“The Law that Liberates: the Ten Commandments Today” (1) “The God who liberates ... or any old god” (Exodus 20:1-3)

At the beginning of the series of articles, I want to make a few general comments about this whole series.

 

It is timely to speak to speak of the Ten Commandments today. Politicians – whether religious or not - are referring to these ancient Jewish laws a great deal these days. It is interesting (but not surprising) that the secular world often gives more importance to these commandments as a key aspect to the life of faith than do people who attend worship regularly.

• Traditionally, people who view religion mostly in terms of a set of moral rules and regulations are usually not the people who attend worship regularly.
• Traditionally, people who attend worship regularly know that there is much more to the life of faith. God offers unconditional grace, mercy, compassion, and love to all people ... regardless of our ethical standing.

In a sense, this series of articles may be an example of the secular world setting at least part of the church’s agenda. Sometimes, though, the church needs to let the world set its agenda.

 

And, for all people of faith, there has traditionally been a tension between “law” and “grace”. I believe that this is an artificial tension. 

• For each of the Peoples of the One God (for Christians, for Jews, for Muslims, and for others) God’s compassion comes first, before we do anything, before we can do anything. God’s compassion always precedes any response we would ever make. The one living God is always the God of radical grace.
• But, as well, for each of the Peoples of the One God, God’s compassion calls forth our own response of gratitude. And a significant part of our response always includes the ethical quality of our lives. 

The two go hand-in-hand.

 

And, in all this, there are those who always see legalism as someone else’s problem.

• Christians who see legalism as “a Jewish problem”, ... and not as our own problem.
• Protestants who see legalism as “a Catholic problem”, ... and not as our own problem.
• Mainstream Christians who see legalism as “an evangelical problem”, ... and not as our own problem.

Legalism is a temptation faced by all the people of God:

• Christian, Jewish, or Muslim;
• Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox;
• Mainstream, evangelical, or “progressive”. 

Legalism is a temptation faced by us all. We can all say, with the writer of the comic strip “Pogo”: “We have met the enemy, ... and he is us.”

 

And there also may be issues here of how we view the origins of these Ten Commandments.

• Some will view the giving of the Ten Commandments literally, in the way that the Book of Exodus describes it. Moses was up there on the mountain, getting the stone tablets directly from God. (Those of us who remember Cecil B. DeMille’s movie – with Charlton Heston as Moses and the late Yul Brynner as the Pharoah – may have very vivid visual images of Moses getting the tablets from God.)
• Others may view the origins in another way, as the product of a community of people in exile, under great pressure in their life together. The community sought to state their deepest core values in a simple way. The community also sought to link these core values intimately to the God who liberated them centuries before. 

I’ll put my own cards on the table. I prefer the latter view. (So do the majority of contemporary biblical scholars, both Christian and Jewish.) But, in reality, with either view, we are still invited to honour these ten ancient Jewish laws and to receive them with the utmost seriousness for our own life of faith.

 

And so, we read from Exodus 20:

 

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

 

To put capital letters in the right places, the passage reads:

 

Then God (big G) spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God (big G), who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods (little g) before me.

 

In this first of the commandments, God identified Godself. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ...”. The one living God identified Godself as the God of liberation.

 

This is not just any old small-g god. This is the big-G God, the God of liberation. This is the God who took a gang of slaves and made it into a nation of free people.

 

The command not to have any gods before the One God was developed in a time before the Jews were strictly monotheistic in their beliefs. They worshipped the One God but that did not mean they denied the existence of the gods worshipped by other peoples.

 

This command was first seen in these terms: “Of all the possible gods to worship, the One God whom we worship is the One who has liberated us. Worship this God, rather than any of those gods who have not liberated us.”

 

Since that time, our idea of God has developed. All of the Peoples of the One God believe that there is only the One God to worship.

• The God whom we worship as Christians is the same God whom Jews and Muslims worship.
• The God whom we worship as Christians is the same God whom Sikhs and Baha’is worship. 

There is only the One God to worship.

 

But, even with this later understanding, there are some people, in each faith tradition, who do not grasp the one basic reality about this One God. The One God is the God of liberation: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ...”. 

 

I believe the commandment, “ ... you shall have no other gods before me”, tells us today that we should not be content with any lesser god, any small-g notion of god, that is not the Big-G God of liberation.

 

And there are many people in the community, and even some people in churches, who are content with a small-g notion of God. There are many people whose idea of God is somewhat similar to their idea of someone else, someone of whom we sing at another time of the year:

 

He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice. 

Going to find out who’s naughty or nice.

 

These people have a god who exhibits a selective love, a god who operates on a scheme of rewards and punishments, rewarding those whose behaviour meets certain standards and punishing those whose behaviour doesn’t. This is a small-g god, a godlet even, far smaller that the Big-G God of liberation. I believe that those who are content with worshipping this little godlet have put some other god before the One Living God.   

