SOUL SURMISE

REHUMANISING PEACE

(This is the script of my homily at Clonard Monastery during Week For Christian Unity... not word for word though...)

The day before I got a phone call asking if I would consider becoming the minister of Fitzroy, I was chatting to a friend about who might be whackey enough in our entire denomination to call me as their minister. I suggested that I might get a phone call from Fitzroy to which he responded, “But you wouldn’t go there... they talk to Catholics...”

Tonight I presume that you are those he was talking about. I count it a privilege to be invited by you, warmly welcomed by you and to be now... heaven forgive me, speaking to you. I am not sure what damage we are doing to each other by gathering together to share our faith in Jesus around singing his praise and reading the Scripture but hey someone will find something wrong with this moment that I call blessing.

My friend’s comments were not a surprise to me and therefore sadly did not disturb me. I have heard all the rumours about Fitzroy. My predecessor Rev Dr Ken Newell found that because he spoke to Catholics, many within Protestantism negated everything else that he and Fitzroy believed. The blatant lies that are nothing short of the most outrageously imaginative fiction have no bearing on the truth of the Biblically based spiritual strength of that congregation. My friend actually believes that his comment is a virtuous Christian stand when really it is nothing short of sectarianism, the sectarianism that has divided us for so many years and caused so much hurt and pain in our communities. Yes, he and we might never have pulled the trigger but in our dehumanising of one another we are pointing our hearts.

Sectarian stereotypes, caricatures and labelling. It allowed people in our small community to so dehumanise that they could carry out the most violently heinous of acts upon fellow citizens. Many times in the aftermath the killers were also dehumanised as animals. Jesus lived in that world too. Your theme for the week has been “you are witnesses of these things” from the end of the Gospel According to Luke. Tonight’s reading was from the beginning of the same Gospel where Jesus reads Isaiah in the synagogue kicking off to his own ministry to give the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed their freedom and full humanity. In between those verses we are witnesses to Jesus ministry of interrupting dehumanisation with the loving warmth of grace. There are a range of people that Jesus walks around that were dehumanized. The tax collector, the leper, the prostitute and the Samaritan woman are all people dehumanised by the centre of social, political and religious power in Israel. Time after time we are witnesses of Jesus crashing down those barricades to bring grace, redeem, save, rehumanise those who have lost the preciousness of their humanity, made in the image of God.

My favourite Irish theologian, who walks very happily between his mother’s Catholicism and his mother’s Protestantism is U2’s Bono and he speaks of interruptions of grace. God interrupts our lives by his grace to rescue us. God interrupts history by ending apartheid or the Troubles. We join God in bringing his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven by becoming grace interrupters. It is what Ken Newell and Gerry Reynolds and many of you from Clonard and Fitzroy have been doing for years. Let us not grow complacent. Our community still needs rehumanising. As witnesses of Jesus ministry we must move on. We must be interrupters, rehumanisers in our own communities and across those “peace walls” and “barricades” that the spirit of the age builds up.

In rehumanising I am not talking about conforming. Neither do I mean denying our differences theologically. My friendship with Father Gary Toman at Queens has been a real encouragement in my faith over recent years but I know that Gary went away perturbed many times at the seeming anarchy of everyone getting their chance to interpret Scripture and have a plethora of positions on baptism and communion etc. I on the other hand am a contrary wee Ballymena man who could never live under a Majesterium! We made each other more Catholic and Presbyterian and were happy to feed the soul beneath our different creeds.

Neither can we deny the hurt that we have caused each other. We carry deep wounds physically, emotionally, mentally, culturally and need to bring those before a grace that can interrupt our pain so that we can by grace reach out to those who we feel have caused that pain. Jesus never said that grace would be an easy thing to give. He just called us to follow him into our world to do as he did.

One of my favourite West Wing clips is when after an attack on Americans in Gaza fictional President Bartlett is expected to launch an immediate attack to assure the American people that they are strong and safe. He refuses a revenge strike and instead, against even his own staff’s advice, says he is going to seek peace. He looks at his critics and says, “I am trying to find a way to make peace... and when I do you can go on television and explain why you were against it.” To my friend who wouldn’t want me to come to Fitzroy because he didn’t want me to talk to you I would like to say that when we make peace I’d like him to stand in the fulfilled Kingdom of God and tell Jesus why he thought that was a bad idea!

