to speak, there is very little order in what the people are doing in the Church. Some would be following up with the general flow of chanting and conduct of the liturgy; others would be kissing and venerating icons and saying their own prayers, others are happily present, not all necessarily partake of Holy Communion, though they might have taken part in the praise and the singing of the liturgy. In other words, what goes on inside the Church and what goes on outside the Church is not wholly distinct. What Christians do inside the Church is reflective of what goes on outside as it is related to the Holy. Now, the same applies to the Muslim, whose ordinary day is marked by the intervals between the five prayer times that are as natural as having breakfast, or ploughing the fields. There is no neutral space in which religious people do religious things. The religious and ordinary are one and the same. The same applies to the orthodox Jew.
Therefore, if religion features the way it does in so much of the rhetoric in the Middle East, then the issues at hand would be better served if we relate to religion properly. It is more urgent especially when religion is used to assert power and affirm nationalist agendas. When a settler believes that his/her settlement in the West Bank is a call from God, or when the national aspiration of Zionism bases its claims on a religious narrative in the Hebrew Bible, and when a suicide bomber goes to blow himself up and says this is what God has asked him to do, then it is obvious to me that this is not just politics in the modern meaning of that word or sociology, though it is obviously partly that, but also religion.
It is often said that, until fairly recently, the different religious communities had a happy co-existence in the Middle East. The Arab world has always been a pluralist world. Historically, Islam managed to cope with internal diversity better than the Latin West. However, it is probably fair to suggest that all three religions in Jerusalem have something to be accountable for in their history. But, I would want to argue that it is the maintenance of this pluralist identity and the refusal of a monochrome culture that would save the region from the spectacle of religious extremism, not the relegation of religion to the realms of the private or the imposition of Western models of governorship.
I give a couple of brief examples here. The documents relating to the early Islamic period suggest that social relations between Muslims and others in Jerusalem were usually good. This early period begins with the conquest of Jerusalem some five years after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, ending with the occupation of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099. The reports about the surrender of the city to the Muslim conquerors are complex and are beyond our discussion now.3 There are many sources that refer to what is known as the Sulh (pact) between the conqueror and the conquered; all stress the sanctity of the city, with its churches, and the development of relations with the Christians. These reports emerged later in the 5th century as “the Covenant of Umar” (al-‘uhda al-‘umariyya), which many scholars see as a text that developed to include conditions that have no relevance to the period of the conquest, and that it received juridical formulation capable of meeting new developments at a later stage; but, the attitude to the city and its significance continued to stress its sanctity, and this meant that Jerusalem, though it had its governors, was not one of the administrative centres of what has became the Islamic Empire. The city was opened to large numbers of pilgrims “and no one day was the city free of strangers.”
Also, there are reports in the Ottoman period of how the Jews, who had no European power behind them and had to flee the Spanish Inquisition, were given refuge in Jerusalem and Safed in Palestine. To quote one Jewish Italian who visited Jerusalem in the 16th century and commented on Jewish life in Jerusalem, “Here we are not in exile as in our own country [Italy]. Here…those appointed over the customs and tolls are Jews. There are no special Jewish taxes…”
Professor A. Cohen, in a study on Jewish life in Jerusalem in 16th century, shows that an autonomous Jewish life in Jerusalem was encouraged and protected by Muslim rulers.4 Toward the latter centuries of Ottoman rule, while there are reports of increased dissensions between the Christian communities partly due to the attitude of European powers (dissensions that required the creation of a status quo to regulate relations among the Christians in 1757), relations between Christians and Muslims remained peaceful.5
My medieval Muslim friend al-Ghazali espouses a tolerant view of non-Muslims and grants many of them life in the next world. In his legal text, he shows how in understanding divine law as universal and equally applicable to all, Islam, like Christianity, refuses to make religious law either subservient to the social order or simply an aspect among other aspects in the political composite: its purpose is to transform social life. He recognized in himself the marks of conflict between political power and faithful obedience to revealed law, showing how there was a separation between religion and politics in medieval Islam, albeit unlike modern European styles.
It is very obvious when looking at the Middle East today that the different religious traditions do not live in perfect harmony. There are no quick answers to why this is the case. But, three major historical developments come to mind. First, there was the development of a national consciousness, which in fact owed much to Middle Eastern Christian thinkers. However, the resultant national Arab regimes became more accountable to Western powers than to the needs of their own people. Nationalism, therefore, ran out of political energy in the last few years, leaving a vacuum, which made it easier for certain forms of political Islam to spread.
