“Finding Our Voice: Good news that crosses boundaries”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Text: Acts 8:4-25
A number of people recently shared with me that they have been on trips to Ireland. It sounded like they enjoyed the emerald isle immensely and, to be sure, there are many things to enjoy about the geography, history, and sites of Ireland.
I was born and raised there, of course. My father was a Methodist minister and so we moved a few times before I was any age. It was shortly after my fifth birthday and the completion of Grade 1 that my family moved across “a thing” called a border and north into the city of Belfast. Belfast was an active city in the 60s and I continued my education and growth. But it was the education I received after the civil rights marches of 1969 and 1970 that was different than anything most North Americans experience. I quickly learned after 1969 that I was not permitted to support the Scottish football team that I liked, Glasgow Celtic, they were “the other side.” I quickly learned that there were parts of the city into which I had better not go. I quickly learned that if anyone ever asked where I was born, I was to say, “Belfast,” not Cork in the Republic of Ireland where I was actually born. Very quickly the community divided, Protestant and Roman Catholic, those who favoured ties with Britain and those who favoured ties with “the South.”
It was not just a division, there was an early form of ethnic cleansing, in the sense that Catholics living in largely Protestant areas were told that it would be best if they were to leave, and Protestants living in predominantly Catholic areas were told likewise. A few streets over from my family home, a Catholic family refused to move, they liked their home and location. On the night before the Orange parades of 1972, a large bonfire was erected against the wall of their house and was set on fire. The message got across. What I witnessed was a complete polarization of a society. One side hated the other with such venom that it could felt in the air. Civil rights marches were succeeded by violence, violence was succeeded by bombs and bullets, and the Irish “troubles” were set for the next 30 years. Boundaries were set up between one area and another, one religion and another, one people and another, even if they did come from basically the same Celtic stock.
Our reading this morning takes us into the world of Acts 8, Samaria, and Jewish-Samaritan relations. The Judaean people did not like the Samaritans. You will remember Jesus' parable, The Good Samaritan. The story's power is in the fact that the person they thought least likely to help the injured man was the one who actually did help. Judaeans did not like Samaritans. In a manner similar to the divisions found in Northern Ireland, they lived apart.
It went back to the separation of the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel after King Solomon in the tenth century B.C. The historical books of the OT portray the northern kingdom as wicked and idolatrous. Jezebel, for instance, her name lives on infamy, was a queen of the northern kingdom. They say that God allowed Sargon II, the Assyrian king, to destroy it in 721 B.C. Assyrian policy on defeated lands made things worse. The Assyrians would remove many people from a conquered land, particularly the leaders, and replace them with people from other conquered territories. The resulting influx of customs and alternate religious practices drove a deep wedge between the land that had once been known as Israel and the Judaeans to the south. The northern region took on the name Samaria and the Judaeans thought of them as half-breeds and idolaters. They did not worship in Jerusalem as the holy scrolls said (John 4:20). They did not accept the prophets or writings or the traditions of the fathers as Judaeans did. To make matters worse in the first century, some Samaritans made a foray into the holy city, scattered bones around the temple precincts, and defiled the sacred ground. Good Judaeans did not speak to Samaritans (Jn.4:9), they would not eat with them, a great psychological barrier was drawn between Judaean and Samaritan. It was like Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities, Sri Lanka's Tamil and Senelese communities, and black and white in the old American south.
In spite of the fact that Samaria was essentially a “no-go” area for Judaeans, Jesus ventured there. John 4 records a conversation with a woman at a well in Samaria. Acts 1 commanded the disciples to bear witness of him in “…Jerusalem, Judaea and Samaria, and onto the very ends of the earth (1:8).” It's as if Jesus were pointing out that the word of God does not stop at any border, the word of God crosses all man-made divisions, the kingdom of God is not just for one people, but for all people for all are significant in the eyes of God.
The theme is pushed a little further in this passage as we learn about Simon Magus. The thing about Simon Magus is that, in the first place, he is a magician and was perceived to have great power. Magicians in those days were not of the kind we associate with the David Copperfields of the world, or those who do little tricks for children. Magicians in days of old were those deemed to be able to control the external by the means of rituals. Many of the ancient religions had magical elements associated within them as the people tried to control events and their world. The sacred scrolls of the Hebrew people condemned practices of magic in all its forms. Magic, sorcery, divination were deemed false and abhorrent to the Lord. We can read, for instance, Dt.18:10 "No one shall be found among you...who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord...." Or in Ex.22:18, "You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live."