STOCKI SERMONS

A good number of you have asked about my sermons in Fitzroy and I am delighted to let you know that the morning ones are up on the Fitzroy website... Enjoy...

http://www.fitzroy.org.uk/Groups/80917/Fitzroy_Presbyterian_Church/Worship/Sermons/Sermons.aspx

THE JOHN TERRY AFFAIR

I read the thoughts of someone on the BBC Sport Website this morning who suggested that John Terry’s indiscretion was a private not a footballing matter so therefore they were on the side of Team Terry! Well, that is alright then. So long as John betrays his wife and good friend Wayne Bridge in private and doesn’t bring it onto the soccer pitch it is ok! Adultery, murder, theft... sure as long as it doesn’t interfere with the football! England seems to be a society that got so freed from the horror of religious accountability that their open mindedness has led to their brains leaking out! To be on John Terry’s side against the innocent parties in this sad sordid story is actually quite frightening moral thinking or lack thereof!

Yet, there is more to the comment. The pontificator might say that he is not speaking about morals in general but about John Terry’s ability to be the captain of England. What he does in his private life doesn’t affect his ability to lead a team at the World Cup Finals. Ah... I see! Accept that his affair was not isolated from his soccer, he betrayed his wife by having an affair with a team mate’s partner! Though his wife doesn’t play, and therefore it seems can be callously dismissed from this story, his team mate does and might be right there in the back four alongside him in South Africa this summer. What trust and respect can this captain garner not only from the player already sinned against but from those who now have to look at their leader with a little more suspicion?

If I was John Terry’s pastor I would, as seems to be a common theme on my blog just now, offer him grace, forgiveness and a brand new start. However, grace does not mean an immediate return to the practical trust needed to be the captain of your country, to be the leader of men and the hero of a nation. It effects his wife most, and please let us not dismiss her because she is not involved in the footballing side, but it also effects team mates. Terry’s misdemeanour has implications to the players he might lead. In a few years time he might prove that the grace was well received and be a giant among redeemed men, perfect to lead a nation. Just now, on and off the pitch his credibility is in tatters.

(For worldwide readers, especially the American ones who know nothing about the beautiful game, John terry is the English soccer captain and it has just been revealed that he was involved in an affair with a team mate’s partner. The question on British talk shows and tabloid newspapers is about whether he should remain captain).

THE ROBINSON AFFAIR AND GRACE... with lessons from U2 and The West Wing

Speechless is the general feeling on the street about the revelations last week about Northern Ireland’s first and second lady, Peter and Iris Robinson. Having said that they seem to be the topic of every conversation, so though initially a province was struck dumb, there has since been a torrent of political comment, lewd gossip and risky jokes and satire! There are few conversations they have not been mentioned in. For those outside our tiny little parochial boundaries, Peter Robinson is Northern Ireland’s First Minister in our Local Storment Assembly and his wife Iris also sat in that local Assembly. Both were also MPs at Westminster. Iris also sat on the Castlereagh Borough Council. Just a few weeks ago Iris Robinson said she was standing down from public life as a result of ongoing depression. Last week it was revealed she had attempted suicide after confessing an affair with a nineteen year old man (she was 58 at the time) whom she was wrapped up in business with, causing her to break Assembly and Council rules about what she hadn’t declared financially and in business interests.

The real live soap opera that has been acted out on our newscasts has extra sensationalism because of the Robinsons’ Christian faith and for my American readers that faith is one that you would be familiar with; the conservative right. The Robinsons could never be Republican in Northern Ireland but in America they would be Republican all day long! Iris Robinson’s most famous radio rant was in June of 2008 when, contributing about a Gay Pride March in Belfast, she shouted her disgust at homosexuality in quite a frightening tone. It was met at the time with much criticism so you can imagine what is being said now that it would seem she was having an affair with someone 40 years her junior at the time of her damning judgement of others.