Second, the creation of the state of Israel, which many people would argue was done for important historical reasons, produced another highly self-conscious body unknown in the history of the land. Some suggest that Zionism is also the fruit of the same national consciousness that developed in Europe and the Middle East in the nineteenth century. It is true that for two millennia, Jews in Muslim and Christian countries kept alive, through their religious traditions, a vivid image of their ancestral homeland. One could argue that Jews can never be Jews without some sense of belonging to that ancestral homeland. But, this longing had remained without political expression. Therefore, unlike all Palestinians today, the immediate forebears of almost all the Israelis were not present in Palestine before the twentieth century, and most of them not before 1948. Therefore, for the Palestinian Arabs today, Christians as well as Muslims, who had been accustomed to Muslim rule for about thirteen centuries, the advent of Zionism in the modern period came as something unexpected and incomprehensible. The Jewish belief in the homeland as a powerful religious identity would not necessarily in the eyes of Palestinian Muslims and Christians give them a political right for a state that meant displacing many of the original inhabitants in the process.
Here, I would also like to refer to the seminal work on the religious national conflict in Israel/Palestine by Rosemary and Herman Reuther in their book: The Wrath of Jonah. They examine the historical accountability of Zionism of the nineteenth century, together with the rise of Palestinian national consciousness. They begin with early reflections on the complexity of the significance of the land in the three monotheistic traditions. They present different stages in the development of Jewish thinking, and religious cult, in relationship to the land, pointing out that “Judaism” as a religion – in the sense of how we understand religion today – is a construct of a later age. Christianity came to be a “religion” as such slowly afterwards, institutionalised in the socio-political patterns of the Greco-Roman world, culminating with Constantine as Christian universalism came to be identified with the universal Pax Romana.
The Reuthers show that the biblical narrative vis-à-vis the ownership of the land challenges much of what is shared in the present day Zionist rhetoric. Not only is the prophetic tradition clear about the meaning, significance, and accountability of the people of Israel towards God’s calling, but the Deuteronomist and Levitical writings also see the shaping of Israelite history as a purging away of those practices that do not reflect fidelity to God’s commandments. Later, the development of Rabbinic Judaism reflected a Judaism that freed the Jews from the requirements of the national cult and residence in the land, and fixed its laws in idealised memory. This means that it became possible to be a fully observant Jew anywhere in the world and to win a share in the world-to-come without residence in the land or pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. The land and the Temple become fixed in an eschatological hope with the return of the Davidic king. But, from a religious perspective, this also means that a finished account of ownership to the land as containing all Jewish meaning would make Judaism non-eschatological. The Reuthers point out that this belief “most decisively separates rabbinic Judaism, with its adaptation to life outside the land, or even within the land under conditions of Gentile over-lordship, from modern Zionism.’ They find in Rabbinic Judaism a critique of the modern state of Israel.
Saying this, the Reuthers are aware of how hard it is to make such claims with any Christian sincerity; for, they remind us that Christianity has hardly been conspicuous about living with this sense of eschatological hope, and has claimed finality in a way that has been the cause of so many tragic records of anti-Semitism culminating in the horrors of the last century. For this reason, they trace contemporary Jewish and Christian responses to the Holocaust, the dilemmas of local Palestinian Christian theologians with the biblical narrative, and they end the book with a reflection on what kinds of paradigm shifts in the self-understandings of the monotheistic faiths are demanded today, if the peoples of three faiths are to share the Holy Land today in peace and justice.
The third point I would like to make is in relation to the military policies of the West. President Bush is famously remembered for suggesting a crusade in the Middle East. This, as expected, has affected the relationship between the different religious communities in the whole of the Middle East, and certainly in Palestine, especially between Muslims and Christians. For some Muslims, Christians are aligned with the West’s policies. This has created certain tensions on the ground. There have been increasing stories of conflict between Christian and Muslim families in Bethlehem, the likes of which we never heard before. This is to be seen in Palestine, and indeed in Iraq, and elsewhere. I think that it is not unfair to suggest that Western governments carry responsibility for this deterioration into antagonism within local communities, which some Christians attempted to leave as soon as they had an opportunity to establish themselves in another country with a viable life..
Therefore, Christian leaders in Jerusalem today would be very quick to stress the fact of the decrease in numbers of Christians, mainly because of the migration of Christians. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, migrating was a positive thing for Christians, a way of extending one’s experience and engagement with the wider world; but, in the latter part of the twentieth century, migration became a desperate measure to get away from the pressures. This is a sad fact for all religious groups; for the diversity of religious presence has meant a presence of social challenge. The presence of the Church and Church institutions, like schools, forces in practical terms both Christians and non-Christians who depended on these institutions to engage actively in public life. It forces the different religious groups to be professional in the wider public arena. Such institutions show that religious communities are not taken for granted as part of the public sphere, but it presses these communities to be also self-critical. This is healthy for both the society and the different communities involved, since it is the opposite of living in self-referential systems.
