This sermon was heavily based on the Racial Justice Sunday materials produced by the Racial Justice Network of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. The main reading was Isaiah 25. 6-9:
I wonder how differently people here will answer this question:
“Where have you lived since you were born?”
Migration is a fact of life with increasing mobility throughout society and the world. I may not have lived in our countries but just within this country have lived in thirteen different homes in eleven different cities, towns or villages.
With that increased mobility increasingly every community and every church reflects more of the diversity of humankind. This brings challenges and possibilities which tend to dominate political debate within the UK as has occurred once again this week. There are arguments over statistics and immigration controls. People question whether migrants are a threat to our national life or whether society is enriched by increased diversity. We all face the challenge of what we can do locally to get to know our neighbours of other races, cultures and faiths and what we can do to avoid polarization in our communities.
For Racial Justice Sunday this year we are looking at the Biblical theme which celebrates the reality of diversity in the promise of a banquet to which all the peoples of the world are invited. That is the theme that we saw in our reading from Isaiah. In Isaiah’s vision of the banquet, as so often in the Bible, God’s purpose is radically inclusive, but not utopian.
The tears and sorrows that divide people from each other and scar our experience of life are acknowledged and healed as God brings all nations to the table. This Sunday is also traditionally celebrated as ‘The Triumph of the Cross’ and the cross is the sign of the forgiveness that enables us to come and eat from the same table. Because we are forgiven we know that we cannot return to the divisions of our old way of life. Because we are forgiven we can begin to live a new life and begin to build the kingdom with Christ and through Christ. The old need not hold us back.
The sign of our forgiveness is the cross. The sign of our living the new life of the cross is the eucharist. At the beginning of the eucharist we confess our sins. Before communion we shake hands and embrace in a sign of reconciliation. So the eucharist recognises a broken world, but in the power of the cross and as a joyous feast, it remakes the world as Christ called us to do.
Just as in the eucharist there is confession of sin and signs of reconciliation before we share the feast, so in our world before all nations can come to God’s banquet there has to be preparation. Isaiah 25. 7 says, “He will remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over the nations.”
What are the “clouds of sorrows” hanging over the nations today? We can think of the many conflicts and disasters that are occurring, most caused in some way by human selfishness and greed. What are the “clouds of sorrows” hanging over our community today? We might think of the inequalities that exist in many communities and which explode in gang culture and knife crime. How can these “clouds of sorrows” be healed and removed? What can be done in our world, our community, our church to bring healing and justice into the sorrows that we face?
For us, the promise of the banquet is fulfilled in the healing work of Christ, who said: “This is my body” and also “Those who come to me will never be hungry.” (John 6. 35) In the letters of Paul, it is Christians themselves who are Christ’s body, broken for the world. All Christians therefore participate in both the banquet itself and in the essential preparation of bringing justice.
The concept of the body of Christ includes the idea that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer. Christians therefore have a responsibility to be aware of each other’s pain and to exercise mutual care. We are to be concerned not just about the pain and suffering of other Christians, although that is vital as with those Christians currently suffering persecution in Orissa, but also that of all peoples, because God’s care is universal and all people are invited to God’s banquet.
That is why our Stewardship pack and campaign at St John's includes the opportunity to reflect on our involvement in our local community. One of the five marks of mission mentioned in the pack is to seek to transform the unjust structures of society and we can make a start at doing so through some of the things mentioned on the sheet headed up ‘Transforming our Community.’ This sheet is for you to use and keep for yourself as it is about the ways in which you are or can become involved in the local community. The sheets to do with giving time, talents and money to the Church need to be returned on the Sunday of our Patronal Festival but this sheet is for you to keep and action yourself.
Thinking about Stewardship doesn’t just involve thinking about church. If our faith and action are all tied up in Church activities then we have very little impact on the wider community. The universal nature of God’s call that we have been thinking about today means that we must also demonstrate our faith in action in our community and world. One of the great challenges and opportunities for the Church in the UK is that God has brought people of all nations to our own doorstep and community. And so we can play an active part in removing the clouds of sorrow, in bringing justice, in preparing for the banquet to which all nations are invited and to which all nations will come.
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The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible.
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