 

The One Living God calls all the people of God, all the Peoples of God, to a worthy understanding of God; a Big-G understanding of the One Living God

• the One Living God who liberates slaves,
• the One Living God who loves the whole creation,
• the One Living God whose compassion, mercy, and radical grace are eternal. 

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

 

  

"To be ecumenical in Tasmania is to be very ecumenical indeed.": report of the Liaison Officer of the Tasmanian Council of Churches to the TCC's Annual Meeting (Saturday, 27th June 2015, Launceston).

As I prepare this report, I do so knowing that this is a report both on my past year as Liaison Officer for the TCC and on my past three years as Liaison Officer.  In many ways, this is also a reflection on a career of thirty-five years of ordained ministry with a strong personal commitment to the ecumenical movement, including a total of twelve years (in two distinct blocks of time) spent as an ecumenical staffer here in Tasmania. 

(Please note that any comments made in this report are comments I am making to the Annual Meeting, and are not statements being made by the Tasmanian Council of Churches.  As well, when I speak to this report at the Annual Meeting, I will make some appreciative comments about others which are not found in this written report.)

Anyway, I’ll try to be brief.

To begin with, to be ecumenical in Tasmania is to be very ecumenical indeed.  Tasmania is the spiritual home of ecumenism in Australia, and has been so ever since the friendship of the colonial chaplains Robert Knopwood and Philip Conolly in the early years of Hobart Town.  Over the years, Tasmania has thankfully escaped the worst of the destructive sectarian bigotries that have provided long-term damage to relations between the churches in some mainland capitals.  In 1970, the Tasmanian Council of Churches became the first ecumenical council in Australia (and one of the first in the world) in which the Roman Catholic Church is a member. 

Like many similar ecumenical bodies, this Council has experienced mixed fortunes over the years since those heady years of ecumenical optimism following the Second Vatican Council.  In many ways, like many other ecumenical bodies, we’re unsure about our task, our focus, and our future.  The current ecumenical malaise is not unique to Tasmania or to Australia.  It has many sources, not least of which is the fact that bitter and divisive internal arguments within many denominations have led to a general lack of emotional energy for ecumenical involvement on the part of many church leaders and other active participants in the life of the churches.

Here in Australia, this lack of focus for state-based ecumenical bodies has been complicated by the decision by Act for Peace a few years ago (in my opinion, a very unwise decision) to remove the “sharp end” of Act for Peace promotion (including Christmas Bowl promotion) from ecumenical bodies based in the states.  This decision has created an unnecessary geographical barrier between these excellent programmes and the lives of local congregations.  It has also removed one significant area of direct relevance for bodies such as the TCC in the lives of local congregations.

Nevertheless, I believe there is still a great necessity for a body such as the TCC within the life of the Tasmanian community.  To give merely two examples:

·        If we did not provide an institutional base for the ecumenical and interfaith Emergencies Ministry, such a base would need to be created.

·        If we did not provide a link between Jane Franklin Hall and the churches, such a link would need to be created.

But, at a broader level, the need for an ecumenical body such as the Tasmanian Council of Churches is grounded in the need for the churches to have a forum in which we can speak with each other in terms of the faith we share, the ministry we share to our community, and on our differing perspectives on our shared faith and ministry, and to take shared action within the community on the basis of what we have learned from each other.

And, sometimes, this process leads to public statements by church leaders.  In my observation, one of two things normally happens when a group of church leaders makes a public statement:

·        A group of church leaders makes a well-researched, well-argued, nuanced, and compassionate statement on indigenous people, refugees, asylum-seekers, immigration, the homeless, the unemployed, etc. … and the statement is ignored by most – if not all – media outlets. … or …

·        A group of church leaders (including many of those involved in the first statement) gets hot under their collars over an issue related to sex … and the coverage gets a huge amount of airtime and column inches.

The reason for this difference in coverage is easy.  The first example doesn’t make for an entertaining news story, while the second does.  And the reason the second example is considered so entertaining is that it reinforces the popular (and negative) fictional image that many of our neighbours have about those of us who inhabit the Christian churches in our communities. 

This situation is even more critical when we add to it the long-running public issue of child sexual abuse in religious, educational, and other institutional contexts.  None of our member churches are untouched by this issue.  It threatens our moral credibility in all areas of each of our churches’ lives.  All faith communities in this country need to realise that, collectively, our moral credibility with the wider community – and with much of our own membership - on issues of sex is now precisely zero, and that we need to rebuild our credibility on these issues from the ground up. 

In response to this, I personally believe that (until the day in the future when every faith community – Christian and otherwise – in Australia has fully dealt with issues of child sexual abuse in their own contexts) all faith communities in Australia need to establish a voluntary moratorium on any public comment on issues relating to sex.  Yes, let’s talk about these issues within our own communities and among our diverse communities, but let’s keep these conversations reasonably in-house until we’ve re-established our moral credibility on these issues. 

