The tragic murder of Drummer, Lee Rigby, has forced us to do some soul
searching on how we live together religiously, politically and
ethnically and in community both locally and nationally.
Because
the culprits of this heinous crime are Muslim converts, the Muslim
community is once again under the microscope and finds itself on the
defensive. Many commentators and detractors have used the events in
Woolwich to call on British Muslims to work harder in rooting out
radicalism within their communities, providing support to new converts
and the young or impressionable and isolating any preachers of hate.
Many
on the far right have also responded to these events. With little
interest in building more wholesome or healed communities, they have
used the murder in Woolwich as an excuse to stoke up hatred and to
undermine good community and race relations work done within our towns
and cities over many years.
Thankfully, this awful event has seen
an alliance of faith leaders move quickly to provide guidance,
encourage calm and generate a spirit of togetherness in the face of
anger, fear and confusion. Religious figures have stepped into the
breach to provide the measured leadership that will pour water and not
oil onto a community’s or nation’s flames.
At such difficult
times, many look to the heads of the various faith communities to
provide some form of leadership. But speaking personally, I think the
church is in a ‘damned if you do/damned if you don’t’ place - where a
failure to speak out again such acts of violent barbarism would be seen
as us the church letting our nation and our Lord down, however on other
occasions, when we do act decisively, some question our ‘authority to do
these things’. This places us as the Church in a Catch 22 scenario.
In today’s Epistle reading,
we see another faith leader, Paul, showing real leadership in a
situation that was threatening to spiral out of control. Paul moved
decisively to assert his authority upon a Christian community in which
rival, maybe even meddling voices were threatening to drown out and even
undermine the clear message of the Gospel. In comparison with some of
his other epistles, Galatians is more curt than courteous, as Paul seeks
to keep these Christians from deviating from he believes to be the
truth.
We know that the Christians in Galatia were a very diverse group of
people, both ethnically and culturally. While we know that Paul affirmed
diversity of opinion, he appeared to value the truth of the message
entrusted to him by Jesus Himself on the Damascus road over everything
else. He wanted this varied group of Christians to know that there was
only ‘one gospel of Christ’.
As we can see in Galatia, the good
news has the ability to bring people together, enabling there to be a
unity in diversity. But what Paul is quick to point out that that
diversity must not lead to division and dissension when concerned with
the Gospel. Paul’s tone may sound strident but it’s perhaps out of a
passionate desire that the Galatian church continues in the received
truths of God, not about uniformity or conformity or power and control.
The
church today is not much different to the church in Galatia. We are
also a also a diverse group of ages, stages, expressions and depths of
faith brought together as a unity in diversity. Whilst in no way do I
see the church local or national spiralling out of control, we find
ourselves in an England of many voices and stories and traditions. If we
are to be a church in this parish, in this England for this England and
be expected to speak from time to time with authority into and for a
family, a community or maybe even a nation, we need to be clear what the
Gospel in this 21st century England looks and sounds like.
In September we are offering you the opportunity to look with us as the received truths of the Gospel afresh in the Foundations course.
We will be looking at and discovering or rediscovering the foundations
of Christian faith that the church has been built on over 2000 years.
This course is not about trying to provide uniformity in our faith, or
about power and control, but it is about having confidence in God afresh
and in a faith passed down through the generations, and how we live
that faith in our world, our nation and in communities of dissenting
voices and sometimes perceived political or ethical change.
Paul
is of course addressing the church, encouraging the church, seeking to
correct the church to live and live out the life of the Gospel as
revealed to him by Jesus on the Damascus road. When the community or
nation look to the Church today in times of flux and change, yes they
look at her leaders our Archbishops, Bishops and clergy to speak into
our shared life in authority and love. Once the ink on the headlines
has faded, our community and nation still look to a Church confidently
living what it proclaims. To you and me together. And when unsure of
which way to turn, of how to respond to times of confusion and change,
we can confidently talk of and live together the way of forgiveness,
reconciliation and love as directed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
~~~
I am very grateful indeed
for inspiration in some of the above to reflections by Richard Reddie is
a writer and researcher as posted on the Roots website
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