It is Iris’s judgement of others that is probably at the heart of every comment or joke that has been made this past week. As a pastor I believe that Iris needs grace. The forgiveness that Christianity offers would be a very important part of her healing as we hear she is receiving acute mental treatment as a result of the bad decisions of the last year. I would indeed pray that she finds that healing of soul that grace can bring. Many, if not most, are struggling to find that grace for Iris Robinson because of the almost bullying, power-mongering judgmentalism that she herself used against others. Of course Iris is not alone in this and indeed is a victim of a fundamentalist Christianity that has forgotten the humility of the theology of grace and veered towards a Pharisaic arrogance in the minutiae of theological belief and pietistic legalism of behaviour.

That must be one of the lessons in this sad story. If you live by the sword or your own self righteousness you die by the sword of your own self righteousness. Or if we move from a paraphrase of Jesus to a paraphrase of Paul if you live by the law then you have to keep all of the law or you fall very badly when you make one error (and this error wasn’t a tiny one)! Luke 6:37 comes to mind (and needs to be in my mind as I judge her judgmentalism): "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

In an article I wrote recently about U2’s song Moment Of Surrender I touched on an antithesis of Iris’s stance. In a song fast becoming a U2 favourite they sing, “Two souls too smart to be in the realm of certainty.” This is the lesson of, one of their older most theological songs, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, where faith is assured but a stumbling sometimes tumbling journey ahead is recognised. In the midst of strong conviction of belief they recognise the frail vulnerability of the fallen human being. Trusting in the work of Christ should bring a humility that leads us all into a Sinners Anonymous type club without the anonymity, not a self righteous platform to look down on everyone else. It doesn’t give us excuse for constant falling but it should always remind us of our weakness. My friend David Dark wrote of “espresso shots of self righteous indignation,” that can spew from our mouths when there is an absence of doubt and it would seem that these very espresso shots, over a long period of time, is what has made Iris Robinson’s situation worse in the public sense.  Some have suggested that this recent Robinson affair could spell a mighty blow for Christianity in Northern Ireland. My hope would be that would be a time when the real following of Jesus makes a break from the flawed and false one and that Iris Robinson’s soul might be helped as a result of that.

As I wrote this blog I got caught up in a West Wing episode that threw more light on the judgements now being thrown at the Robinsons, mine included. It is the episode called In This White House and it is the one near the beginning of Series 2 where we are introduced to Ainsley Hayes. Hayes is a Republican who takes on Deputy White House Communications Director Sam Seaborn in a Television debate. Democratic President Bartlett liked what he saw and decides they should employ her as Associate White House Counsel. After the staff all get over the fact that he is not joking we find Hayes in two interesting situations. In the first she gets in a debate with Seaborn about gun control and after he rants all his reasons for hating the gun lobby she hits him with the fact that all his arguments of why he doesn’t like guns comes down to the fact “you don’t like the people who do like guns... you don’t like the people!” Apply the judgement to yourself and then apply it to your judgement on the Robinsons.  

 Ainsley’s second helpful scenario is when she returns to her Republican friends after her trip to the White House. They can’t wait to hear how Hayes has put those Democrats down and rejected the job offer but when she appears and listens to their vitriol ending with the phrase, “Did you meet anyone there who isn’t worthless,” she, much to their shock and awe, says that they can disagree with their policies but asks them not to ever say they are worthless. “Their intent is good, they are committed, they are righteous, they are patriots.” She as a Republican has learned a lesson that West Wing Series was very skilled to teach, that people may have different opinions but it doesn’t make them bad. Christian singer Rich Mullins used to say to me about fundamentalists, “They are no bad people, they are just wrong.”

The truth is that I was never a fan of Peter or Iris Robinson. Our politics are poles apart. We share a faith that in praxis is poles apart too, though our core beliefs are very much the same. I am not sympathetic to the way they have played out recent events; nine months before they share all in a sympathy raising press conference, 24 hours before a TV documentary was going to spill the beans; Iris stepping back from public life without resigning or losing her three wages until pressure was applied; Peter hoping to carry on as First Minister instead of giving his full attention to his wife’s condition; Peter claiming innocence by the letter of the law rather than critiquing his position by the spirit of good practice. However, I need to be aware that this couple have given their lives to the public good and our little Province has benefitted in ways from their work that won’t be as clearly spelled out as this recent affair. Yes, I am sure many of us would judge some of their contributions dubious and we are suggesting their espresso shots of self righteous indignation has helped neither the society, themselves or more importantly Christianity, but they have served and most of us have shirked from replacing them.