In terms of reporting on my own work as Liaison Officer, I’d prefer not to concentrate on the time spent sitting in front of a computer screen, or on the telephone organising meetings, or similar tasks.  I’d prefer to speak of a few events which were among the highlights of that part of my job description that deals with promoting relations among the churches.

1.     Soon after my return to Tasmania in 2012, I started to regularly attend the monthly Pints of Faith gatherings.  These gatherings are an opportunity to build community and discuss issues of faith and life in a casual setting over a meal.  While it was developed for young adults by Catholic Youth Ministry, a real diversity of ages and denominational backgrounds can frequently be found in these events.  Attending these gatherings provides a good opportunity to relate to some younger adults who are strongly committed both to their own church and to the wider Christian faith.

2.     As a result, initially, of being a member of an interfaith panel at one of these Pints of Faith gatherings (in which a leading Mormon was another participant), I’ve increasingly been receiving invitations to attend various regional gatherings of the Latter-day Saints.  In attending these gatherings, I find myself encountering a community that regards itself as profoundly Christian and is profoundly saddened by the fact that many Christians do not regard them as fellow-Christians.  I find myself encountering a community that seems earnestly sincere in its desire to build its ecumenical and interfaith relations, but which is saddened by the level of prejudice it sometimes encounters.  Despite the theological eccentricities and the excessive (in my opinion) social conservatism of the LDS, I see something profoundly decent about this community of Christians.  Those of us involved in ecumenical Christian bodies such as the TCC really need to get to know our Mormon neighbours.

3.     I was asked by the youth worker of All Saints’ Anglican Church in South Hobart to assist her in designing a programme on ecumenical and interfaith relations for the church’s young adult group.  In the process, we developed a series of gatherings in which people from various Christian churches – and from other faith communities – met with the group and shared some of the beliefs and practices of their communities, and enabled the All Saints’ people to do the same kind of sharing.

I personally believe that there still needs to be someone in Tasmania whose job description in her / his “day job” includes an active concern for the well-being of the relationships among the Christian churches in Tasmania and among the wider range of faith communities in Tasmania.  As the Tasmanian Council of Churches continues the process of searching for a person in this role, I wish my successor (whomever she or he may be) well in this task.

In this context, may I plead that whoever is chosen for this role is someone who already knows Tasmania well.  In my observation over the past thirty-five years (twenty-one of which were spent in Tasmania), many Tasmanian churches (and other areas of Tasmanian life) have been badly hurt by those in high profile roles who arrive from interstate with no local knowledge, and no real respect for the intelligence and wisdom already present among Tasmanians.  The “mainland guru” arrives with a sense of “I’m an expert; listen to me,” and frequently departs, leaving a great reserve of resentment.  I believe a track record of solid respect for Tasmanians needs to be a prerequisite for such a role.

In closing, the late Krister Stendahl, a Swedish Lutheran theologian who served as Professor of New Testament at Harvard, as Bishop of Stockholm, and as a participant in many ecumenical and interfaith dialogues, formulated “Stendahl’s Laws of Religious Encounter” in the 1980s.  These are as relevant now (both for ecumenical relations among Christians and for interfaith relations) as they were when they were first proposed.  In a simple way, and somewhat paraphrased, they are:

1.     When attempting to learn about another faith community, first listen to the community’s adherents, not the community’s enemies.

2.     Compare like with like.  Never compare your own community at its best with another community at its worst.   (Perhaps, for those of us who are inclined to be “ecumenical tourists”, we could also have “Faser’s Corollary to Stendahl’s Second Law”:  “Never compare your own community at its worst with another community at its best.”)

3.     Always leave room for “holy envy” (i.e., the feeling that there is something in the life of another faith community that you’d really want to see in your own).

For each of us, may we cultivate this “holy envy” in each of our lives and in the lives of our churches.

Grace and Peace,

The Rev. Dr. Bob Faser,

Liaison Officer.

Australian Prime Ministers as movie characters

Suppose Australian Prime Ministers were film characters.  Which characters would they be?  By whom would they be played?

Let's start with the iconic leaders of the two major parties:  Gough Whitlam and Sir Robert Menzies.  Each of these two dominated their respective eras (and the memories of their respective parties in the decades since their time) like Shakespeare's proverbial colossus.  They would need to be played as serious Shakespearean roles, by serious Shakespearean actors.  Let's say the late Sir John Gielgud as Ming, and the late Sir Laurence Olivier as Gough.

Looking at Whitlam's successor, Malcolm Fraser, this would involve an interesting casting dilemma. 

• The Fraser of the Whitlam dismissal would be a menacing character on the scale of Star Wars' Darth Vader. 
• On the other hand, the Fraser who first admitted the Vietnamese boat people, and who served as a voice of conscience for the nation on refugee-related issues (and other humanitarian issues) ever since he left active party politics would have been a character such as Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Darth Vader playing Atticus Finch?   Possibly.