It is incredibly interesting that the gospel not only goes out to Samaria but to Simon in Samaria. The word about Jesus was not only for the decent chaps, but also for the Simons, the sinners. The gospel was crossing boundaries again,. The gospel crosses the boundaries of piety and sin, it is for all people.
But there is another thing about Simon that shows the gospel crossing boundaries. Simon, the text tells us, was a man held in very high esteem by the Samaritan people. He was “the big man” in their community. They said of him, “This man is the power of God that is called Great (4:10).” Simon was a great man and the ancient Hebrews had a name for the big man in a community, he was called the gadol, in Hebrew. The king, for instance was a gadol. Goliath was a gadol. David became a gadol. Samson was a gadol. In today's world, we might liken Donald Trump or President Obama to the gadol, people of power and influence. In ancient Samaria, Simon was a gadol, a great man.
One of the things I've noticed about powerful people is that they are perhaps the least likely to be approached with matters of faith and the gospel of Christ. Who is going to walk up to Marlon Brando's godfather character and say, "Godfather, you have been exceedingly wicked, repent and be baptized?" Who is going to walk up to the Queen attempt to have a conversation with her, get to know her, and go through the relational witness to Jesus that we've been talking about. It's just not on, is it? We don't do that sort of thing. Yet, the acceptance of the gospel in Acts 8 by Simon, the gadol, lets us know again that the gospel knows no boundaries. Even the great man, Simon, may turn to it.
I remember Dr. Stirling telling me a story of a personal visit that he made one afternoon. It was to a man who was the CEO of a large multi-national company. They chatted away for half an hour about life and family and business and before Andrew left, he asked the executive if he could pray for him and the man said, “Of course.” So both of them bowed their heads in this man's corporate office and Dr. Stirling prayed for him and his work and his family. He prayed that God would guide his work and his decisions, that God would help him through the good times and the difficult ones, that he would do the right thing for his company and for all those who worked for it. When he finished, together they said the Lord's Prayer. Andrew told me that as he got up to leave he could see tears welling up in the man's eyes. “No one ever prays for me,” the man volunteered, “thank-you.” God's word can cross all kinds of boundaries.
Then I wonder how much more this passage offers us in terms of what we have been thinking of this month; about how we might turn the tide of decline in mainline church membership and rethink the whole notion of bearing witness to Jesus. We have drawn on United Church scholars, such as John Webster Grant, who have suggested that we need to return to what is the primary task of the Church in all ages. We have noted our own church's Long Range Plan that encourages us to do what we have to, to see growth in our own small part of God's kingdom. Acts 8 lets us know that the gospel is for all people and that all human beings are significant in the eyes of God. Can we move forward with that in mind?
When I first started in ministry, I was the Assistant Minister at a Methodist Church near the Toronto airport. It was a lovely church with many faithful people, quite traditional in its worship and style and practice. I had known Paul a little from earlier days because the Kingsview Church was my home church in Canada, but while I was off at seminary and doing post-graduate research, Paul had gone off “the deep end.” By the time I entered the ministry at that church, he was struggling in life. He had left home, lived on the streets or wherever he could lay his head. He was strung out on drugs and his mother was beside herself. She asked if I could speak with him.
I still remember the day that Paul and I met for lunch. We met at a Swiss Chalet downtown. I arrived in my usual business suit, Paul arrived as though he had just been out “squeegy-ing” car windows; he had a long, dirty coat which covered a even dirtier denim jacket with studs and other paraphernalia. It was early days for the male-earring movement but Paul had piercings in various places. His hair was cut in a Mohican style, the skin on his face was taut, he looked older than his years. It must have been the strangest sight for many of the patrons that lunch hour. Many of them could not keep from staring at us. There were long gazes, some seemed to look down their noses at us, a number were talking about us - Paul looking like he had come in off the street and David looking like he was from “The” street.
