What we are doing here, today
and this whole week is amazing! All over the world Christians are setting down
that which divides us and choosing to celebrate, together. And if we think about it, If all of the
Christian communities gathered here in Chatham, and we have, what, 50
churches? Lets really
underestimate and say
there are an average of say
75 people at each place each Sunday.... That's 3750 people. (you didn't know we'd be doing math
today did you?!?!) So... Lets say
in Kent county we have another 60 churches in the surrounding communities. So that's 110 communities and an
additional 4500 people so far that's 8250 people.
That's a lot of Christians
gathered in prayer each week. We
could fill the John Labbatt Centre in London if we all got together!
But if we go bigger.... The
2001 census said that there were 30 million people in Canada Stat's Canada
identified that 22 743 255 people called themselves Christian
That makes 76 percent of our
population, who identify themselves as Christian.
There are certainly not that
many bums in the pews each week....
Statistics also estimate that
there are 2.1 Billion Christians in the world, thats one third of the global
population...
This day. This whole week, the world council of
churches calls on 1/3 of the worlds population to remove that which separates
us from each other. The organizers
of this week of prayer for Christian Unity chose a life changing theme this
year from Micah 4 what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to
love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.
I'm sure many of you will
recognize this piece of scripture.
As much as I love it, It scares me. It is soooooo big!
It's such a large goal. It
doesn’t sound like it at first.
maybe because in our minds
eye, we all want to do justice
and to love kindness
and to be humble on our walk
with God.
and we generally think we're
doing a pretty good job of it!
But this is meant as
something we do ALWAYS!
We are to ALWAYS do justice
no matter how hard
it may be!
We are to ALWAYS love
kindness
even when we don’t
like the other person
and we are to ALWAYS be
humble in our walk with God
admitting when we’ve
screwed up the previous two!
Today is Day 3 of this week
of prayer for Christian unity. And
the theme is.... walking
towards freedom. Today we are
invited to celebrate the efforts of communities across our world that are
oppressed, like the Dalits in India,
The Dalits are the
“Untouchables”, they are the ones who do the jobs that no one else would
do. Have you ever seen the TV show
worlds dirtiest jobs? Those would only be done by this group of people in
India.
"Today we remember as
they protest against all that enslaves human beings. We too, must be committed
to greater unity, and to remember that the removal of all that separates people
from one another is an essential part of fullness of life, freedom in the
Spirit."
It makes ya think! To seek what is in this world and work
towards eliminating that which separates us. Those things that wound and divide. What separates the
Dalits in India from the other casts the other levels of society, is the same
thing that separates:
Man/Woman
Old/Young
Black/White
Rich/Poor
Tall/Short
Slave/Free
I'd say we make those
separations out of fear
fear of the unknown
fear of the different
fear of change
fear of the other.
The Samaritan woman at the
well understood all too well what it meant to be separate, to be other!
“The account makes it clear
that she is thirsty, not only physically but in deeper social and spiritual
ways. Her life is a dried up,
desert-like waste. She has been through
5 husbands in that male-dominated society. And the one who has taken her in now
couldn’t even be bothered to grant her the dignity of marriage. She’s treated
as social trash. No rights. No dignity. No worth. No place.” So when Jesus
asked her for a drink of water, he, a Jewish man, asking a Samaritan woman she
knew this would not be an ordinary conversation. After all, they were enemies. Not personally, how could they be..... they'd never met but
culturally she would have been like the "untouchables" from India
this conversation simply would have been astounding even if it stopped there.
“But Jesus, gratefully
accepted the water from her, then he offered her a drink of a much deeper kind.
He offered water that would not just meet her needs for one day
but water that would give her
a new life, and would last forever;
He offers her, in other
words, a source of life refreshment, of energizing strength, that would last
beyond the moment and go deeper than the surface; something with staying power
to keep her going through life.” You
have to know, there is more to the story Jesus went against social custom to do
this. He disobeyed what many
thought should have been his place He shouldn’t have been talking to HER
to a WOMAN, in the city, in
the street, by the well, by herself!
She was someone that he
wasn’t supposed to Love. She was
someone he was supposed to ignore, go about his daily life and never wonder how
much pain she must have been enduring to have gone out to the well, the social
place of the town
at the hottest part of the
day by herself. When no one else
would be around.
He wasn't supposed to notice
her.
But he chose to live the life
changing words from Micah. He
chose to do justice,
and to love kindness, and to
walk humbly with his God.
Separating her from the world
was not JUST ignoring her because of her ethnicity, her gender or her social
status was not loving or kind.
Jesus tore down those
boundaries that kept them apart.
Jesus made it known that this was not acceptable. This was not the kind of world we
should live in. What if we took
our cue from Jesus and tore down a boundary that kept us apart from another
child of god? What if instead of trying
to keep up with the Jones's to have everything we want no matter the cost? What if we spent time to get to know
someone else? Someone who is
completely unlike us!
someone of a different race
someone of a different gender
someone of a different sexual
orientation
someone of a different social
status
someone of a different
culture
What if you could engage the
world around you as if you really did see the face of God in EVERYONE you met
How silly would those
barriers of class and culture start to seem? How many of those silly barriers do you think we could break
down? How much justice could we
see begin in our world? How much
compassion could we start to live by?
Now imagine what could happen
all the Christians in our town could do that. What about if all the Christians in our country could do
that? What if all the Christians
in the world all 2.1 Billion of us?
What if each person tried to truly seek justice, love kindness and walk
humbly with our God?
WHAT IF???
You know, this will stay a
question lingering in the air unless we act unless we choose to take up God's
challenge to lower the mountains and raise up the valleys
to make the world a level
place for all. When we leave here
today, we all have a choice. Each and every day we live we have a
choice. Will I take the easy road
and live in my little bubble or will I step out and live the love of God?
If fear stops you today you
have the choice to try again tomorrow.
If fear stops you tomorrow, you have the choice to try again the next
day. But if you allow God's love to truly sink into the depths of your very
being, you won't be able to remain silent very long.
Drink long from this well of
life that feeds our souls with the breath of life and walk in the footsteps of
Christ each day you breathe. May
that the face of Christ becomes so obvious in each person you meet that you
cannot help but act.