With Bob Hawke, we move from drama to comedy; in particular, to British comedy of the Carry On tradition.  Bob Hawke (not only during his political career, but beforehand and afterwards) could most ideally have been portrayed by the late Sid James in any of his Carry On roles, a wheeler-dealer with the proverbial heart of gold, but with a definite eye for the ladies (not to mention an eye on his creature comforts).

Bob Hawke's successor (and party rival) Paul Keating seems to be a character from a "Spaghetti Western", the tall, thin stranger who rides into town with everyone remaining uncertain (frequently until well after the closing credits have rolled and the movie is being dissected over coffee) whether the character was a "good guy" (intentional or unintentional) or a "bad guy" (also intentional or unintentional).

John Howard, because his political career was defined by his relationship vis a vis George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11, needs to be in a "sidekick" role. 

• One of the great movie sidekicks was the Lone Ranger's friend Tonto, but I think John Howard (given his policies on immigration and related issues while in office) would object to being cast in such a non-Anglo role as Tonto. 
• Given the fact that Howard frequently spoke with nostalgia of life in earlier times in history, let's say John Howard could be cast in the role of that other classic sidekick, Barney Rubble from The Flintstones.

For the feuding ALP Prime Ministers who served for the two terms between John Howard and Tony Abbott, we get into the area of TV comedies. 

• For Kevin Rudd, I'm thinking of John Cleese's Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers (very well-intentioned, but sometimes lacking sufficient people skills to accomplish his desired goals). 
• For Julia Gillard, I'm thinking of any of the characters in Seinfeld (equally well-intentioned, but with a tendency to agree to requests which backfire spectacularly).

With Tony Abbott, we have a choice between a return to the Carry On films or a visit to the James Bond series of films. 

• On the one hand, Tony Abbott could be seen as any of the characters played by the late Kenneth Williams in the Carry On series. 
• On the other hand, Abbott could be a very convincing Bond villain.  (However, there were many convincing potential Bond villians in Abbott's cabinet, many of whom were even scarier than Abbott.) 

Even better, why not think of Tony Abbott in terms of Kenneth Williams playing the Chairman of the Board of a corporation whose Board mostly consists of Bond villains.    It works for me.

And then, having revised this post to reflect Tony Abbott's departure, finding an actor to play his successor, Malcolm Turnbull, is as easy as casting Gielgud and Olivier as Whitlam and Menzies.  Hugh Grant is the obvious choice:  suave, articulate, well-meaning in a bumbling sort of way (or should that be "bumbling in a well-meaning sort of way"), wanting to be one of history's "good guys" but prevented by circumstances from allowing his inner Atticus Finch from having too much of an outing.  The Hugh Grant of Love Actually is an ideal choice for the lead in Turnbull: the Musical.

“People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening”: a sermon for Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21)

“People talking without speaking,
people hearing without listening”. 

Sometimes language has its limitations. In fact, sometimes language is downright confusing.

 

Words frequently change their meanings.

• In recent decades, the word “wicked” was high praise indeed in youth culture.
• There are some people in politics and the media who oddly use the phrase “do-gooder” as an insult (as if, strangely, it is somehow a bad thing to do good things).
• The word “gay” changed its meaning twice in most of our lifetimes. “Gay” once meant “jolly”. For many decades, it has meant “homosexual”.  Now, in some sections of youth culture, “gay” means “boringly pretentious”. In a sense, “gay” now – for some people - means the direct opposite of its earlier meaning of “jolly”.

Sometimes language has its limitations. In fact, sometimes language is downright confusing.

 

Sometimes, words can be used to conceal reality.

• If a politician, a religious leader, or a media figure says that he (or she) is “pro-life”, it may not say much about their attitudes to war, to famine, to highway safety, or to anything else except for the fact that he (or she) is against abortion.
• If some politicians, religious leaders, or media figures speak about “family values”, it may not mean that they want to make life better for families. It just means that they disapprove strongly of single parents, working mothers, unmarried couples, same-gender couples, and a few other people as well.
• If a comedian describes her (or his) comedy as being “edgy”, it may just mean that she (or he) often deals in cruel comedy, adolescent comedy, comedy that makes fun of people’s suffering.
• Many euphemisms have been coined to make it seem acceptable that some people lose their jobs as a result of boardroom shenanigans: “downsizing”, “restructuring”, and so on.
• Other euphemisms were coined to make civilian deaths and injuries during war seem somehow acceptable: “collateral damage” and so on.
• Then there’s the phrase “political correctness” (coined by some cynical smart-aleck in the 1990s) to lampoon the idea that people of all races, all religions, and both genders deserve to be treated with equal respect, courtesy, and dignity. 

Sometimes language has its limitations. In fact, sometimes language is downright confusing. 

 

In the area of people’s beliefs, there is further confusion. 