As the history of the Middle East and the coexistence of all three religious communities suggest a real capacity for a creative engagement, Christians, Muslims and Jews should look for a society that allows argumentative interaction. In the case of Jerusalem’s politics, this means that Israel needs to think hard about its reasons for existence as an exclusively Jewish state, and the implications that has on the way it relates, not only to its non-Jewish minority, but also to the wider region. It also needs to think hard about the implications of this pushing for a monochrome society. Pushing for a monochrome definition of the country is inward looking and leads to an inherently unstable future, and it explains perhaps why the long rule of Islam was indeed long, or longer than any other rule. The answer may be found in the way minorities are treated. In a recent monograph by Uri Bialer, a Hebrew University professor, on the relationship between the newly established State of Israel and the Christian community, he quotes the foreign minister of Israel, Moshe Sharett in the early days of the state saying: “The Christians are willing to tolerate Muslim rule over the Holy Sepulchre but not Jewish rule over the wretched Coenaculum.” For centuries, the Middle East has had the three main religious traditions playing a vital part in politics and society and culture. Without this interaction, the region is bound to be unstable and more vulnerable to the pressures of fanaticism. This means as I said relating seriously to the issues that face the different religious traditions.
In this case, the coming together of religious people has to discover anew that sense of trust in the possibility of liberation from violent struggle, in a way that genuinely opens possibilities. Religious faith can then be a liberating force. I do believe that Christians, and I chose to be one myself, should be concerned in making an effort to clarify something of what we can say about life in Israel/Palestine in a way that may raise good news to all concerned, taking us into fresh ways of thinking of the everyday life in the Holy Land, altering our customary ways of judging, which we usually tailor to our own advantage, whether we consider ourselves left wing pro-Palestinian, or right-wing pro-Israeli.
Good News tends often to appear only in the light of difficult news for all as well; for, Good News nudges us with a new quality of thinking about politics and freedom for both sides. For, it seems to me that the situation will not change by someone being judged completely innocent or guilty. It is not that one side is wholly evil and the other side is wholly innocent. It is more that we have a shared narrative of pain, violence and, in good unfashionable religious terms, “sin.” Going forward beyond this condition requires a measure of openness for each side to see itself in the light of the other. In other words, Israel needs to see itself in the eyes of Palestinians, and Palestinians need to see themselves in the eyes of Israel, to see the reality that has been driving certain kinds of policies from the perspective of the other. If this can be done, change might happen.
Christians learn the significance of this from Jesus’ own story, who is the victim whom we proclaim Lord. For, in facing this victim, we come to terms with our true humanity. And in facing our own victims today, we will have a better grasp of our true identity, however painful this may be. There ought to be a third party that pushes both sides into this process of seeing one another more clearly. In the present circumstances, I am convinced that without America’s pressure, nothing would happen, but it should happen in a way that allows for a measure of healing, too, through this process of mutual seeing.
Footnotes
1 Cavanaugh, William: “‘A Fire Strong Enough to Consume the House’ The Wars of Religion and the Rise of the State,” in Modern Theology, 11:4, October 1995, pp 397-420.
2 Herrin, Judith, The Formation of Christendom, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1987.
3 Asali, K. J. Jerusalem in History, Olive Branch Press, New York, 1990, Ch. IV.
4 Cohen, Amnon, Jewish Life under Islam: Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, Mass and London, 1984.
5 Asali, Chapter 7.
Posted by stpauls on June 2, 2010 under Contributors, Webmaster Blog |
Submitted by Dorothy Barnes
At Synod 2010, we were shown a documentary describing the fate of two Japanese-0Canadian churches in Vancouver. After the end of World War II, many Japanese-Canadians returned to the Vancouver area from internment in the interior of B.C. to find that, without any consultation, the Church of the Ascension in the Fairview area and Holy Cross on Cordova St. had been sold by the Diocese of New Westminster. The only answer given to these Japanese congregations when they asked the question, “What have you done with our churches?” was “They have been relinquished.” There was no apology given for what had happened.
During his response to the documentary, Bishop Michael Ingham remarked ”Racism is, and has been, part of our church and we should confess it and repent of it.”
