Insiders and outsiders
James 2 1-10
Christ Church 10th September 2000
Need: What’s so amazing, Mass Culture
Memories of China. People watching me in the toilet, in the
hospital, on the street. Big nose.
I wonder how you felt when you
heard the news that 100,000 immigrants are going to be let into Britain every
year to make up a predicted shortfall in skilled workers. Or I wonder how you felt when you heard of
the racially motivated murders at the Notting Hill Carnival. What has the situation in Kosovo made us
feel? The rise of Neo-Nazism in
Germany? Or how do we feel about the
fact that black people in Britain are still 8 times more likely to be stopped
and searched by police than white people?
Today is Racial Justice Sunday and it challenges us all to look at our
hearts and to see how easily we can be threatened by differences of culture,
race, or religion. We may not be those
who would condone any violence or racism, but it seems to be part of the human
condition that we prefer our own kind whatever that means, and that we have
trouble with accepting difference in other people.
In our society there is a difference between who is in
and who is out. this can be at a
trivial Avril such as what fashion people are wearing water music they are
listening to, or it can be at the more serious level of being socially ostrich
lives and rejected for some reason.
So some are insiders and some are outsiders. But do we also need to guard against this tendency within the
church community? Do we draw
distinctions between people, thinking some are more in than out? We may have our own personal checklist of
who suits us, who we feel constable with, who thinks like us, whose theology or
worship suits us.
Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark.
Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.
Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made
unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.
The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards,
Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten ammendments.
The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the
apple.
The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.
Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700
porcupines.
When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang
the Magna Carta.
When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they
found Jesus in the manager.
Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.
St. John, the blacksmith, dumped water on his head.
Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to
others before they do one to you.
Listen to the story from the
beginning of the best-selling Christian book of last year, what's so amazing
about Grace? Story about prostitute on
page 11.
She was an outsider. Rather than being a place of grace and
welcome to her the church represented a place where she would feel rejected and
scorned. It is an old problem. Even in the church that James was writing to
it seems that the Christians there had a hierarchy-some were considered more
worthy than others. The poor went down
the pecking order, and were made to sit at the back. James said to them that the church is not a place for partiality,
for making distinctions between people, for echoing the prejudices and falls of
the wider society. It's a place of
acceptance. It's a place where those of
weak hands and of feeble knees can be accepted. It is a scandal says James that when God shows no partiality to
anyone, that we should even consider it.
But more than that, James says that
God has chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faithn and to be heirs of
the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him. It is the outsiders who are insiders. In church, there are no outsiders, only
strangers whom we want to be our friends.
In here all judgements about each other are suspended.
When Jesus met the Syro-Phoenician
woman and healed her daughter, this is what he was showing us. It sounds like a strange story, Jesus
telling her that the children's food i.e. the Jews food should not be thrown
through the dogs i.e. those who weren't Jews.
In fact it almost sounds racist.
Until we realize that Jesus was breaking enormous taboos of his time-not
only was he talking to a foreigner, but to a woman who had dared to enter the
public arena, and a woman who had a demoniac for a daughter. And when he called her a dog the actual
words used showed that he was turning what was usually a fierce insult into
almost a term of affection. It was as
if he turned a term of absolute abuse into something that sounded more like
"you old rascal," almost affectionate. His very action showed that he rejected the idea that most of his
contemporaries had that outsiders were disgusting, dogs, literally those to be
avoided. The Pharisees would have
believed that this woman was unclean.
But Jesus by his actions declared her clean, accepted, loved, no longer
undesirable.
Wouldn't it be great if we came to
church and said what a fantastic place it is to be here? Do you know it is such a relief to come here
because only here can I really be myself-I don't have to fool anyone, I am
accepted as I am. Because in a real way
it is only our weaknesses that make us open to gods love. I've heard of someone
who was world like that his college by his fellow students. There is nothing unusual about that, except
that he had a large red both Mark that ran from one by common then his face,
across his mouth, down to his neck, to his chest. One day, a close friend of his asked him, "tell me
this. How did you ever overcome the
emotional pain of your both Mark?"
"Oh," he answered quickly, "it's because of my dad. You see, he always told me sound, this, and
he pointed to my Mark, this is where an angel kissed you because he wanted to
mark you out just for your dad. You're
very special to me, and whenever we're in a group of people, I always known
right away when you are, and that you're mine." In our weakness, God marks us out as his. It's a big thing to think about what kind of
people we are being called to be if we really are to be a place where those
outsiders can find a place of belonging.
To be a community where those rejected by the taboos of our society are
accepted, to be a place of no distinction between people. But our starting point is in knowing that we
are broken outsiders who have been brought in, marked and loved.
I believe that in Jerusalem there
is a light and airy church very near the place which is believed to be the site
of the garden of Gethsemane. This church
is called the church for all nations.
That is not a bad title for every Christian church. May we strive to be a place where no
distinctions are made, no partiality is shown, no nations are excluded. May we be known as a place where those at
rock bottom may gravitate and find a welcome.
As more and more people are judged by the colour of their skin or the
quality of their lives we have an opportunity to be a home for those who are
lost and wondering, a place where the scandalous acceptance of God's love can
be made real.
Mike Riddell’s prayer - communion