• The word “evangelical” was once a lovely word, and a word belonging to all Christians. It came from the Greek word for “good news”. “Evangelical” once referred to the Christian church’s belief that Christ transforms human life for the better – both for individuals and for communities. But, in recent decades, the more rigidly narrow sort of Christians have tried to take over the word “evangelical” as if it applies to them alone. 
• And then, there’s the word “humanist”. For centuries, “humanist” meant a well-read person of broad cultural sympathies, and a person who rejected racial and religious bigotry of any sort. But, in recent decades, the word “humanist” has become an “upmarket” term for an atheist or agnostic.
• In the popular corruptions of these words, “evangelical” and “humanist” have become mutually exclusive words. Using the real meanings of these words, it is very possible for a person to be an “evangelical humanist”. (And, in fact, I personally believe that the community, the nation, and the world in general would be a far better place if there were far more “evangelical humanists”.)

Sometimes language has its limitations. In fact, sometimes language is downright confusing.

 

It’s like the statement made in the comedy series “Yes, Minister”, by the bureaucrat’s bureaucrat Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by the late Sir Nigel Hawthorne. Sir Humphrey once described a bureaucrat as a person “who calls a spade a personal, hand-held domestic garden digging implement”. 

 

The experience of our culture:

• our culture which speaks with acceptance of “downsizing” and “collateral damage”; 
• our culture which lampoons normal human respect and decency as “political correctness”;
• our culture which regards a “do-gooder” as a bad person; 

the experience of our culture is one in which a spade is frequently called “a personal, hand-held domestic garden digging implement”.

 

This experience of our culture was once described in the song The Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkle as:

 

  People talking without speaking, 

people hearing without listening …

 

This experience was once told in an old story from the Hebrew Dreaming, a story about a time when the world was young, when people all spoke the same language, and when people in their hubris wanted to usurp God’s godhood. They built a tower at a place called Babel where they could reach up to the skies and become godlike. According to this old story, God’s response to human hubris was to confuse the languages of the people, so that people could not “play God”. 

 

In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, one of the gifts of the risen Christ was to reverse the experience of Babel. A big crowd was in Jerusalem for a major Jewish festival: Shavuoth in Hebrew, Pentecost in Greek. The festival celebrated God giving the Law to Moses. It was an important festival. Jews still celebrate Shavouth now. The festival today includes the eating of cheesecake, so you know it’s got to be good.

 

While the festival was in progress, something happened to the disciples. God’s spirit gave them the courage and the strength to talk about what had been happening during the past few weeks, months, and years; about what had happened in the life of Jesus, how he had conquered death, and how his conquest of death was significant for us all. Not only did God’s spirit give the disciples the gift of courage to speak. God’s spirit also gave the crowds the gifts of sensitivity and openness to listen.

 

Think about these two stories.

 

The important thing to remember about the old Babel story from deep in the Hebrew Dreaming is that this division into racial, national and language groups was because people were getting a bit full of themselves. 

 

It was never part of God’s original intention: 

• for races and nations to be divided from one another;
• for people to speak with acceptance of “downsizing” or “collateral damage”;
• for people to lampoon normal human respect and decency as “political correctness”;
• for people to regard a “do-gooder” as a bad person;
• People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening....

The experience of Babel was the experience of a broken world, a world that did not fulfill God’s intentions.

 

When the story of Pentecost was first told by the early Christians, it was told by – and it was told to – people who knew the story of the Tower of Babel very well. The presence of God’s Spirit that the first group of Christians experienced soon after the first Easter was explained in terms of a reversal of that old story from the Hebrew Dreaming, the one about the big tower.

• In the Babel story, God confused people’s speech so that people who could once understand each other could no longer do so.
• In the Pentecost story, God “un-confused” people’s speech so that people who once could not understand each other could now do so. 

If the Babel story tells us how racial and national divisions among people are a result of people being far too full of themselves, the Pentecost story tells us that being full of God’s Spirit, being God-intoxicated, can lead us to know that, from God’s perspective, all humanity is a single family.

 

And so may it be for us all. 

"What part of 'God is love' don't you understand?": a sermon (1st John 4:7 through 5:6)

It was Abraham Lincoln who once said, as a piece of advice to his political colleagues:  

“You can fool all of the people some of the time.
 You can fool some of the people all of the time.
 But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

I’d like to paraphrase that saying for use within the context of the Christian church:

"Some people believe God loves all of the people some of the time;
other people believe God loves some of the people all of the time;
but, the truth is, God loves all of the people all of the time.”

We hear this in our lesson from the First Letter of John, and I’ve deliberately combined last week’s lesson from First John with this week’s lesson, which follows on immediately, as it continues the same train of thought.

This passage is a celebration of God’s love. In fact, the lesson goes so far as to say that “God is love” ... and it makes that statement twice: “God is love”.  

Sometimes, however, when I speak to some religious people, I frequently have the urge to ask, “What part of ‘God is love’ don’t you understand?”

