A SERMON FOR RACIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we celebrate the Conversion of Saint Paul.  It is also Racial Justice Sunday. In this short  sermon I want to focus on the Church as an international community. The early Church had a common form of Eucharistic worship in which social class and racial distinction was abolished and the rich and the poor sat down together as equals.nThus the Eucharist is egalitarian and communal and stands in opposition to a worldview based upon individualism, competition and division. It is through the Eucharist that we enact our solidarity in Christ Jesus.

An important starting point for the Church as an international community is Saint Paul’s work to keep the Church free of racial distinctions in the first generation. In St Paul’s letter to the Galatians there is an internal dispute. A fundamental difference of opinion about the very nature of the Church itself and its relationship to the mother faith Judaism. The Galatians to whom this letter is addressed are converts from paganism, Gentiles by birth. One school of thought was telling them they must be circumcised.  In other words they are teaching that all Gentile Christians must become converts to Judaism and that the Church is never to be anything more than a sect within the Jewish national community.

As far as St Paul is concerned there are no distinctions between Jew and Gentile. All become one in Jesus Christ. St Paul discusses the means of salvation. It is accomplished not by the Jewish law but by faith. By faith in what Christ is and what he has done argues Paul all can come into the family of God. If we are to share the new life which the resurrection brings, we who confess Christ’ name as our Saviour and Lord must also accept responsibility for his death. The Church in the Middle Ages believed that all Jews should be held collectively guilty for the death of Christ. Religious dislike of Jews paved the way for racial dislike. The Church of the Middle Ages demanded that Jews identify themselves by wearing a badge in public. Hitler and the Nazi took up this idea’ who required Jews to wear Star of David armbands.

Today Jews are not accused of killing Christ. The guilt is universal. Every sin we commit is a contribution to the suffering and death of Christ. For Christ died because of the sins of the world. Jesus truly died, was buried and rose again to eternal life. Jesus is alive - that is our main message of hope to the world. But what does this mean to the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, and the racially oppressed? Jesus is alive! He has risen indeed, but where was he when 11 million people were murdered in the extermination camps of Nazi Germany? Where was Jesus when 700 school children were shot to death at Starkville, in South Africa under the former partied regime? Where was Jesus in the disproportionate attack on Gaza and Lebanon by the modern state of Israel? The answer is that Jesus is there too. In all the parts of the world where there is injustice, Jesus continues to be present. We know because he promised he would be with us always until the end of time itself. We are in his presence and his way is always to include, to embrace, to accept and to love unconditionally.

The Holy Spirit empowers those of us of faith to become the physical presence of Jesus in the middle of this beautiful and tormented world. In his body, Jesus is in heaven but in his Spirit, he is here on earth and active, moving us to be his agents, his healers, reconcilers, prophets, martyrs. We are also here as irritants to a system grown fat and complacent on exploitation, injustice, division and exclusion. May his light and life and love inspire us to work for reconciliation and peace, for comfort, freedom and equality?MAnd on this Racial Justice Sunday, may he equip us with determination and to do this blessed work. Amen.

Father David