There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet

Here is my sermon from today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

A central aspect of God's experience as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ was that of rejection. Jesus was, in the words of Isaiah 53, ‘despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account’ (Isaiah 53. 3). We see that rejection here, in this story (Mark 6. 1 - 6), set in his home town at the beginning of his ministry, just as we see it more violently worked out at the end of his ministry when he is crucified.

Rejection is a human experience which we all understand because each us will have experienced rejection at one time or another. It is an experience that God has also shared and therefore understands as we go through our personal experiences of rejection.

But rejection is a human experience which we all understand because it is also something to which each of us is party. As in this story, we find it easy, as human beings, to find reasons to reject other people. It is not so long ago in the history of this country that there were appalling signs in windows saying, 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs'. In our lifetime we have seen whole societies built around the separation of people on the basis of colour, with the Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements, thankfully, having brought some significant change to those situations of rejection.

Yet, although we have seen change, we continue to see particular groups of people in society demonised, scapegoated and rejected. In the Church today, it is the LGBTI community who have that experience while in society generally, it is migrants, whether refugees or asylum seekers, that are the focus of significant rejection.

When Jesus is rejected, as in our Gospel reading, God is rejected. God, in Jesus, enters in to our experience, as human beings, of rejection. He does so in order to bring to light our constant scapegoating and rejection of others by exposing us to the futility of that way of life. Rejection of others ties us into a cycle of revenge and recrimination locking us in to spirals of violence.

Yet, when we have, as human beings, scapegoated and rejected God himself, what more can we do by way of rejection? The way to free ourselves from these negative cycles is by rejecting the impulse to reject or scapegoat others, in other words by following in the footsteps of Jesus who freely laid down his life for others. It is this to which Christ’s death as a scapegoat on the cross calls us.

Today, while we may not literally see signs saying 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs', similar signs are nevertheless still there is our words and actions although applied to different groups of people at this different time. 'No economic migrants,' even 'No migrants', would seem to be the current cry, while in the Anglican Communion we persist in rejecting people on the basis of their sexuality. For those who follow a God who was scapegoated, reviled and rejected, there can be no scapegoating of others. For those who follow a God who laid down this own life for love of others, there must be a similar breaking of cycles of rejection through our own attitudes, speech and actions.

Instead of being those who reject, we need to become those who invite. The opposite of rejection is not simple acceptance, but active engagement; the invitation to participate in community. The goal of those who are great inviters is “to have everyone participating, giving and receiving gifts.” Abundant community involves welcoming “those on the margins”, “which is the heart of hospitality.” As William Butler Yeats was credited with saying, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet.” ('The Abundant Community' by John McKnight & Peter Block)

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Sixpence None The Richer - A Million Parachutes.

Come to the feast of life

'The Lord says,

“Come, everyone who is thirsty —
    here is water!
Come, you that have no money —
    buy grain and eat!
Come! Buy wine and milk —
    it will cost you nothing!
Why spend money on what does not satisfy?
    Why spend your wages and still be hungry?
Listen to me and do what I say,                                                                                                        and you will enjoy the best food of all.

“Listen now, my people, and come to me;
    come to me, and you will have life!

(Isaiah 55. 1 - 9)

The Lord says, "Come." No strings attached. No pre-conditions. Just simply, come. Love bids 
us welcome, as the great Anglican poet George Herbert, whose feast day was this past week, 
wrote.

We see this in the parables Jesus told about banquets. In these stories, invitations to the party 
are sent to all and sundry, including those who never get invited out, those from the wrong side 
of the tracks, the homeless and poor; all are invited and those who don’t come are those who 
choose to exclude themselves by making excuses because the one condition is that you don’t 
everything to come there and then.

George Herbert included some of the excuses we commonly make in his third poem about 
love. We draw back, he suggests, because of our sense of guilt, our sense that we are 
unworthy, unkind and ungrateful, that we have made mistakes with the gifts we have been given, 
and only deserve to serve not to be served.

I identify strongly with this poem because it expresses how I felt as a teenager having come to 
faith but then being very aware of my faults and failings and so feeling like a hypocrite who did 
not deserve God’s love. I had to come to a point of realizing that God loved me regardless of 
whether I was good enough or not and whether I felt good enough or not. The moment of 
realization came for me when a youth leader took the time to listen to me and then showed me 
Romans 5. 6 – 8 which says this:  

"For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time that God chose. It is a 
difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might 
dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves us — it was while we 
were still sinners that Christ died for us!"

As the old hymn says, "I love Him because He first loved me." He didn’t wait for me to become 
deserving of his love, instead he showed his love for me while I was still far away from him. So, 
there is nothing I have to do to earn or deserve his love.

That’s what he was saying when he spoke about the Galileans that Pilate had killed and the 
people in Siloam who were killed when the tower fell on them. Don’t look at other people and 
think they are worse sinners than you. Instead, look at yourself and acknowledge your failings 
but then recognize that God always gives us a second chance, just like the gardener does with 
the fig tree.

So, Jesus simply says, "come" and all I have to do to enter into his love is simply come. That is 
what George Herbert’s wonderful poem is all about: 

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
                                                            Guilty of dust and sin.
                        But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                                                            From my first entrance in,
                        Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                                                            If I lacked anything.

                        A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                                                            Love said, You shall be he.
                        I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                                                            I cannot look on thee.
                        Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                                                            Who made the eyes but I?

                        Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                                                            Go where it doth deserve.
                        And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                                                            My dear, then I will serve.
                        You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                                                            So I did sit and eat.

Whoever comes simply, like a child, accepting God’s invitation as it is, are those who sit and 
eat, who become saints and priests, who become Christ. For "little Christ" is all that ‘Christian’ 
means. The meal, the feast, the banquet, the party to which we are invited is communion; 
sharing in the body and blood of Christ as a precursor to the coming in full of the kingdom of 
God on earth as in heaven. 

This table, the table of Jesus is our place of gathering: here you are welcomed, wanted, loved, 
here there is a place set for you; come, come to the feast of life. This is the table, not of the 
Church, but of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and who want to love him more. 
So come, you who have much faith and you who have a little, you who have been here often and 
you who have not been for a long time, you who have tried to follow and you who have failed. 
Come, not because I invite you: it is our Lord, it is his will that those who want him should meet 
him here.

Come. Come to the feast of life that the Lord Almighty prepares for all peoples. A feast of rich 
food, the best of meats, the finest of aged wines, and water from the spring of life itself. A 
banquet at which tears are wiped away, disgrace removed, where death, grief, crying and pain 
are no more as God himself sits down to eat with his people.

Come, all you who thirst;
come, all you who are weary;
come, all you who are poor;
come, all you who are bitter;
come, all you who grieve;
come, all you who are sinners;
come, all you who are oppressed;
come, all you who are traitors;
come, all you who are sick;
come, all you who are lost.

Why spend money on what does not satisfy? Why spend your wages and still be hungry? Listen 
to me and do what I say, and you will enjoy the best food of all. Listen now, my people, and 
come to me; come to me, and you will have life!

Come to be saints;
come to be priests;
come to be Christians;
to be "little Christs."
Come to sit and eat
at the feast of life.

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The Staple Singers - If You're Ready (Come Go With Me).