But still we hear the statement: “God is love.”Now there is an ethical edge to this lesson. We cannot say we love God without an active love for the people around us, and for all humanity. There’s always an ethical edge to our faith. 

But this love of God is not captive to our human ethics. Our love for God is preceded by God’s love for us.: 

“In this is love, not that we loved God but that ... [God] … loved us….”

Our love for God is always preceded by God’s love for us. Thus we can say:

“Some people believe God loves all of the people some of the time;
other people believe God loves some of the people all of the time;
but, the truth is, God loves all of the people all of the time.”

 

“Some people believe God loves all of the people some of the time ...;”

There are some people who believe that all people need to earn God’s love continually. According to their view of God, God only loves those whose good deeds outweigh their bad deeds. And as for the others, well ... that’s their problem.

People with this sort of belief imagine that God is sitting up there in the clouds with a big book, listing our deeds and weighing them against each other. As we sing about someone else at another time of the year:

 

“He’s making a list, and checking it twice,
Going to find out who’s naughty or nice….”

 

People with this kind of God can be very, very nervous people. They’re worrying how they’re balancing out in terms of good deeds versus bad deeds. They worry, for example, if that last dirty thought they’ve had was bad enough to outweigh the few dollars they gave the Salvation Army the other day. 

I once encountered this view of God very vividly. I had only been ordained for a few years. I must have been wearing my clerical collar that day because, after I had crossed a city street - against a red light, a drunk staggered up to me and said, “Hang on, mate. I thought your job was to tell the rest of us to obey the rules.”

This man had somehow developed a view of the Christian church that saw the church as made up of very negative, condemning, and uninviting people - particularly its ministers. 

Perhaps this was because somewhere, back in that man’s past, he experienced a negative, condemning, and uninviting church of some sort. They are out there, you know.

Perhaps in this church, he was taught a view of a very negative, condemning, and uninviting god. 

If so, it was a very destructive view of God that he learned, but it’s also a view that’s all-too-common in our culture. 

“Some people believe God loves all of the people some of the time ...;”

And some of us ask, “What part of ‘God is love’ don’t you undertand?”

 

“... other people believe God loves some of the people all of the time ...;”

 

There are some people who believe that, to earn God’s love, you just need to believe all the right things. And, preferably:

• you need to use the right religious jargon to talk about all the right things you believe;
• you need to have made a public affirmation of these beliefs at some occasion;
• you probably need to go to a church where everyone else believes all the right things; and
• you definitely need to persuade other people to believe the same things as you.

People with this kind of God can also be very, very nervous people. They’re not worried about themselves usually. They know they’re “right with God”. But they may be worried about all their family members, relatives, friends, neighbours, and co-workers who they suspect don’t believe all the right things. Will they become fuel for an eternal barbecue if they don’t “see the light”?

 

I’ve encountered this view of God very vividly, a number of times. Once, a woman once told me that, when her husband (who was Catholic) was dying, he gave his rosary - a precious possession - to his daughter. The daughter later joined a very strict, aggressive, and bigoted church. The daughter’s pastor persuaded her that the rosary was “a pagan idol” and “possibly even demonic”, so it should be burned. The daughter burned the rosary.  

 

When she told her mother what she had done, the mother was heartbroken that her daughter had burned her father’s rosary. She was shocked that a church - any church - would tell the daughter to desecrate a sacred thing like that. The daughter callously replied, “Oh come on, Mum. You know Dad wasn’t a real Christian. ” 

 

“... other people believe God loves some of the people all of the time ...;”

 

And some of us still ask, “What part of ‘God is love’ don’t you understand?”

 

“... but, the truth is, God loves all of the people all of the time.”

 

I’ll let you all in on what has somehow become a big secret in many parts of the Christian church over the centuries: “God loves all of the people all of the time.”  

 

We don’t have to make nervous wrecks of ourselves making sure that our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds any particular week. God loves you anyway. “God loves all of the people all of the time.”  

 

We don’t have to make nervous wrecks of ourselves making sure that our beliefs are 100% correct according to whoever’s doctrinal scorecard is the flavour of the month. God loves you anyway. “God loves all of the people all of the time.”  

 

There’s one really good side effect. People who are aware that “God loves all of the people all of the time” do just as many good deeds as people who merely believe that “God loves all of the people some of the time” - usually more – usually a lot more. The difference is that people who know that “God loves all of the people all of the time” do their good deeds for the right reason. It’s not a matter of squaring the balance sheet. It’s a matter of thankfulness.

• They are thankful for God’s kindness, and so they are kind.
• They are thankful for God’s generosity, and so they are generous.
• They are thankful for God’s forgiveness, and so they are forgiving.  