In 2008, the JC-VCC (Japanese Canadian-Vancouver Consultative Council) was researching the question ”What have you done with our churches?” Bishop Michael met with the Council and, when it became obvious that some troubling facts were emerging, his response was ”Be fearless with the truth.” And indeed, there appear to be ongoing discussions with the Consultative Council regarding the best way to name the truth of what happened and formally apologize.
Posted by stpauls on under Contributors, Webmaster Blog |
Submitted by Rachel Jones, St. Paul’s Youth Delegate to Synod
As all of you may know by now, my name is Rachel Jones, and if you don’t know; well now you do! I am your Youth Delegate representing St. Paul’s and will be doing anything and everything involving the Diocesan Youth Movement. This was my first time attending Synod and I really have nothing to compare it to. But from what I could see and hear everything was very thorough and when an issue came up it was dealt with then and there. I did, however, find it somewhat long, as did the guy behind me who promptly fell asleep during the whole financial segment and did so in front of a whole panel of people on stage. This of course included the Bishop! With that being said I do know things had to be talked over and worked on.
Since I was St. Paul’s Youth Delegate, I got to go and have lunch with Bishop Michael Ingham across the street at the prestigious Hotel Vancouver. During our lunch which all youth delegates attended we talked to Rabbi Robert Daum. Questions were asked about where the Jewish children worship. The Rabbi answered by stating that they go to a synagogue. When they go away on trips they go to Auschwitz and end up in Israel at a Kibbutz. The Bishop himself had talked about previous trips the delegates had been on. In the coming year, he hopes that the youth will be able to go on one of two trips: Thailand or France. Over all, my experience was great. I hope to be going on the trip to France.
Posted by stpauls on under Contributors, Webmaster Blog |
Synod Report April 2010 by Leslie Buck
On Saturday April 17, 2010, synod delegates attended a workshop at St Dunstan’s Aldergrove, where Alan Roxburgh and Sara Jane Walker of the Roxburgh Missional Network addressed how parish churches should develop their missions. The workshop was presented to promote the Diocese of New Westminster’s Policy on Vital, Sustainable and Strategic Parish Ministry. The presentations were enthusiastically received by a large gathering of parish representatives.
In reporting what was heard, it is easier to recount, to begin with, what we were told not to do. First, don’t pull up the drawbridge, isolating ourselves from the community around us, especially when that community has changed its character. If we do that we might just as well fold up without delay. As far as St Paul’s is concerned, our predecessors did of course explicitly decide not to do that when they chose twenty-five years ago to engage with the gay community in the West End.
Secondly, and more to the point where St Paul’s is concerned, don’t look to improved and enlarged programs as a method for attracting new members. (To put it pejoratively, don’t rely on gimmicks.) This is not to say that we should not have programs, or that we should not ensure that the programs we have are well-designed and operated. The point is that we should not regard them as the means by which we are going to survive and grow.
St Paul’s is a parish with many programs, more programs in fact than some members are aware of. They are there to serve us, not to make converts. Many of our members, perhaps, find this idea difficult to accept. If we do not do these things for that purpose, they say, why should we do them? But this can lead us into unnecessary anxieties, looking for results that are not going to appear. To draw an analogy, we are not a supermarket seeking to attract customers who will purchase the items on sale, and we should not approach our mission in that way.
So what should we do? Our workshop leaders pointed us to a story in St. Luke’s Gospel (Lk 10:1-12). The story tells how Jesus sent disciples into the community ahead of him. Briefly, Jesus tells them to offer peace and then to accept what is given to them. The disciples are the ones who are to receive, not those to whom they go. The outcome of the mission is to be judged on the giving and receiving of hospitality. (It was for its lack of hospitality, the story implies, that Sodom was condemned.)
From this story, several points were developed. We should be ready to cross boundaries, looking for God in God-forsaken places. We should expect to find God already there and be ready to see what God is already up to. We should not go with an agenda, assuming that we already know what is needed (or that we can supply it). Nor should we go there looking for people like us who are going to confirm us in our prejudices. Only when we get there can we work out the next step. We should be prepared to experiment (and, it might be added, sometimes to fail), and to accept change.
In short, the workshop leaders were telling us to adopt not goals but an attitude. We should not set ourselves objectives of the kind that can be evaluated (double our membership in twelve months!), but learn to approach our task of mission in trust and with some degree of unpreparedness or, at least, lack of clear expectation. We need to recognize and respond to opportunities as they are presented to us.
Looking back at St Paul’s over the past fifteen years, I believe that we can see how we have sometimes done that. So the approach is not new to us: it simply has to be more widely recognized and embraced, first by parish leaders and then by all of our parishioners.