Paul and I talked for a couple of hours in friendly banter as I learned what was going on in his life and encouraged him to look higher and aim higher. We had known each other from before, so he was generally at ease with me. But it was the constant gazes and comments made under the breath that I remember most about the day. Paul said, he was used to it, people always stared at him. I wasn't and it caused me to wonder why and wonder if people ever get past appearances. Paul may have been misguided at that time of his life but he was still a person, significant in the eyes of God. Thus, the question comes up, as we go about our lives, are we able to look past “surface-y” stuff and see the person? As we continue to think about a growing church, can we envision entering into supportive friendships with the Pauls of this world? Will we cross boundaries as Jesus and his disciples crossed boundaries?
It was in the same church two years later. Five minutes to eleven on a Sunday morning, the very traditional congregation was sitting observantly, waiting for the service to begin. Suddenly, a group of eight young men and women dressed in jeans, black leather jackets with chains, long untidy hair and voluminous earrings and nose-rings entered the sanctuary. The ushers gave them a very wide berth as they walked past and took up one and a half pews near the front. They looked like rough, like bikers, Hell's Angels or something. Who are they? I wondered. What are they doing here? Some congregants looked frightened, others just stared in disbelief.
The newcomers were quiet and respectful during the service and I plucked up enough courage to go a speak to them. To my astonishment, I found out that they were all eager Christians, graduates of Tyndale Seminary and had assumed the attire and presence they had in order to meet and influence a certain sector of young people. They had formed a Christian, heavy metal/rock band and looked the part. A few without knowing what I knew at that point, came up cautiously and welcomed them before they left. Well, curious-er and curious-er, they came back the following week, and the one after that, and actually became a part of that congregation for a couple of years. A few weeks in, I asked one of them how they tolerated the more traditional service and he said to me, “It doesn't matter, we've been welcomed here. We have been to countless churches around the city,” he continued, “no one ever spoke to us. We go and we come, they stay away. We don't fit their mode of Christianity. Here, people welcomed us, so we stay.”
Again, as we think of growing the church, the question comes to mind again, how do we treat people? I am very pleased to say that a woman said to me last week that she had received a lovely welcome from someone sitting near her and thanked me for the warmth of the congregation. However, she was well turned out. We still must ask ourselves, would those people with long hair and jeans and leathers be welcome among us? Could we cross over the boundaries of appearance and welcome people who are not like us and yet, like the Samaritans are significant in the eyes of God.
Final story: I was the Sr. Minister at Milliken Wesleyan Methodist Church in Markham before coming here. Milliken was a wonderful mix of immigrants from various parts of the world. One poll done in 1995 indicated that 38 different nationalities were present in our congregation, it was as though the world had come to Markham, Ontario. There were people from Jamaica, Antiqua, St. Kitts, Nevis, Guyana, and the U.S. There were South Africans, Irish, and Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Indians, and Dutch. There were Ecuadorians, Mexicans, And Basians, Domenicans, English, and a few Canadians among others. It was an amazing mix of people, a multi cultural church.
We have learned today that the gospel crosses boundaries, how would we feel about significant numbers of people who look different than most here now? It is a question that many older, mainline congregations must face.
Our city is supposedly one of the most successful multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-ethnic experiments the world has ever known. It is moving towards being 60 percent ethnic in its make up. We celebrate that. Our Canadian government has been championing multi-culturalism for almost 50 years and we all love to be Irish on the 17th of March. On other days, we love to be Greek, or Italian. We will talk about Hannukah, Chinese new year, Dewali and Ramadan. We have done well in getting along out there. But would we get along in here? Are we willing to fully welcome, engage, include, get to know, and appreciate everyone who comes through these doors? If our city approaches being 60 percent ethnic in its makeup and we want to see growth in our numbers, we limit the possibilities if we focus only on the 40 percent. So will we cross the boundary and accept that all people are significant in God's eyes?
I imagine that that for some of us, it is not a problem to be welcoming to people of all stripes, for others, it is something we must work at and we must ask ourselves, will we actually put ourselves out there and get to know the Samaritans, Egyptians, or Romans of this age? Will we really accept them by listening, inviting people to our homes, including them in all aspects of church life? Will we cross the boundaries that the early disciples did? To put it biblically, if our friends will not come to the banqueting table, will we go out to the highways and the bi-ways of life and invite others? In so doing, we honour Jesus, the Jesus who crosses boundaries and loves all of God's children.