However, we can wish that people who believe that “God loves all of the people all of the time” were as conscientious in commending their faith as those who merely believe that “God loves some of the people some of the time”. I suppose the threat of fire and brimstone can be a powerful motivating force for some people to share their faith. I believe that those of us with a more optimistic view of the extent of God’s generosity need to be more up-front about sharing our faith. For we have a faith to share, a real faith, an authentic faith.

 

“... [for], the truth is, God loves all of the people all of the time.”

 

 “In this is love, not that we loved God but that ... [God] ... loved us....”

 

Our love for God is always preceded by God’s love for us:  

 

"Some people believe God loves all of the people some of the time;

other people believe God loves some of the people all of the time;

but, the truth is, God loves all of the people all of the time.”

The Ethiopian Eunuch: a sermon (Acts 8:26-40)

(I'm preaching this sermon alongside my hymn "A travelling man from far-off Ethiopia ...".)

When I attended theological seminary, some student folklore was attached to our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. This was a few years before my time, but the story goes that one student was asked to read this passage in a chapel service. When he read the passage, instead of referring to the Ethiopian as a eunuch, he called the traveller from Africa an “unch” … each of the five times the word eunuch (or “unch”) appeared in the passage. When I was at seminary, some students still referred to this passage as the story of Philip and the “unch”. If I forget myself and refer to the eunuch as an “unch”, please bear with me.

 

This is an important passage in the New Testament. It is one of a number of occasions in the Acts of the Apostles in which we see the Christian faith crossing the cultural and religious boundaries between Jews and Gentiles. Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch is as important as the encounter between Peter and Cornelius two chapters later. If Peter’s encounter with Cornelius is the first example in Acts of a European gentile responding to the good news of the risen Christ, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch was the first example in Acts of an African gentile responding to the gospel.

 

But it seems that the fact that the traveller was a eunuch was just as important in the book of Acts as the fact that he was an Ethiopian, possibly even more so. In the passage, he’s called an Ethiopian once, but he’s called a eunuch five times. Commentators say there was great significance - at the time the passage was written - to his being a eunuch. I believe it is still significant for us today.

 

1. The eunuch had a disability.  

 

The eunuch’s physical condition was a disability. It was a serious disability in the ancient Middle East. Twice in the Old Testament books of Torah - law - we find lists of disabilities that would exclude an individual from serving as a priest in the sanctuary. The two lists were not completely identical but eunuchs were among those excluded by both lists.

 

Now, this information - on its own - could lead to an inappropriate criticism of the Old Testament law and the Jewish religion. The fact that people with various disabilities were consciously excluded from service as priests meant that they were alive. Other cultures in the ancient world did not let children born with some disabilities live. Among the Jews, the disabled survived to reach adulthood. Here is one more example – one example out of many - of how the Jews pioneered more merciful attitudes in many areas of life.

 

Philip welcomed the eunuch in Christ’s name. The gospel was extended to the excluded. The Church displayed its essential nature as a deliberately inclusive community.

 

And what does this mean for the Church today?

 

As Philip welcomed the eunuch, the Church today needs to welcome people with disabilities.  

 

Now this sounds easier than it often really is. A congregation can feel that it is very welcoming toward people with disabilities. A church can feel it’s made real progress if it:  

• buys a few large print hymnbooks;
• puts a wheelchair ramp at one of the entrances; 
• installs a handicapped lavatory and puts some handrails in the other lavatories; 
• maybe even organises a few sign language interpreters for the deaf.  

That’s all good, and it’s not so hard.

 

It’s a bit more challenging, though, for a congregation to be consistently welcoming toward people whose disabilities are somewhat more in-your-face, such as some intellectual or psychiatric disabilities. The congregation may be challenged to exercise its gifts of patience ... repeatedly.

 

As Philip welcomed the eunuch in Christ’s name, the Christian Church today has the opportunity to welcome people with all disabilities.

 

2. The eunuch could not father children.

 

That’s what makes a eunuch a eunuch. They can’t father children. They have no descendants. In a traditional society where family relationships and kinship networks were the key to one’s personal identity, a person with no descendants becomes a person on the fringe of society. In addition to having a profound physical disability, a eunuch was regarded, in many ways, as a non-person.

 

Philip welcomed the eunuch in Christ’s name. The gospel was extended to the excluded. The Church displayed its essential nature as a deliberately inclusive community.

 

And what does this mean for the Church today?

 

 As Philip welcomed the eunuch, the Church today needs to welcome people who find themselves outside the structures of traditional family life.  

 

In many ways, it’s significant that we have this passage in front of us on the Sunday a week before Mothers’ Day. Churches have always been very good at giving pastoral support to traditional families: Mum, Dad, two or three children, perhaps a few pets. Churches know how to provide programmes that give good support to such families: Sunday Schools, youth groups, after-school programmes, family worship, and all the rest. Churches are good at this - it’s important that we continue to be good at this – and it’s vital that mainstream churches continue to be good at this, rather than leaving ministry with children, young people, and families to groups on the church’s ultra-conservative fringe.  