I think that Iris Robinson was right to resign and wrong to leave it so long. I am not sure in my mind that Peter Robinson can continue as our First Minister. However, those are my public judgements. If you move to the private lives of Iris and Peter Robinson I pray that they would know the grace of God and the grace of the people around them. I pray that they might find a way out of the storm that their souls must be in and that they would find healing that might give them a spiritual strength to hold their marriage together. I then hope that the whole incident might give them insight into the way we carry our faith in Jesus Christ around with us and that we might see a more grace-like couple wherever their lives go from here. I also pray that that grace would be the over-riding force of my judgements on them and this sad situation. Grace would be the most damaged thing if it was diluted because we didn’t like them or that we failed to respect their vocational contribution to public service.

THE CHURCH IN THE PAST DECADE... AND THE NEXT

 
I was asked on a panel, about The Church, at this year’s Summer Madness Festival what the Church had achieved in the last ten years and what I thought it should be concentrating on in the next ten years. The mood of the panel had been quite negative. The tone of the question suggested that we, the four Church leaders at the front, would struggle to come up with something. I had no problems. Fair Trade! I can remember, and yes perhaps it was a little over 10 years ago, when a few Christian students went into the nearest Tescos (It was called Stewarts in N. Ireland then) and on the back of our receipts for coffee signed our names and requested they stock Fair Trade coffee. I thought it was a pretty futile effort. How wrong was I!?

I can still remember the first time I saw the coffee on the shelves. I bought four jars to try and convince the manager, all the while thinking that if I was the only one buying them what good was it to buy four at once! Indeed, as I write this I wonder if it was this campaign that made me a coffee drinker; I had to do something with all that coffee! A little over a decade later and Fair Trade is everywhere and I am on at least four cups a day! Most of our Christmas presents this year, given and received, had the Fair Trade logo in the corner. It is a rare travesty to be in a cafe that isn’t Fair Trade. My children see it is as a given. The joy, just this year, of seeing that symbol on Cadbury’s Dairy Milk was such a rush!

I still hear conversations where people question the usefulness. Why we are so quick to knock the movements that change the world has to be something deep within our fallen nature or simply the forces of evil kicking back. I have been to Fair Trade projects and can declare how I have seen over the years the social and psychological changes, never mind the economic ones, of those who benefit from this strategy for justice; it is a spiritual thing! The Church has been at the forefront of this movement and I am proud to say that it is a social action that we have made great impact with. I think it is time to ask how we can develop it more. I pray the next decade will not see a Fair Trade tiredness but innovative ways to make it deeper and wider than the success it has been.

The next decade? There are many challenges for the Church. A real dilemma within is that most people are now seekers but not belongers. Younger people, and I am speaking under 50s not under 15s, are less committed to Church for many social, cultural and spiritual reasons. How does the Church, and myself as a pastor in that Church, care, disciple and evangelize in such a soulscape?

Outside the Church and maybe crucial to turning around the number of joiners will be how we as a Church take the Fair Trade model and begin to address all kinds of other social issues. After the debacle that was the environmental summit at Copenhagen this year when instant gratification and selfishness won over long term sense, we need Christians to stand forward in the care of the planet. We need to up the theology of how green issues are Biblical issues. Christians need to, whether they believe the prophecies of thinning ozone layers or not, start looking after their Father’s artistic masterpiece.

There are a plethora of injustices and human crisis for the Christian to start taking a lead. I believe that evangelism in the next decade will be all about our impact on society. About a year ago The Guardian, renowned for its anti-God stance, defended the Christian God against the Richard Dawkins onslaught because of the work that Christian Churches were doing in England’s inner cities. When we rekindle our vision for the marginalised, that Jesus called us to follow him amongst, and seek justice and shalom for those disenfranchised we will “declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his glorious light.” In ten years we will stand or fall on our obedience to “let justice roll down like rivers and righteousness like an never-failing stream.”