 

I believe churches also need to cultivate our ministry with people whose household structures don’t look like traditional families:

• single people - whether single by choice or by circumstance,
• one-parent families,
• childless couples - whether childless by choice or by circumstance,
• unmarried couples,
• same-gender couples,
• blended families in various patterns.

Churches need to become as expert in providing pastoral support for all these different family patterns as we are in providing support for families in the traditional pattern. And that won’t be easy all the time.

 

As Philip welcomed the eunuch in Christ’s name, the Christian Church today has the opportunity to include in its life people outside the usual structures of family life.

 

But, even with all the exclusion, being a eunuch often had its compensations, in a way, because,

3. The eunuch in our passage was a senior government official.

 

This eunuch managed the finances of the Queen of Ethiopia. And this wasn’t all that unusual to find a eunuch in such a role. Often various high-powered jobs in royal courts were reserved for eunuchs. Kings and queens trusted eunuchs to manage their affairs. This was for a number of reasons:

• A eunuch would not have been tempted to lead a rebellion against the monarch. The eunuch could not have produced an heir to inherit the kingdom and establish a new dynasty.
• A eunuch could be trusted to behave himself around female members of the royal household. He had no choice.

 

This eunuch was a senior mover and shaker in the Ethiopian court. He moved and shook in significantly different circles from those that the Christian Church was used to operating in its first few years. This may have been an indication that the Church was beginning to mix it with the big boys.

  

Philip welcomed the eunuch in Christ’s name. The gospel was extended to a member of the decision-making elite. Through it all, the Church still continued to display its inclusiveness.

 

And what does this mean for the Church today?

 

As Philip welcomed the eunuch, the Church today needs to enter into dialogue with those in our community who shape public policy.

 

Ever since the days of the Emperor Constantine, churches historically have tended to go to either of two extremes in their attitudes to the community’s decision-makers.

• One extreme is for the Church to give a docile tug to the forelock in the direction of the state, and to feel all warm and fuzzy when the “powers that be” merely acknowledge the Church’s existence.
• The other extreme is for the Church to always stand up on a high place, waggling our finger, and denouncing the same “powers that be” in our best prophetic voice, particularly in terms of issues relating to sex or bioethics.

 

However, neither forelock-tugging nor finger-waggling is terribly viable as an exclusive position.  

• The Christian Church needs to approach the community’s decision-makers assertively, and with an authentic confidence in the compassionate perspective our faith provides on public issues.  
• But, the Church also needs to develop a fuller appreciation of the complexities, “grey areas”, and ethical ambiguities often confronting the shapers of public policy.

 

As Philip welcomed the eunuch in Christ’s name, the Christian Church today has the opportunity to develop relationships with people who shape the life of the broader community.

 

 * * *

 

After their discussion, Philip baptised the eunuch. We hear that the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing”. We assume he went back to Ethiopia with the message of the gospel. And, to this day, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, one of the oldest Christian Churches in the world, still ministers in Christ’s name to the people of that nation (as well as to Ethiopians living in nations around the world, including Australia).  

 

As the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing”, we can rejoice in the grace of the crucified and risen Christ. 

 

As the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing”, we can also rejoice in the profound task Christ gives us - the task of developing the Church as an inclusive community that seeks to serve all humanity in Christ’s name.

Hymn: “A travelling man from far-off Ethiopia…” (based on Acts 8:26-40)

A trav’lling man from far-off Ethiopia
offered a ride to Philip on the road.
They rode and talked of ancient Hebrew scriptures
and of the hope  which God’s great love bestowed.
Christ calls the church to build a new community,
including people of each land and race;
all nations, genders, classes, personalities,
all sorts, conditions: Christ extends his grace.

He was a eunuch, broken in his body,

and scorned by many for his injuries.
So shall the church extend its hand in welcome
to all who live with disabilities.
Christ calls the church to build a new community,
including people of each land and race;
all nations, genders, classes, personalities,
all sorts, conditions: Christ extends his grace.

He was a eunuch, could not father children.

Descendants would not share his elder years.
Now may the church include folk of all lifestyles
and share their joys and pains, their hopes and fears.
Christ calls the church to build a new community,
including people of each land and race;
all nations, genders, classes, personalities,
all sorts, conditions: Christ extends his grace.

He was a eunuch, senior court official,

custodian of his nation’s treasury.
The church is also called by Christ to dialogue
with those who work in public policy.
Christ calls the church to build a new community,
including people of each land and race;
all nations, genders, classes, personalities,
all sorts, conditions: Christ extends his grace.

The Ethiopian traveller continued on;

he went rejoicing on his homeward road.
As well, the church is still a people on the way
and still rejoices in the grace of God.
Christ calls the church to build a new community,
including people of each land and race;
all nations, genders, classes, personalities,
all sorts, conditions: Christ extends his grace.

Copyright Robert J. Faser, 2000; tune:  Londonderry Air